Interview with Hart Hanson about season seven
This weekend was all about Fox (with a dash of FX) at last night’s party held at Gladstone’s on-the-ocean restaurant in Malibu. The occasion, the Fox day at the summer press tour of the Television Critics Association. I found Bones and The Finder creator Hart Hanson just outside the jammed up area of the party so I figured it was the best time to grab a few minutes with him…that is, after we took our first-ever photo together. (For those who haven’t followed on Twitter, Hart has a habit of taking my picture on any press line he sees me). Here’s our chat with the Pacific Ocean but a few yards away.
JH: What about the pregnancy?
HH: Here’s what I’ve realized about next season. Anything I say tells the audience what we’re going to do. Really! I can’t say anything! People say, ‘Are Booth and Brennan moving in together?’ Please watch the show and find out. ‘Are they not moving in together?’ Please watch the show and find out. I am so bad. Stephen Nathan has already said this much and maybe it’s my fault…we said the baby is going to be born and I was thinking ‘We shouldn’t even say that. We should let people worry about that!’ But now everybody knows the baby will be born. Really, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t have [Emily Deschanel] have the baby and then the character not.
JH: And what about Baby Hodgins? How is that going to play into the new season?
HH: We just cast the cutest child who has ever been on the planet as Baby Hodgins. When we made Hodgins and Angela have a baby, we did not know we would be repeating that story movement. But, luckily or fortuitously, these people are completely different in the way they’re going to raise their babies. There’s one couple that is married raising a baby and then there’s whatever the hell we’re going to do with Brennan, her baby and Booth and it’s giving us a tons of story. In fact, what we have to do is remember that this is a crime show and we solve murders. It’s not Relativity or Parenthood.
Q: So your priorities were forced to be altered, right?
HH: When Vincent was shot [last season] we knew Booth and Brennan would take comfort in each other’s arms. The part we didn’t have in our heads was when Emily got pregnant but we said, ‘Wait a minute! We have an opportunity here. We can jump the Moonlighting curse. We can just jump it.’ I’ve never said this before because I didn’t want to talk about the Moonlighting curse but what that is is that there’s a couple, there’s sexual tension and then they get together and there’s no sexual tension but everything else looks the same. They go through life exactly the same and it’s boring. You have to replace the sexual tension with something. We replaced it with a baby and now there’s a whole new thing for them to contend with. The ‘will they get together?’ still exists but in a different form. Are they sleeping together now? Are they not? I hope people tune in.
Q: Will there be nursery at the Jefferson?
HH: There is a very good daycare at the Jefferson, which we will hardly ever go look at! What is Brennan, who likes to be up all night, going to have to do when she’s breastfeeding? [grins] Not that I’m saying she’s breastfeeding.
JH: Tamara [Taylor, whose interview during the same party will be posted soon!] was telling me that Cam needs to get busy this season.
HH: Someone has to, right!
JH: She seems to be very up for that!
HH: Believe me, I know. She’s up for it.
JH: She was a little afraid to tell me anything but there aren’t many single people left on the show, huh?
HH: I’m so terrifying! [laughs] Cam deserves…well, you just said it…how many people have we got left? The squinterns are there but even John Francis Daley has an on-again/off-again relationship that we’ll be looking at and then we have fun with Cam. Because, if we’re going to go thematic, she has a 17-year old daughter to deal with and that will be fun.
Q: What can you tell about the new squints?
HH: The new squint is Finn Abernathy, played by an actor and his name is hilarious. Luke Kleintank. [laughs]
Q: Did you just cast him for that name?
HH: I thought, “How can we not cast someone named Luke Kleintank!’ But Finn is a Southern kid with a checkered past. He’s very well educated, graduated college by the time he was 16 but he attended the University College from juvie. He’s a problem. (Kleintank appears beginning in the 2nd episode of the season, according to TVGuide.com)
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JH: What about the pregnancy?
HH: Here’s what I’ve realized about next season. Anything I say tells the audience what we’re going to do. Really! I can’t say anything! People say, ‘Are Booth and Brennan moving in together?’ Please watch the show and find out. ‘Are they not moving in together?’ Please watch the show and find out. I am so bad. Stephen Nathan has already said this much and maybe it’s my fault…we said the baby is going to be born and I was thinking ‘We shouldn’t even say that. We should let people worry about that!’ But now everybody knows the baby will be born. Really, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t have [Emily Deschanel] have the baby and then the character not.
JH: And what about Baby Hodgins? How is that going to play into the new season?
HH: We just cast the cutest child who has ever been on the planet as Baby Hodgins. When we made Hodgins and Angela have a baby, we did not know we would be repeating that story movement. But, luckily or fortuitously, these people are completely different in the way they’re going to raise their babies. There’s one couple that is married raising a baby and then there’s whatever the hell we’re going to do with Brennan, her baby and Booth and it’s giving us a tons of story. In fact, what we have to do is remember that this is a crime show and we solve murders. It’s not Relativity or Parenthood.
Q: So your priorities were forced to be altered, right?
HH: When Vincent was shot [last season] we knew Booth and Brennan would take comfort in each other’s arms. The part we didn’t have in our heads was when Emily got pregnant but we said, ‘Wait a minute! We have an opportunity here. We can jump the Moonlighting curse. We can just jump it.’ I’ve never said this before because I didn’t want to talk about the Moonlighting curse but what that is is that there’s a couple, there’s sexual tension and then they get together and there’s no sexual tension but everything else looks the same. They go through life exactly the same and it’s boring. You have to replace the sexual tension with something. We replaced it with a baby and now there’s a whole new thing for them to contend with. The ‘will they get together?’ still exists but in a different form. Are they sleeping together now? Are they not? I hope people tune in.
Q: Will there be nursery at the Jefferson?
HH: There is a very good daycare at the Jefferson, which we will hardly ever go look at! What is Brennan, who likes to be up all night, going to have to do when she’s breastfeeding? [grins] Not that I’m saying she’s breastfeeding.
JH: Tamara [Taylor, whose interview during the same party will be posted soon!] was telling me that Cam needs to get busy this season.
HH: Someone has to, right!
JH: She seems to be very up for that!
HH: Believe me, I know. She’s up for it.
JH: She was a little afraid to tell me anything but there aren’t many single people left on the show, huh?
HH: I’m so terrifying! [laughs] Cam deserves…well, you just said it…how many people have we got left? The squinterns are there but even John Francis Daley has an on-again/off-again relationship that we’ll be looking at and then we have fun with Cam. Because, if we’re going to go thematic, she has a 17-year old daughter to deal with and that will be fun.
Q: What can you tell about the new squints?
HH: The new squint is Finn Abernathy, played by an actor and his name is hilarious. Luke Kleintank. [laughs]
Q: Did you just cast him for that name?
HH: I thought, “How can we not cast someone named Luke Kleintank!’ But Finn is a Southern kid with a checkered past. He’s very well educated, graduated college by the time he was 16 but he attended the University College from juvie. He’s a problem. (Kleintank appears beginning in the 2nd episode of the season, according to TVGuide.com)
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