What The Cast Of Bones Is Doing Today

Among the many enjoyable, formula-driven procedural dramas that dominated American TV in the 2000s, Bones set itself apart from CSI and its various spinoffs and clones. More than a cop show, Bones was about a brilliant forensic anthropologist who offered up her skills to help the FBI solve crimes by analyzing decomposing human remains, microscopic life, and of course, bones. The show's consistent popularity was also certainly helped along by regular injections of humanity, humor, and romance (partners Brennan and Booth gave in to viewer desire and wound up together).

And unlike other TV shows that stay on the air for more than a decade — Bones ran on Fox from 2005 to 2017 — it didn't feature all that many cast changes, with leads like Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz staying with the series for the long haul. Of course, Bones has been gone for a while now, and its cast members have moved on to other things, professionally and personally. Here's a look into what became of the actors who portrayed all those scientists, special agents, and interns on Bones.

When Emily Deschanel began playing Dr. Temperance Brennan on Bones, she was only 28 and with just a handful of small roles to her name. But she was up to the challenge of heading up the cast of a network drama series, which she'd wind up doing for 12 years, portraying a quirky super-genius who solved crimes and wrote novels on the side. 

Being first on the call sheet for a show that grinds out more than 20 episodes a year for over a decade is a tremendous workload, and since Bones ended in 2017, Deschanel has considerably eased up on the acting work. And her first significant post-Bones role was showing up on an episode of The Simpsons in 2018. When Ned Flanders makes a movie about Bart Simpson's supposed near-death experience, Deschanel voices herself, auditioning to play Marge Simpson. She also portrayed aviation pioneer Marina Raskova on an episode of Drunk History, and in 2019, she returned to crime-based television with a role as recovering addict and ex-con Angela on TNT's Animal Kingdom.

While Temperance "Bones" Brennan was the title character on Bones, her co-protagonist was Seeley Booth, a former Army sniper and recovering gambling addict turned cocky FBI agent. Despite an extreme clash of styles with Bones (he's rough and emotionally driven; she's about cold, scientific facts), they team up to solve crimes, and then fall in love and have a couple of kids. 

As for the man behind the man, David Boreanaz starred as Booth for more than 200 episodes of Bones. And it's probably safe to say the guy is the hardest-working actor in TV history, or at least the most consistently employed. Since 1997, and with almost no down periods, Boreanaz has regularly been part of the main cast of a network TV drama. From 1997 to 1999, he played anguished vampire Angel on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he continued to portray the character from 1999 to 2004 on the spin-off Angel. In 2005, Boreanaz began his run on Bones, and in the fall of 2017, just a few months after the conclusion of that series, he jumped to the CBS military show SEAL Team, where he currently plays Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes.

The character of Angela Montenegro performed several functions on Bones. A talented artist and computer wizard, she drew and created re-constructions of murder victims and other vital bits of evidence that helped Bones and Booth do their jobs. She also helped soften and socialize the otherwise icy Bones, and during those long hours at the Jeffersonian, she found love with co-worker Jack Hodgins. 

Rising TV actress Michaela Conlin landed the role of Angela in 2005, and during the 12-year run of Bones, she appeared in supporting roles in several major movies, including Enchanted and The Lincoln Lawyer. After playing Angela 245 times, Conlin's schedule lightened up considerably. Following a year off of TV, she re-emerged as Sharon Chen on a couple of episodes of HBO's existential family drama Here and Now. When that series was swiftly canceled, Conlin moved on to the epic Paramount Network Western series Yellowstone, which is big-time movie star Kevin Costner's first modern foray into episodic television. Here, Conlin has the recurring role of Sarah Nguyen, a crusading and driven reporter. In addition to a part in the gonzo Eric Andre movie Bad Trip, Colin also gave birth to a baby in 2019.

Both a believer of wild conspiracy theories and quietly the heir to a massive fortune, Jack Hodgins turns away from life as a privileged rich guy in order to work as a forensic entomologist (among his many other scientific disciplines and areas of expertise) at the Jeffersonian, studying bug behavioral and biological patterns and using that knowledge to help unlock murder mysteries. And for the entirety of the 12-year run of Bones, T.J. Thyne played the very curious and incredibly odd Dr. Hodgins. 

