‘Bones’ Stars Emily Deschanel and Carla Gallo on Revival Chances, Rewatch Podcast

It’s 19 years ago this month that Bones premiered on Fox, and for 12 seasons, fans tuned in every week to watch Emily Deschanel‘s Brennan, David Boreanaz‘s Booth, and the Jeffersonian team solve cases and the two leads dance around each other before finally getting together.

So when better to enjoy a rewatch podcast? Deschanel and Carla Gallo, who recurred as Daisy, have gotten together to do just that with Boneheads (a production of Lemonada Media), premiering on September 18. Below, they talk about the podcast and its special guests, as well as if they’d do a Bones revival.

What appealed to you about doing this podcast together?

Emily Deschanel: Carla and I love chatting. We’ve become friends since we did the show together.

Carla Gallo: Your best friend and my best friend are also best friends.

Deschanel: We have a stronger friendship than when we finished the show, we love chatting, and we thought, why not reminisce, look back on the show, chit-chat, and share it with the world?

Gallo: Also it’s given me an opportunity to get to know Emily because I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone that no one worked harder, I think, in television than Emily Deschanel. I was obviously coming in and out and when I would come in, she’s the most thoughtful, she’s the kindest, but that woman did not have time for long conversations with me. And that’s what I’m about, is long conversations. She’s excellent at keeping in touch. You’re going to learn a lot about her right now. I remember being like, oh my God, that’s so great because sometimes a show ends and you all go different ways and you don’t see each other for 10 years. The more she kept in touch, the more we would talk. I feel like the friendship was able to flourish and grow post-working together because she had the bandwidth to really connect with me. The more we talked, we were like, why aren’t we doing a podcast?

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Deschanel: And why not do it about Bones?

Gallo: Because that’s how we know each other.

Deschanel: And Carla is just one of the funniest people and smartest people and we love chatting.

As you’re rewatching these episodes, is there anything you find yourself remembering most about them and filming?

Deschanel: It only took me to Episode 4 to not remember who the killer was. [Laughs] I was convinced it was someone else because I think the actor looked like another actor from another episode. I mean, we did 246 episodes. So there are so many things that I don’t remember. I don’t remember the plots as much as I remember behind-the-scenes memories like, oh, I remember that day, Eric Millegan and I were talking about this or—I’m now thinking like the most boring things to say. We had a hard time clearing that area for filming. But I’ll remember discussions actors had on our breaks more than the plots. But I still remember a lot of the first season more than others.

Gallo: She’s doing well. I wasn’t in the first couple of seasons, so we have a unique arrangement essentially where I am a fan and a viewer and I’m able to ask her questions. I’m starting Carla’s Queries, sometimes it’s behind the scenes, but I will say it’s remarkable, especially for having done as many episodes as you’ve done, Emily, the things that you remember. Sometimes it’s minutia, but sometimes it’s like, “I remember that he and I were standing there and he said to me that he knew…” She also seems to be like, “I just ran into that guest star two days ago,” and this is from 12 years ago. And I’m like, you’re, you’re running into everybody you’ve ever [worked with]. Her recollection is incredibly impressive.

Deschanel: It could be better, but I appreciate the fact that you think it’s good.

Carla, are you feeling the pressure to try to do the same when it comes to your episodes?

Gallo: That’ll be interesting because I feel like I don’t have a good memory, but I do think that visual stimulus will spark for me. I suspect that stuff will come back. But it is funny the things that you remember. There was an episode where they wanted me to do a headstand, they put all this effort into it, and then of course, when you go to shoot it, it takes way too long to steady yourself and get your legs up. So they ended up cutting it. That sticks out. I know when I watch that I’ll be like, that’s the episode. There’s ridiculous stuff that maybe no one wants to hear about, but I’m gonna talk about it.

Deschanel: I don’t know if we’re selling the podcast.

Gallo: Listen, tune in. Tune in for minutia.

No, you are. That’s the stuff the fans also want to know about they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.

Gallo: We got the inside scoop here.

Deschanel: Cold goss as we like to call it, it’s not hot goss. It’s from the insider’s perspective and the insider-outsider perspective with Carla asking questions. It’s helpful, I think, to have Carla be not in every episode because she can come from an outside perspective asking questions, like, what were you thinking doing that? I think it’s hard to have perspective sometimes when you’re in it all the time, even though time has passed. That’s another reason why I wanted to do this podcast, is to revisit the show and understand where its place is in the history of TV and entertainment and what we were and to define that for myself again, and to look with clearer eyes rather than eyes that just had filmed those scenes where I have no perspective.

Richard Foreman / © FOX / Courtesy Everett Collection

Who are some of the guest stars you’ve had so far?

Deschanel: We’ve recorded with T.J. Thyne [Hodgins], Hart Hanson Meredith Jacobs, TV Insider, Barry Josephson [executive producer], Greg Yaitanes [director of the pilot and two other episodes]. Eric Millegan [Zack] is one of my favorites, we talk mental health stuff in that episode. We have lots of people that we’ll be interviewing. The meat and potatoes of the podcast is us rewatching, but we’re figuring out if we’re gonna just have stand-alone episodes where it’s just the interview with T.J. or we want to talk about “Aliens in a Spaceship.” There’ll be many more like, Kathy Reichs [whose life and novels the series is based on] and Michaela Conlin [Angela].

