E-mail a friendEmily Deschanel
airdate May 3, 2007
Named by Interview magazine in '04 as one of '6 Actors to Watch,' Emily Deschanel is one of Hollywood's hottest rising stars. The L.A. native is part of a show business family and made her film debut in the comedy, It Could Happen to You. She also appeared in Cold Mountain, Glory Road and Spiderman 2. Deschanel's TV credits include guest-starring roles on Crossing Jordan, Law and Order: SVU and her star turn in the FOX series Bones. She's also a member of the InterAct Theater Company.
Emily Deschanel
Tavis: Emily Deschanel stars on the hit Fox drama "Bones," which is about to wrap up its second season on the air. Last year, she starred in the terrific film "Glory Road," which told the story of the first all-Black starting five to win the NCAA men's basketball championship. Now back to "Bones." Next week kicks off the final two episodes of the season. Here now, a scene from "Bones."
[Clip]
Tavis: (Laughs.) That was a funny scene. How are you?
Emily Deschanel: I'm well, thank you . How are you?
Tavis: I'm wonderful. Nice to have you on the program.
Deschanel: Thank you for having me.
Tavis: For those who have not seen "Bones," how would you describe the series?
Deschanel: Wow. It's a forensic series, I play a forensic anthropologist who helps the FBI solve crimes by looking at bones. But it's as much about the characters, as you can see from that clip, as it is about the crimes we're solving. So you get to know my character and David Boreanaz's character, and then there's a bunch of other scientists in the lab who you get to know while we're investigating these murders together. It's a fun show.
Tavis: I was about to ask - you may have just answered the question - why it is that you think that these forensic shows are doing so well on basically every network, including yours, of course, "Bones." And maybe you've answered already, because it's not just about the forensic stuff; it's about these characters, as well.
Deschanel: Right. I don't think every show that is a forensic show involves the other characters. I think that makes our show unique. But I think our culture kind of pushes death away, and we don't discuss death, and we don't want to talk about it, but yet it kind of permeates up in the form of people getting obsessed with murder mysteries and forensics.
I myself am fascinated by all this stuff, and have read several murder mysteries and watched several forensic series, and I think it's like pornography bubbling up if we forget sex exists. I think that it's kind of an inevitable thing. But I think people get fascinated by it, because no one really wants to talk about death, and I guess for a good reason.
Tavis: What do you learn - let me rephrase that. Do you learn stuff regularly on doing a series like this? I ask because I can imagine doing any number of series where you have a good time, you're part of a great cast, the show does well. You ain't really learning nothing, you're just having a great time, and maybe your acting chops are getting better. But I would think, at least, a show like this, you're actually learning stuff.
Deschanel: Yeah. Every day, I have new terms to memorize, and every time I have to say something, I have to learn what it means and what the significance is of, say, a certain procedure. My rule is that I learn it for the day, and if I retain that information afterwards, that's a bonus. But so many times I have to learn so many different words and terms and how to do certain procedures that I can't expect myself to remember everything I do. But it's amazing. I didn't set out to memorize every bone in the human body, but I know most of them now. Oh, don't give me a - (laughs).
Tavis: You know you set yourself up, right? You know you set yourself up. All right, Jonathan, here we go. So what's this right here?
Deschanel: Well, that's the tibia and fibula are there.
Tavis: Okay. And what's this here?
Deschanel: That - well, the radius and ulna are there.
Tavis: Okay, I'll stop. I don't -
Deschanel: That's the humerus.
Tavis: I'll stop. I don't want you to - you're doing so well -
Deschanel: I get nervous, and then I can't retain my - I'm like oh, I can't think of the things I know.
Tavis: No, you were four for four, you were doing so well, I don't want you to mess up. This is inside baseball, but what's your process? Every time I watch these forensic shows, I'm saying to myself how do the actors remember? Some of the words, some of the phrases - doctors go to school for years to learn this stuff. To your point, you're only learning it for a day. It's pretty deep stuff.
Deschanel: Yeah, and there are things that I retain after that, but I have to do it only for a day. My character has a Ph.D. There's - Tamara Taylor's character on the show is an M.D.; she's a medical examiner. And you go to school for years to do what we do, and I bought several textbooks when we began shooting the series, and I started when we began, reading up about forensic anthropology.
