Eric Millegan – Bones

Q) What are the current projects that you are working on?

A) I did a movie back in May, during the hiatus, called The Phobic and I am the lead character in it. I do some voice over narration, so I am getting ready to do that. It’ll be very interesting to see. My big exciting thing is that I am singing for Eugene Opera in “Pirates of Penzance” on the 29th through the 31st of December. It’s going to work perfectly! Mostly, what I did before “Bones” was musical theater and I haven’t had the time to do it because of the show. This is working perfectly since I’ll rehearse over the Christmas break and do the show. I am very, very excited! I am playing Frederick and the guy who is playing the pirate king is Richard White, who played the singing voice of Gaston in the movie Beauty And The Beast. It’s in a beautiful concert hall where I performed a lot as a kid. To go back home (which is Eugene, Oregon – I grew up in Springfield, Oregon), where I was planning to go anyway for Christmas break, to perform is very exciting!

Q) Please tell us about your character Zack Addy on the show “Bones.”

A) The character is in transition. At the start of the show, I was Brennan’s assistant. I’m her grad student and I am still her assistant. I’ve been studying to get my doctorate in Forensic Anthropology and one in Engineering. I am a boy genius, who actually graduated from college when he was sixteen years old.

Q) “Bones” is in its second season. What is new or has changed on the show and with your character?

A) I was twenty-four years old last year on the show and so now I am twenty-five years old. I’ve been stalling on finishing my doctorate all of these years, even though I am about the age of someone who had gone through regular schooling. He wise-cracks a lot and he can be very insensitive because he’s very smart and bright. That was a big part of his character when we first met him, but he’s growing up now. He’s not so much Dr. Brennan’s assistant ,where I go out in the field and take pictures. I still work with her, but we have a boss. The forensic division has been established at the Jeffersonian now. We just used to work out of this museum and had someone that was in charge of the museum working with us, but not someone who was specifically in charge of us. Now, there is this forensic division and this new person, Cam, who is played by Tamara Taylor. She’s now the head of that division so I, essentially, work for her. We all do. The big exciting thing is that in a few episodes, he is actually going to get his doctorate. My character is really going to change in the very near future and I am going to be a doctor. I’m growing up a little bit this year so I am excited.

Q) What made you originally want to be a part of the show?

A) I had done a movie several years ago called On Line and it was a very good cast. Then, two years ago, one of those cast members (Vanessa Ferlito) got cast in the television series “CSI: New York” and another cast mate (Harold Perrineau) was cast in “Lost.” Those jobs were out in LA and I was in New York. I didn’t have a TV show and I was very depressed. I thought, “I’m a good actor and I want a TV show!” I just didn’t want to leave New York, but I really thought it was time for me to go do that financially, artistically and in terms of publicity. I thought it was time for me to get my name out there and get national recognition that would hopefully help me with my theater career. I went out to LA, but did this musical version ofHarold and Maude in New Jersey first. I decided that when ever that show closed, (there was talks of the show going to Broadway, but it didn’t) I was going to LA the next day. It closed on a Sunday in February last year and I came out here on a Monday. Before Harold and Maude, I had secured an agent and manager out in LA and I met with them. They got me a pilot audition on Wednesday, which I didn’t get, and then on Thursday I had an audition for a show called “Brennan” (which was what “Bones” was called back then). It was my second audition in town since I had only been there for three or four days and within three weeks of that audition I got the show! It was my favorite script for all the shows that I auditioned for. I liked the characters and loved the character that I would be playing. I wanted to do a drama like Vanessa and Harold. I really wanted to do a drama since it is like doing a mini movie and that’s the kind of acting that I like.  It was the kind of thing I wanted to do and I do want to do films. I like the coolness of it, crime solving drama is kind of cool. The idea of getting to be in something like that was really exciting to me. I was very lucky because I was up for other pilots, but this was my favorite because the writing was so good and the cast was my favorite. To have it get picked up as a series and have it become the hit that it has been is just a dream come true!

Q) How is it getting to work with Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz?

A) They are fantastic! Emily became my best friend from day one. We just hit it off on the pilot. We both had a love for musical theater and were singing show tunes on the set all the time. We’ve gotten in trouble for that and we’re not aloud to do it anymore because it’s too disruptive to other people. We hit off because she has a big interest in theater and I had done some theater. She’s such a good person. She’s so nice! She cares about her friends and family more than anything in her life. She’s just a really good hearted person. I had some difficult personal struggles last year and she was there for me, even though she’s starring in a television show and has all of her time taken up with it. She was still there for me and I can’t speak highly enough about that. As an actress, she’s wonderful. Television acting has to be a little smaller than theater acting, but I always thought that if you kind of mumble when you are acting and play it under then it looks on screen that you are underplaying it. I’ve always felt that she’s got great balance. She doesn’t over play it, but she doesn’t under play it either. She’s right in the middle. I picked that up from her early on and that freed me up to find this middle. I didn’t have to play it so low key and not too big. She really helped me find the middle just be watching her work. David Boreanaz is just a consummate pro! He has more experience than all of us because he did “Buffy” and “Angel” for five years. This is the first series for Emily and I. He’s very funny and a very good actor. He’s very funny on and off camera. I really like how he takes a script and has the most fun that he can with it. He doesn’t go through the motions. He is always looking at every scene at how he can make it the most fun and how can we entertain our audience at all times. Just watching him has helped because I didn’t know anything about being a series regular on a television show. Just watching him and how he carries himself has been a great experience for me.

Q) How did you prepare for your role as an anthropologist’s assistant?

