BONES: Emily Deschanel on Kim Raver’s Character and Defending Booth

As reported earlier in August, Kim Raver is part of a 2-episode arc on BONES this year—and the arc happens to be the first two episodes of the year. The show is treating the two episodes as a two-part premiere. The first episode airs tonight on Fox at 8 PM and the second next Thursday night.

There are other teaser posts about the premiere, and after the episode, we’ll have a post-mortem with co-showrunner Michael Peterson and my episode recap, so I won’t say too much more here, except to say that I really loved Raver’s turn as Agent Grace Miller.

Her character does butt heads with several other characters we know and love, but that is what I enjoyed about it. I think BONES does a great job integrating new characters (Aubrey being a good example), but for the most part, the new characters quickly come into alignment with the existing themes/characterizations that exist in the BONES-universe. Agent Miller challenges the audience’s perspective of Booth.

On paper, it’s true—he is a bit of a mess, he has suffered tremendous trauma, he can be dangerous, and he presents a risk. But for those characters who know him (and us in the audience), Booth’s track record doesn’t speak to his entire character. I came away from the first two episodes liking the idea that the real Booth is somewhere in the middle—not the guy in an FBI dossier against him, but also not as perfect or pure as some of the characters (and again us in the audience) make him out to be either.

On a recent conference call, I asked BONES star Emily Deschanel (Brennan) what it was like to work with Raver and what it was like to interact with a character who didn’t know Booth quite so well…

Kim Raver’s character (Agent Miller) was great, because she cuts through the bias other characters have toward Booth and she questions his character. What was it like working with Kim and with a character who didn’t take everyone else’s word on Booth’s character?
Emily Deschanel: I have been a fan of her work for a long time. She also went to the same university I went to, so I have been following her. So I was excited to work with her personally. And she is a delight, so that was wonderful.

And it was cool to have a character who is suspicious of Booth and his motives. It was interesting to come up against that, because all of our characters do recognize Booth as the good man that he is, and the hero at times. So it was interesting to have a dynamic that where someone comes in from a totally different perspective. We’re almost, in a way, having to defend Booth and what he’s done, what he does, and the choices that he makes. It definitely added an interesting dynamic to the beginning of the season.

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BONES returns Thursday, October 1st at 8 PM on Fox.

Related:

BONES Bosses on Embracing the Past, the ‘Energizing’ Season 11, and the Game-Changing Midseason Finale
BONES: ‘The Donor in the Drink’ Photos
BONES Season 11 Promo: Booth is Missing
BONES Season 11 Premiere: ‘The Loyalty in the Lie’ You Ask, I Answer
BONES: Season 11 Cast Photos

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