But at a certain - you have to put those down and also think about the acting that you're doing, as well, and so that's when I came up with the rule of only learning it for the day. Because it became too overwhelming to think about what I'm doing as a character, and what I am trying to do in a scene, and what the significance of a term means, and all of that for that scene and that day, and then to try to remember it always is too much pressure.
But then if you take the pressure off, I tend to remember things more. So it is a process that I've learned. I learn my lines the day before I shoot it. I work on the acting stuff on the weekends. David and I get together and we work on our acting together. We go over every scene that we're doing that week, and I work on my own.
And then the day before, I learn my lines for the scene, and that seems to work well. Because if I try to learn the whole script at once, it's too much with all the strange words.
Tavis: So how many times you been freaked out to the point of throwing up?
Deschanel: (Laughs.) Funnily enough, the time I was freaked out the most was not with a dead body but we have an episode coming up that involves coral. The coral freaked me out. I didn't like the texture. I almost felt sick. I don't know what that is, and maybe there's a psychologist out there that could psychoanalyze me. (Laughter)
But that was what got me the most. There's been a few times when I haven't been able to eat my breakfast, definitely with the bodies, but you become, unfortunately or fortunately you kind of learn to detach. And I know they're fake, so - and that's what happens naturally for somebody - for my character, Dr. Brennan, you have to separate yourself from the dead bodies.
In order to do a good job, you have to look at it as a body and not as a person that used to be living. And that's something that she struggles with all the time, and when she does begin to think about the people as human beings, it kind of is scary to her 'cause she's learned to put up a wall. But that's happened to me through doing the show.
The more I do it, every episode becomes - I become a little more desensitized to these are dead bodies. But some are more gruesome than others. We had a body that was basically just goo in a bathtub, and I had to put on a human hand once. It was, like, the skin of a human that we - that I had to cut off and put as a hand so I could get fingerprints. And that, because it was so tactile and I felt it on my hand, that I couldn't eat my breakfast that day.
Tavis: on a serious note, has playing Dr. Brennan - to the point you made earlier in our conversation - allowed you, challenged you to think - for you, the person; for you, Emily - to think about death differently? Have you processed it differently? Have you spent more time over the last couple of years playing this character thinking about that? About how you process, how you deal with it?
Deschanel: Yeah, I think so. I think about it more. I think that my perspective on life has changed a little bit because of it.
Tavis: That's even better.
Deschanel: 'Cause you face death every day in my job, it makes you realize how short we have in this lifetime, and it makes you realize how silly it is to be fearful of things, and how important it is to do things while we're here, because you never know when something can end. And I think it's been a gift to me in that way. Sometimes - I think at the end of the first season, David Boreanaz and I were talking, and it took its toll a little bit on you.
Because you were dealing with death, and now I think of it as a positive thing, really. I really have become more bold and fearless sin my life - just in my every day life - and I don't want to waste much time because of that. And I think it's a great thing.
Tavis: To your point about making the most out of life, it occurred to me, preparing for our conversation, that given what your family does for a living, you really didn't have much choice but to be an actress, did you?
Deschanel: I had a choice (laughs).
Tavis: I'm just being funny - your whole family is in this business.
Deschanel: I know, it's strange. Growing up, I was determined to be an architect when I was younger. So I saw every possibility there was. My parents always made us think that there are - you can do anything you put your mind to, and if you work hard, you can do that. But I think that you are born with certain skills and talents, and it's important to recognize what those are and what you enjoy doing.
And that's what - I discovered theater in high school. I would put on plays with my sister when I was a young girl, but I really discovered theater when I was in high school, and that was it for me. I loved it. So, I ran with it, and I did it. It is strange, though, when I think about it, that all of us are in the business in some way or another, and I got to work with my father. He directed this episode coming up, so.
Tavis: Well, speaking of recognizing, you better recognize Emily Deschanel is on "Bones" on Fox, and you should check it out if you have it. Emily, nice to have you on the program.
Deschanel: Nice to be here, thank you.
Tavis: It's good to see you.
Back to May 3, 2007