The Burnout From 12 Years Of Bones Was All Too Real For Emily Deschanel

The grind is as real as it gets when you're working on network television. Where an intense film shoot can require 12 to 16-hour days for several months, a TV show demands the same daily time commitment year in and year out. Even decades of back-breaking work in action movies couldn't prepare Sylvester Stallone for the "brutal" reality of making a television series when he starred in Taylor Sheridan's mafia drama "Tulsa King." 

You can imagine, then, that Emily Deschanel was more than ready for a break after a decade-plus of playing crime-solving forensics expert Temperance Brennan on "Bones." Hart Hanson's procedural was the rare series to survive the gauntlet that was Fox in the 2000s, ultimately spanning 12 seasons, 246 episodes, three U.S. presidential administrations, and a confusing but amusing crossover with "Sleepy Hollow." "Bones" ran for so long that it only ended a year before Deschanel's sister, Zooey Deschanel, finished starring in her own hit Fox series, "New Girl," despite having a significant head start. To put it another way: When "Bones" premiered in 2005, there were only six (non-Ewok) "Star Wars" films, the highest-grossing superhero movie was Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man," and Bryan Cranston was mainly known for playing the bacon-loving dad on "Malcolm in the Middle."

Emily Deschanel's "Bones" costar David Boreanaz was used to the television grind himself, having cut his teeth playing the tormented vampire Angel on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and the "Angel" spinoff series. In fact, he went more or less straight from slaying demons to hunting criminals alongside Temperance as FBI agent Seeley Booth, only to join CBS' "SEAL Team" shortly after "Bones" concluded in 2017. Understandably, however, Deschanel decided she needed a prolonged break at that point. 

After 12 years of workplace romances and (sometimes literally) explosive showdowns with serial killers, you would probably be pretty tired too. So it was when Emily Deschanel solved her last case on "Bones," after which she went two years without acting, sans her one-off stint in the 2018 "Simpsons" episode "Bart's Not Dead" (where she played herself). During a 2022 interview with Parade to promote her Netflix series "Devil in Ohio," Deschanel explained why she didn't roll right into another show the way Boreanaz did:

"Everyone has their preference of what they like to do. David loves working in TV and wants to be doing a TV show and he's had such amazing success, for a great reason, because he's such a great star and he's a really talented actor as well. He went right into another series; that was the last thing I wanted to do after finishing 'Bones.' I needed time away. I took almost two years off from working as an actor. I wanted that time with my kids.

"Honestly, I was burned out. I'm lucky enough that I don't have to take every job, and my husband [David Hornsby] works, as well. So, I'm in a really privileged, wonderful position."

It's nice to hear Deschanel acknowledge the privileges she enjoys. Much as they would like to, the vast majority of parents lack the support and resources they need to take extra time off and spend it with their kids instead (despite what Hollywood seemed to think back when movies about workaholic parents were all the rage — I'm looking at you, "Hook"). That's in no way a knock against Deschanel, either. If you can afford to hit the pause button and recover from your burnout, you absolutely should.