Bones' Police Advisor Put David Boreanaz Through High Pressure Sniper Training
When you think of the long-running FOX procedural "Bones," what do you think of? Skeletons of every kind — goopy, burned, rotting, frozen, and so on — on display while Emily Deschanel's forensic anthropologist examined them for clues? A will-they-won't-they romance between her character, Temperance Brennan, and David Boreanaz's FBI agent Seeley Booth? That one post-"American Idol" episode where The Gravedigger's head explodes?
By virtue of the show's title alone, it's unlikely that Booth's sharpshooting is the first thing that comes to mind for fans of the series. The character was great at his job, but any number of FBI cool guy antics paled in comparison to Bones' own nitty-gritty investigative work. Still, Boreanaz apparently worked hard behind the scenes to make sure Booth's status as a former Army sniper was believable, even going so far as to train with the show's police technical adviser, according to Paul Ruditis' book "Bones: The Official Companion."
In a section of the companion book dedicated to the show's second episode, thwarted terrorism storyline "The Man in the SUV," Ruditis writes that Boreanaz often visited a shooting range with police technical advisor Mike Grasso, who also worked in an advisory capacity in movies like "Heat" and "Point Break" and shows like "Lie To Me." At the range, Grasso would create practice scenarios that Boreanaz called "pretty challenging," including one that required him to nail a moving target in a single shot.
The Bones actor downed a clay pigeon in just one try
"One of the times that we went out to shoot, I had him sit and wait and hold his breath," Grasso is quoted as saying in the book. He then asked the actor to breathe out and shoot "at a little four-inch disk" roughly 300 feet away. "I told him at the beginning of the day, 'Okay, you're a sniper. And you know how to do this because I've trained you already.'" Grasso gave the actor an ultimatum, noting that practice would only continue if he aced the one shot. "Here's the deal: you have to shoot this clay pigeon at a hundred yards," he said. "If you miss, we're packing up all our stuff and we're going home. But, if you hit it, we go on.'"
The advisor clearly wasn't interested in going Method, so he kept the stakes real. "I said to David 'I can't put you under any other pressure,'" he explained. "I can't say that the country needs you or your kids need you. Here's how simple it is: you want to do this today." If he didn't, the training would end. It was apparently the exact amount of pressure Boreanaz needed, as he hit the target dead on with just one shot. Though the actor obviously didn't have to shoot real guns for the show, tragedies like the "Rust" set shooting in 2021 have made it clear that gun safety and precision matters in Hollywood, no matter how fake everything might seem.
Agent Booth isn't the only sharpshooter Boreanaz has played
Agent Booth had several chances to show off his sniper skills across the show's 12-season run, and he kills a surprising amount of people while trying to save his loved ones and take down the bad guys. The sniper practice came in handy even after "Bones" ended in 2017: he portrayed Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes in the show "SEAL Team" for six seasons, and that gig required some gunplay as well. "We're constantly going over body placements, how to make an approach," the actor told Military.com in 2018. "I've gotten a lot of feedback from some military guys: 'Yeah, you're holding your gun wrong, you gotta get your shoulder down more.'"
Boreanaz clearly likes to train as much as possible for his on-screen roles, even doing his own stunts whenever possible. It's a decision that can sometimes backfire, like when he apparently started to drown under 60 pounds of tactical gear while shooting a water scene for "SEAL Team" (a story he told Harry Connick Jr.). No amount of sharpshooting could get the actor out of that scenario, but luckily, the production team's boat did — eventually.