Before he landed easily the most prominent and long-lasting role of his career, Thyne was a prolific character actor, racking up more than six dozen credits on TV shows and in movies, most notably playing a lawyer on Bones co-star David Boreanaz's show Angel, a recurring role as Wallace "The Wizard" Slausen on Walker, Texas Ranger, and a whiny college campus cop in the stoner comedy How High. Since the Bones finale in 2017, Thyne hasn't been as active as he once was, although he's played a therapist and horrifying criminal on an episode of Law and Order: SVU and appeared on a handful of installments of the Netflix dramedy Gentefied.

Tamara Taylor wasn't an original cast member of Bones, and her arrival as Dr. Camille Saroyan in season two was a course-correcting move. A former police officer and coroner, she had the resume to oversee Dr. Brennan at the Jeffersonian, as well as the temperament to deal with the impersonal anthropologist and keep open cases on track. (Cam also helped keep the romantic side of Bones in play, as she's a former lover of Booth's who ultimately couples up with one of the interns.) 

When Bones finished its long run in 2012, Taylor left the friendly confines of procedural crime drama for the bountiful landscape of genre television. In the first season of Netflix's eye-popping, body-switching, futuristic science fiction series Altered Carbon, Taylor slipped into the role of Oumou Prescott, a lawyer and law enforcement liaison who isn't unlike Dr. Saroyan. And then in 2020, the actress joined the cast of October Faction, portraying Deloris Allen, a woman who's leading a family that's secretly a part of a monster-hunting society.

With his role as FBI psychologist Dr. Lance Sweets, John Francis Daley completed the transition from child star (he was best known for playing Sam Weir on the cult-classic Freaks and Geeks) to grown-up actor. But acting maybe wasn't Daley's true path. While co-starring on Bones, Daley kept up a parallel career as a screenwriter. With creative partner Jonathan Goldstein, Daley wrote the scripts for Horrible Bosses, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, and Horrible Bosses 2.

Daley and Goldstein wrote the 2015 Vacation remake and were also offered the chance to direct, requiring Daley to take four months off from Bones. The show's writers couldn't think of a feasible way to dispose of Sweets for that long, so they killed him off, freeing Daley to write and direct even more projects. Since departing Bones, Daley (with Goldstein) wrote and directed the comedy Game Night and helped pen the script for Spider-Man: Homecoming. The pair is also in charge of an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons movie, and they're heavily involved with entries in a Hasbro cinematic universe, including movies based on the '80s toy lines such as Micronauts. 

In the early seasons of Bones, Eric Millegan provided a palate cleanser from all the gore and murder with his character, the extremely intelligent and socially awkward intern (turned doctorate-holding) Zack Addy. In a shocking twist in the show's third season, Zack was revealed to be an apprentice for a cannibalistic serial killer, sending him to a mental institution and Millegan off the show, except for a handful of guest appearances later on. Since then, Millegan hasn't been on screens that much, apart from appearing in the documentary Gay Positive and the indie romantic comedy Lady Peacock.

After Bones, Millegan moved out of Hollywood to New York, where he makes the occasional live performance, and in 2012, he got married. However, shortly after his time on Bones ended (during which he suffered some challenging mental breakdowns), Millegan publicly detailed his struggle with bipolar disorder, and he now serves as advocate for mental illness awareness.

The interplay between the traumatized, emotionally shut-down Seeley Booth and his work-appointed therapist and frequent partner Dr. Sweets was such that when John Francis Daley left Bones and his character was gunned down, Booth needed a new guy to butt heads with. 

Enter the wryly humorous and often inscrutable junior FBI agent James Aubrey, as portrayed by actor John Boyd. At the time, he was best known for his work in the eighth season of 24 as drone consultant Arlo Glass, as well as for his supporting role as Lamont in the Oscar-winning Argo. Looking past Aubrey and Bones, Boyd quickly lined up roles in two movies — the period mystery/kids' film Wonderstruck and the action/revenge thriller Peppermint. Then, it was back to playing federal law enforcement agents. Boyd joined the CBS procedural FBI as a series regular in its second season, as Special Agent Stuart Scola, a role he reprised in the series' spinoff FBI: Most Wanted.

