No one in America ever went broke making a network primetime show about hot cops falling in love and looking at corpses. Bones, which ran on Fox from 2005 until 2017, stands as a testament to this fact.
Recommended Videos
Statistically, that show lasted longer than any job you’ve ever had, all thanks to the undeniable drawing powers of justice, will they/won’t they, and prop cadavers with bits of stuff on them. Regular cast members enjoyed the benefits of the dying days of television residuals.Some became household names. Others probably just enjoyed the peace of mind afforded by SAG health insurance. Here’s a look at where a few of them are today.
Emily Deschanel
Known within her secret government subterranean Deschanel hatching brood as “First Of Two” (well, that’s what I heard), Emily Deschanel only had a handful of on-screen roles in 2005 – refusing to pay Peter Parker for pizza time in Spider-Man 2 and looking very concerned in a bonnet in The Alamo, among others. She hit the jackpot when she landed her role as Temperance Brennan on Bones, a part that would see her working steadily for over a decade, racking up co-producer and producer credits along the way.
By the end of the series, she and co-star David Boreanaz were reportedly taking home a quarter of a million per episode, with an additional, undisclosed payday following arbitration of their 2015 lawsuit against Fox for unpaid profits from Bones.
Today, Deschanel stays focused on lending her platform to activism, continuing to promote philanthropic organizations like Mercy Corps and encouraging fans to consider a vegan lifestyle. She and her husband, the Mythic Quest and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia multi-hyphenate David Hornsby, live in Los Angeles with their two sons, Henry and Calvin. Her most recent acting project is a scripted thriller podcast, Agent Stoker, co-starring Altered Carbon’s Chris Conner and Amy Hill, from basically everything.
David Boreanaz
David Boreanaz was an old hand at network dramas when he got the job playing Seeley Booth on Bones. Just off of 110 episodes of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Angel and still washing the smell of a The Crow sequel where he was billed in between Edward Furlong and Tara Reid, he was no doubt ready for the next chapter of his career. It would be a stretch marked by fewer vampires and a counterintuitively high amount of Family Guy crossovers.
Boreanaz has been married to former model and occasional actress Jaime Bergman since 2001, weathering a handful of public scandals. Unlike his co-star, Boreanaz never seems to have pumped the brakes, career-wise. In 2017, the same year that Bones wrapped up, he took a lead role on the CBS series SEAL Team, a success story in its own right that made it seven seasons on two separate distribution platforms before the network decided to wrap things up. It’s unclear what Boreanaz’s next project will be, but it seems unlikely that we’ll have to wait too long to find out.
Michaela Conlin
“Pookey Noodlin’.” If you know, you know.
Michaela Conlin’s Angela Montenegro had a wild ride on Bones, with near-miss bigamy, on-screen pregnancy, professional accomplishments, and ZZ Top cameos marking mileposts along her personal journey.
Conlin remains close friends with Emily Deschanel more than half a decade after Bones left the airwaves. You can track her career highlights via her Instagram account, where she posts about upcoming projects. Up next: A sitcom with The Office’s Ellie Kemper based on the British series Motherland.
Eric Millegan
Anyone hoping to feel old today can take comfort in the knowledge that Bones’ Zack Addy, the show’s fresh-faced young genius with nothing to hide, turns 50 in 2024. Feel that? That’s your bones losing density. Take your vitamins.
Since the end of Bones, Millegan’s professional life has quieted down. According to his website, he’s spent time focused on live cabaret shows, performed in live philanthropic benefit concerts and specialty shows, and dipped his toe into work as a magician and standup comic. Additionally, he’s co-hosted six seasons of the sports podcast Around the NBA.
T. J. Thyne
Before, during, and after his tenure on Bones playing Jack Hodgins, acclaimed “that-guy” actor T. J. Thyne did what “that-guy” actors do: He acted. He acted a whole bunch.
Going into Bones, Thyne’s credits read like sedimentary layers of pop culture history. He made single-episode appearances on Friends, Party of Five, That ‘80s Show, Nip/Tuck, and a cascading list of crime procedurals. In recent days, he has yet to find another project with the same sort of staying power as Bones, but he’s kept busy – in 2019, he returned to the How High cinematic universe by reprising his role from the first movie in How High 2, making him a part of an elite fraternity of actors who said “yes” to projects that Redman turned down.
He lives in L.A., and his most recent project was The Offer, the dramatic retelling of the making of The Godfather, in which he is just, like, so beyond intense about lighting.
Tamara Taylor
With 223 episodes under her belt, Camille Soroyan actor Tamara Taylor has made more Bones than the majority of people have in their bodies. The series makes up the bulk of the Canadian performer’s portfolio. It would be weird if it didn’t.
Still, in the years since Bones wrapped up, she’s stayed in demand. In 2020, she broke into the MCU(ish) playing scorned time robot Sybil on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Her Law & Order character, Angela Wheatley, has crossed over into two separate franchise spinoffs, Organized Crime and Special Victims Unit. Most recently, she caught the tail end of Snowfall‘s final season, playing con artist and proud mommy Cassandra Turner.
Ryan O’Neal
Across 24 episodes spanning the majority of the program’s run, 1970s performance powerhouse Ryan O’Neal appeared on Bones, playing Temperance’s old man, Max Keenan. It wasn’t just the actor’s most high-profile return to the screen in his later years. It would also turn out to be his last.
On Dec. 8, 2023, O’Neal’s son Patrick announced via an Instagram post that his father had passed away at age 82. No cause of death was shared at the time, but it’s known that O’Neal had battled cancer on at least two occasions in recent years.
We Got This Covered is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission.Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
