Beloved ‘Bones’ Star’s Anxiety Attacks Almost Led to Season 1 Firing

Beloved ‘Bones’ Star’s Anxiety Attacks Almost Led to Season 1 Firing originally appeared on Parade.

The first season of Bones wasn’t a walk in the park for leading lady Emily Deschanel. In fact, the actress, who portrayed Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan, found herself late to set and forgetting lines during filming.

“We were working insane hours, longer than just a normal series,” Emily, 48, explained during the July 8 episode of the “Fail Better with David Duchovny” podcast. “You’re working 14- to 16-hour days, and then I had to memorize the lines. So I’d be staying up late night, memorizing lines. I would joke that I would go home and just cry in a bathtub every night because I was just so overwhelmed.”

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Emily also shared that her ADHD and dyslexia diagnoses contributed to her struggles on the job. It got so bad that she would often arrive at work on “no sleep” and tried her best to “remember the lines that I had memorized the night before and then I had them in my head and couldn’t remember them.”

Photo by Beck Starr/FilmMagic

One day, the California native was tardy for her call time after being stuck in traffic due to an accident she was not involved in. Emily’s delay warranted a visit from the Fox series’ creator, Hart Hanson.

Emily reflected on the “unusual” encounter in her trailer and shared how the studio’s “concerns” turned into a pivotal moment in her role on the show.

“They said that I was late and unprepared. And that to me — I get emotional just thinking about it now because it was probably shame [that I was feeling],” Emily continued during the podcast episode. “I mean, I was a wreck … I took it so hard, and I was such a fragile person at the time. I got hardened up doing that show for so long. I was not sleeping, I was so stressed out. I was already, I’m an emotional person, so I was just beside myself.”

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Despite Emily’s rocky start, the actress starred in the 12-season run of Bones, which aired between 2005 and 2017.

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Beloved ‘Bones’ Star’s Anxiety Attacks Almost Led to Season 1 Firing first appeared on Parade on Jul 13, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 13, 2025, where it first appeared.