Dr. Clark Edison came and went from the Jeffersonian (and Bones itself) quite frequently, with his job status often changing, too. First, he was a temporary replacement for Zack Addy, then part of the Squintern squad, then at one point a replacement for Dr. Brennan. Byrd's semi-regular status on Bones allowed him to maintain recurring roles on other shows, including True Blood (he played Jerome, a vampire trucker) and Arrow (he was the late soldier and criminal Andy Diggle). 

While Byrd has put in appearances on shows including The Rookie, LA's Finest, and A Million Little Pieces, his professional life since Bones has consisted almost entirely of voice acting. He can be heard in a wide array of projects, including comedies like American Dad! and Family Guy, action shows such as Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and kid-fare like It's Pony and The Rocketeer.

As portrayed by Carla Gallo, Daisy Wick was the chattiest and bubbliest of the revolving assortment of Squinterns, which caused some tension with the all-business, no-socializing Dr. Brennan, who also happened to be Daisy's hero. Like co-star John Francis Daley (who played Dr. Sweets, her late love interest and father of her child), Gallo came into Bones with a very recognizable face, as a member of the unofficial troupe of Judd Apatow comic actors. Before Bones, Gallo was among the main cast of Apatow's short-lived college dorm comedy Undecided, and she portrayed an infamous party dancer in Superbad.

Since Bones went off the air in 2017, Gallo hasn't done all that much acting, but then she's also got a busy family life: She had her second child (with partner, now husband, screenwriter Mark Satterthwaite) not long after the last Bones aired. Nevertheless, she co-starred in the Netflix horror comedy Little Evil, and she played real-life film executive Lucy Fisher in the National Lampoon biopic A Stupid and Futile Gesture.

Pej Vahdat came onto Bones in 2009 as Arastoo Vaziri, part of the rotation of interns (or "Squinterns," as Booth nicknamed them) who assisted Dr. Brennan in her crime-solving and Jeffersonian duties. The soft-spoken character brought a warmth that was lacking to the scientific and tragic plot lines, and he eventually found love with his superior, Dr. Saroyan. 

Since turning in the last of his more than 30 regular appearances on Bones in 2017, Vahdat has worked more — and in a bigger variety of projects — than pretty much all of his former castmates. Vahdat has earned guest spots on Will & Grace, Lucifer, The Good Doctor, and Counterpart, as well as recurring roles on a number of shows. He portrayed corrupt district attorney Sam Armand on Arrow, Hamid on NBC's short-lived feel-good drama The Village, and record label owner Kelly Patel on more than a dozen episodes of Empire. Additionally, Vahdat's voice can be heard on Family Guy and American Dad!, as well as in major video games like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Agents of Mayhem, Crackdown 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

In the first season of Bones, Dr. Brennan was subject to oversight from Dr. Daniel Goodman, her grouchy day job supervisor at the Jeffersonian. As the show evolved and found its footing as an investigative crime drama, creator Hart Hanson realized the Dr. Goodman character no longer fit in. "When I started the series, I thought it would be more lab-centric and that her boss, an administrator, would have a larger role to play. And it just didn't work that way," creator Hart Hanson told TV Guide. That meant the actor who played Dr. Goodman, Jonathan Adams, was out of a regular gig. 

While Hanson expressed a desire to bring back character and actor in a recurring fashion, that never happened. But after Bones, Adams found lots of guest star parts, plus one major role in a long-running series. Adams popped up briefly on NCIS, The Closer, One Tree Hill, Medium, Boston Legal, 24, and Revenge. He's also found a niche in voicing characters in animated projects, such as Ronan the Accuser in the animated Guardians of the Galaxy series and Darkseid in Justice League Action. His most prominent and steady job, however, is the dead-then-revived sitcom Last Man Standing. Since 2012, he's portrayed Chuck Larabee, the best friend figure on the Tim Allen vehicle.