A) I didn’t have to prepare too much. Over pilot season, I auditioned for a lot of science people/boy genius/young scientist characters. I think it’s just an energy that I give off without even acting. I think there is something about the way I say those lines and the way I look that I think makes people see me as being great at those kinds of characters. I was smart as a kid growing up. I was valedictorian of my high school class and I skipped seventh grade, so I suppose I give off a but of intelligence. In terms of preparing, I know a lot of people try to do the research and learn what they can about everything they’re doing. I’m a bit leisure about that. I believe if I’m being hired to play a doctor on Sunday and I have to do it on Monday, be it for a TV show or a movie, I’m aware I can’t go to medical school over night. My job is to act like I’ve gone to medical school and pretend. I think you can look up all the definitions of the words and you can study everything, but your job is still to act and look like you know it more than you need to know it. Your job is still to act and use your imagination. I will look up definition of words, but after I do I say to myself that it doesn’t effect the way I play the scene. I play the scene the same way, more than the way the audience thinks that I know what I’m talking about and more than I do. As we’ve gone along, through osmosis I’ve learned quite a bit.

Q) What has been your most memorable moment from filming the show?

A) Just the other day was fun! Yesterday we were doing an episode where Brennan and Hodgins were kidnapped and we’re going to a parking garage where they were taken from. It was the first time that it was an odd combination of people looking for evidence as to what happened to them together since it was Cam, Angela and I. It also had an urgency to it since my character was dealing with two of the closest people in his life, my best friend and my supervisor. It was very emotional in a way where we had never been this emotionally attached before because of doing the pilot and how quickly we clicked, how quickly we all got along. I also liked doing another scene in the episode that we shot after the pilot.  We used to have this Chinese restaurant Wong Foo’s, and we all sat in this booth. Booth was sitting there and we all crammed in to talk about the case. It was something fun because all six of us are working together. We miss Jonathan Adams! He was with us last season and he was great! We welcome Tamara Taylor to our cast. She’s been wonderful. She joined our cast and you can think that she might mess up the chemistry, but not at all. She just fit right in! The Christmas episode was so much fun to shoot last year. There were scenes we filmed where we were opening presents and another where we’re eating Chinese food all together that had been brought to us. Those were good times!

Q) What is about your role that continues to challenge you?

A) I used to tell people that it wasn’t difficult to learn my lines. I would say, “I do it because I’m paid to do it.” If you’re paid a certain amount of money then you just do it and you don’t think about how to do it. I’m finding it’s getting harder. I used to tell people that it was easy, but I think that it’s because we have done so many. We’ve now shot (including the pilot from last season) like thirty episodes. This is the longest job I’ve ever had. Before this, I had just done two guest spots on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “100 Centre Street.” This has been a huge thing! I heard Bradley Whitford at a question and answer session for “Studio 60,” saying that he had just did seven years on “The West Wing.” He said he was suffering a bit of short term memory damage. I was like, “I hear you!” and I have only done this for a year and a half now! Having to learn lines very quickly and know them very fast is definitely a big challenge. Another challenge for me deals with the growing up aspect of my character this season. At the beginning of this season, I was kind of doing an impersonation of myself last year. I was kind of hanging on to the youth of the character and almost playing him younger than he really is. It was a challenge for me to realize I shouldn’t hold on to where Zach was. Zach, like myself, grows up as we do this. It was a challenge for me to let go of where Zach has been and take him further into a more mature place. 

Q) What is it about the show that continues to draw in viewers?

A) I hope it’s because we’re a funny show. We’re fun with a bunch of interesting characters. Often when I am watching the show, I find I am not always following the case. It’s not so much about the case to me, as to what is happening with the characters like what’s going on with Booth and Brennan or what’s going on with Hodgins and Angela. Sometimes my friend will ask, “Ok, what happened there?” and I’ll have to tell them, “Oh, I wasn’t paying attention to that. I was paying attention to David and how funny he was with Emily in that scene.” I hope that’s why people like the show. I know that crime solving dramas are very popular. Most of the top twenty shows are that form of show. I am glad if we have that audience and if we have the audience for those that are interested in forensic anthropology that’s great.

Q) The critics have given the show such good reviews. Do you think that has to do with the shows success?

A) I hope so! I am hoping that people are watching the show as much as the critics are. We got a little review on www.tvguide.com by Matt Roush, who is the critic for TV Guide, said that last week’s episode of the show was one of the best episodes of this season for all of the shows. I thought, “Wow! This is really cool!” It was really exciting and I hope people are reading that and more people join our show as we go on. When I get stopped in the street or people come up to me and say they watch the show, I find that they not only watch the show, but they watch every episode. I think that when we get people to watch the show that they stick with it. I just hope we can get more though! It’d be great to get a few more million people watching the show. That’d be really terrific! Our audience is good, we have a good loyal audience. It’d be even better if we had more people.

Q) What do you do in  your spare time?

A) I spend a lot of time learning the lines for the days that I am working on. It takes us eight business days to shoot a show and I am in anywhere from four to six of those days, usually. This last week, I only worked two days. I also play in an entertainment league where a bunch of celebrities play in a basketball league. I did that last year and I am doing it again this year. I am really excited about that! I am a big NBA fan and I write a blog for www.nba.com. I’m a mean poker player and have been going to casinos way too much. My brother and I went to Vegas over Labor Day and I have tournaments at my apartment. I play video games, watch TV and right now I am spending time with my family and two little nieces. That’s a good time, too!

Q) What would you like to say to your fans and supporters?

A) I am really glad you like the show! Thanks for watching it and keep watching! I really appreciate it. God bless you!