Conference Call Interview with Emily

Okay so, this interview contains LOTS AND LOTS of Spoilers about the up coming season finale (Airing May 14th.) I suggest that if you don't want to know anything, then better not read it. There are a few non-spiler questions too, here they are:

Q: Now in the past two weeks, the show has been on Mondays, on Wednesdays, and on Thursday. Can you talk about the fans of the show and the loyalty to it, even with the constant schedule changes?

Emily: It’s incredible. I mean, we did better on an unscheduled night without a lot of promotion than the show that normally is there, and then even on our regular time slot, so I think it’s frustrating for a lot of people. Just friends of mine have said they didn’t know when the show was on. My grandparents were very confused. You don’t have to be in your 90s though to be confused by this timing, but I think they’re trying to make it up because we got postponed because it was like a chain reaction from an Obama press conference that happened, and I think they’re trying to make it up to us, but it did confuse a lot of people because people thought, oh, we’re on Monday nights now and not on Thursday nights, and we’re used to being bumped around.

But I think it says a lot about our fans and viewers who follow us from night-to-night, even in the same week, and we’re just so grateful for such loyal fans. If we didn’t have them, we would never have survived because we’ve been moved around so many times. It’s kind of ridiculous to think about, so we owe it to our loyal viewers that have stuck around from one night to another and made us even more successful on unscheduled nights, so it feels pretty good to have those kind of loyal followers.

Q: I was wondering about your personal life. Do you see any common traits with your character, so to speak?

Emily: You know, I think the characters kind of seep into you sometimes. I’ve gotten more particular about things and my attention to detail has become stronger. If you asked Hart, the creator of the show, he would say that I’m the least like my character of anyone on our show, and I think that’s probably true.

I think I’m very different from my character. I’m certainly not as intelligent as she is. I’m a little more personable and able to have conversations with human beings, which she struggles with. But I think if you see David Boreanaz and myself kind of interacting while we’re filming, you will see a lot of similarities in Booth and Brennan. We very much have the kind of brother/sister/married couple/Booth and Brennan type. We’ll kind of talk back and forth with each other and bicker sometimes in a very loving way. We have a great kind of repartee going that kind of mirrors the characters that we have.

And I’d say that I get very focused on my work like she does. I understand kind of losing yourself in your work. I understand - you know, I can relate to anything that she does. It’s just that maybe it’s not as strong in my personality as it is in hers.

Q: Have you continued to resist visiting a real morgue and still have never been in the presence of a real dead body? And do you think you’ll ever give in on that front?

Emily: Yes, the status the still the same, I have never been to a real morgue.

I’ve never seen a dead body in my life, and just to fill anyone in, I chose not to do that. I didn’t - I knew that it would affect me. I’ve never … a dead body, and an actor told me that he went to the morgue when he was researching a part and it really affected him negatively, and I believe in using your imagination as an actor, and that’s the greatest tool we have. And my character is supposed to be very at ease with dead bodies, and so I didn’t want to risk changing that and feel all of a sudden uneasy, and so I chose not to go to the morgue, and I still have not been to a morgue.

You know, the forensic consultant who works on our show, Donna, she is always trying to get me to go either to the morgue or, I don’t know, go meet with some medical examiner. I met with a medical examiner, but that’s not really what my job is. I’ve met forensic anthropologists before, of course, but I’ve never seen them at work. I bet before we finish the show, in the end, I’ll end up going to one of these things, but we’ll see. You know, it’s like, once I start filming, I’d almost be open to it now on some level because I don’t think it would affect me as negatively as it would have in the past, but I’m so used to seeing fake dead bodies, but you just add the smell to it, and that’s all you do.

But who knows. It’s hard when we’re working because we work such long hours, and my weekends get filled up with a lot of different press things, etc., so maybe during a hiatus I’ll go, but we’ll see. Anyway, that’s my answer for you.

Q: Do you think that there’s going to be more big travel episodes like the London shows in future seasons? And, if so, if you had your choice, where would you want it to be, like maybe your favorite travel destination or just someplace that you’ve wanted to visit but never have?

Emily: I’d love to go to Morocco or Egypt. I think those would be appropriate places for Brennan to be at a dig, and then Booth has to come over because I suspect that there’s a fresh murder that we find or something like that, and I just have always wanted to go to those places, so I guess that would be a cheap vacation for me. But it’s not up to me. But other places have been discussed like Spain and France. I think it would really depend on what kind of stories they could create, and it would have to be a place where we’re popular, where people watch us a lot, so we’ll see.

Q: And this season, you’ve had the device of having recurring people rotating through in Zack’s position, kind of that rotating. What’s that been like, even just as a device for you to have a new actor that you’re kind of working with not always consistently? What’s that been like on the set?

Emily: I’ve been enjoying it. As hard as it is to see Eric and Zack go, I have been enjoying the way that they’ve done it because I love that they have a new dynamic every week. Of course, we rotate, so we’ll see the same ones here and there, but I’ve been enjoying that. You know, you have a character, the wacky character of Daisy who wants to be like Brennan, and is so kind of bubbly and kooky, that I just love. And then you have the character of Fischer who is kind of suicidal, and just negative about life in general and just can’t see the bright side of things. Then you have Vincent Nigel-Murray, the English - kind of the neurotic English young grad student who likes to state facts when he gets nervous. You know, it’s a great, different dynamic. It’s great to have all these different dynamics every week and to play against them, so I’ve been enjoying that, as sad as it’s been to not have Eric and the character Zack around. I’ve been enjoying that.

Q: Do you think we’ll see a resolution to that? Will Bones finally hire someone permanently, or do you see this kind of as a device that goes into next season?

Emily: I think, eventually, but I think they’re enjoying this right now, and it probably will continue to next season, as far as I know, because I think they’ve been enjoying it so much, and having the different, you know, rotating the different people, and it’s been working well, and people have been enjoying it. So I think they’ll continue that. But I think there’s a limit to how long you can do that, I suppose, so we’ll see. I don’t know where that limit lies, but I guess we’ll find out.


Well, they were more than 'a few.' If you want to read the full interview you can check it out at Searching Bones.