Gallo: Even before we started, we started to make lists of potential people to have on. [Emily was] pulling out these lists and she’s passed away but she was like Betty White. The number of guest stars on the show is unreal and who they’ve had. Someone like Aaron Paul, he was just an actor auditioning for one episode of a show and then he goes on to such success. As we come to those episodes, we’ll reach out to them and try to get as many people as we can to come talk about the experience of being on the show.

Emily: Obviously we want David Boreanaz to come on as well and hopefully when his schedule is free, he’ll be coming. He said he wants to do it. but we have not recorded that yet.

And John Francis Daley, for the Sweets and Daisy relationship.

Gallo: I’ll try to have him on as often as possible. I could not love him more. He was busy directing and writing huge movies and I hadn’t seen him in, I don’t know, maybe eight or nine years, and then we just reconnected this year at a wedding. I’m just as infatuated with him as I was back then. And now I’ve gone over to his house for dinner. There’s a connection that he and I have that I think we’ll always have because of Sweets and Daisy.

Revivals are more and more common these days. So it has to be asked: Would you do a Bones revival of any kind?

Gallo: Yes! Oh, did I answer too quickly?

Deschanel:  I don’t know if that would ever happen, but I’d be interested if the right idea came up. But I think they’d probably have younger people playing younger versions.

Gallo: How dare you! Nobody younger is going to be able to do what we all did.

No, because people care about these characters and want to see them again played by you.

Gallo: I agree.

Deschanel: You said it, you said it.

You said the right idea. So do you have any ideas in mind? 

Deschanel: No, I haven’t even thought of that. Do you have ideas?

Gallo: Daisy at the very end finally got her doctorate and part of me is like, it would be funny if she’s in her late 40s and she’s still an intern. I’d like to see her maybe have a little promotion and get to try to handle some cases on her own and then maybe she just cannot do it without Brennan and the crew. She would definitely aspire to that.

It would just be a different dynamic.

Deschanel: You have to change up the dynamics on some level and then keep certain things the same. Enough people would have to be involved, too.

Gallo: Maybe I’m just being corny, but I do think we all had such a strong connection and loved being there so much. I don’t feel like anyone came there begrudgingly. Especially the interns, we were rotating and so we were all going off and doing other jobs and all eagerly coming back and talking amongst ourselves if we didn’t come back as often as we wanted to. We were like, are you getting another one this season before they wrap, and someone would be like, well, I am and they’d be like, I’m done with my season. We wanted to be there as much as we could. It was a really great work environment and it also was unusual to keep recurring on something for so many years. I think we all put in almost nine years as interns because we all came in around the same time, and that’s just unheard of. You don’t keep coming back to the same job when you’re not a series regular for nine years generally.

Emily, what do you think it is about Booth and Brennan’s relationship, from the slow burn to them getting together, that fans still love today?

Deschanel: I think it’s a combination of the two unique individual characters and then the dynamic between them. Hart Hanson wrote some great witty repartee, kind of old-fashioned back-and-forth dialogue between the characters that really gave us an opportunity to showcase the relationship and good tension and bad tension. There was also competition. It wasn’t just romantic tension between the characters. It was really fun to play. We had a great time doing it and I think that on some level, the audience picks that up as well. I think Brennan was a very unique character to see on television. Her struggles with social interactions and her focus on her job and not seeing things in certain ways but being very accomplished and unapologetically brilliant and she’ll tell you that herself, that she’s a genius, it was very endearing. Then Booth as a foil, just goes with his gut, solves crimes that way, and Brennan is the one using her brain to solve everything. It could be a combination of all [those dynamics] or it’s chemistry.

Gallo: You guys had great chemistry. That’s a lucky casting choice. I think sometimes two actors might seem like they will and then you get them together and then they don’t. And Emily and David absolutely have chemistry. You can see how much they enjoy each other throughout the series, watching it for the first time. I’ve told her many times on the podcast. I’m like, “Ooh, I see you guys at the bar at the end of the scene and he’s talking about going on vacation, but I want him to ask you to come and I want you to go.” I’m falling for it just the way that the fans have. I want them to be together. I know they end up together, spoiler. But it’s delicious.

Carla, do you think that Daisy and Sweets could have gotten a happily ever after if he hadn’t been killed off? And Emily, where do you think Brennan and Booth would be today?

Gallo:  I strongly believe that Sweets and Daisy would have had a happily ever after. My belief might be born just out of my deep love for John Francis Daley. I would have fought tooth and nail. I would have gone to the production office and been like, they have to end up together because I just love him so much. I think they were a great couple and just adorable together and I loved every moment shooting with him. In my heart, I believe they would have ended up together in the long run.

Deschanel: I agree, I think Sweets and Daisy would end up together. They may have different things and challenges, but they would be together forever.

Then for Booth and Brennan, I think that maybe they’re off somewhere having an adventure with their kids and like, they’re in Morocco and they stumble upon a murder and they have to solve it. Also, I’d love to go to Morocco but that’s just a side thing.

Gallo: Bones: Morocco, Bones, the reboot in Morocco. Like a CSI.

Deschanel: Maybe it’s Tahiti, maybe it’s Fiji, maybe it’s Morocco.

Gallo: Go tropical, Emily.

Deschanel: Bones: Paris, too. I think they’re traveling. Brennan traveled a lot before she was at the Jeffersonian. She’s a cultural anthropologist as well as a forensic anthropologist. I think they’d be traveling and murders just happen and they have to solve them together. That’s where I see them living a fun, adventurous life together.

Boneheads, Podcast, Streaming now