BONES: Saffron Burrows Teases ‘The Finder’

After months of teasing, the BONES backdoor pilot/crossover with a potential new show/spinoff, “The Finder,” will finally air tonight.

As you may remember, the episode/potential series follows former military man Walter Sherman, who can locate anything. However, his polarizing personality — including extreme paranoia and blunt questions/assumptions – makes him difficult to deal with. He’s brought into the BONES world via his connection to Booth, but the two men have a longstanding grudge against each other for reasons viewers will learn tonight. Walter is assisted on cases by his two partners Ike (who is Walter’s bartender and pilot) and Leo (his lawyer).

I caught up with Saffron Burrows (Ike) and we talked about her role, why she was drawn to this show, working with Geoff Stults (Walter) and Michael Clarke Duncan (Leo) and much more…

This is certainly a different situation than most television pilots — people have been buzzing about it for months because the potential show is debuting during an episode of BONES.
Saffron Burrows: It’s an unusual, silly little situation, isn’t it?

It is. It’s fun for fans.
SB: Yeah, absolutely. I guess it’s a lovely way of introducing this group of people because you have a context for them. So it’s a good set-up, I think.

Were you familiar with BONES before you landed this role?
SB: Yes, I was. I was kind of an admirer of [series stars] David [Boreanaz (Booth)] and Emily [Deschanel (Brennan)]. I think they’re really terrific in BONES. And funny. I thought it was unusual, the balance of humor and drama that [BONES creator] Hart Hanson manages to find with it so that you follow the plot — obviously there’s a strong storyline — but there’s enough humor in there which is unexpected and I really like that tone so, yeah, I enjoyed BONES.

Did you shoot scenes with any of the other BONES cast members besides David and Emily?
SB: No, sadly, I didn’t get to work with the others. I think they’re all really good and everyone in the laboratory is so well cast. I really like watching, but yeah, just David and Emily.

How did you get involved with this project? Did they come to you or did you audition?
SB: Yeah, I went to meet Hart and Dan Sackheim, the producer/director and we had a lovely meeting. And from that I thought, “Oh, I would like to read for this and think about doing it,” because they are such warm, funny, intelligent men that you’d want to be working with. They’re very irreverent and lovely to be around, so I thought to do a project where you might be spending many hours a day together…you always look for people you enjoy being with, you know? You look to challenge and for other human beings to spend time with because they did really seduce me in the room. They’re very, very charming people and I was then curious to meet Geoffrey Stults and to read with him and see how that was and he blew my socks off! He’s a wonderful actor and really talented and I think it’s an interesting tone, the whole thing. The character of Walter, with his two…I don’t even know what to call them! It was very keen to meet Geoff and see how it was working with him and it was immediately delightful so then we took it from there.

So how would you describe Ike?
SB: She’s an ex-criminal, certainly. She’s had a brush with the law. She’s probably, without giving too much away, she’s probably saved her life quite a bit. She wears this tattoo that’s significant in a certain way –- we’ll find out about that a little more later on –- but the tattoo, I think signifies the beginning of a new life for her. So she’s got a criminal past and she runs a bar and she’s a pilot and she has certain skills that the other boys — our skills are overlapping, I would say, like all the best relationships. But Geoff obviously has this finding gift that’s almost magical. And then MCD has this calm, poetic, legal knowledge. The two don’t normally go together, but it’s an unusual combination and then I have the sort of ability to walk into a room and assess the situation very fast and know whether they’re in danger or not.

She comes from probably having quite a difficult past, you know, as a teenager and having to fend for herself quite a lot so I think that informs her now. She’s very slow to trust people, really trusts Walter and Leo and they may be the only two people in the world that she feels that she can confide in and really could trust her life with. There’s a bond between them that’s very powerful.

It’s nice to have that bond between characters and have that groundwork laid for viewers.
SB: Absolutely. It’s unusual I think because [Hart]’d written it really well, so hopefully that feeling comes across. After just one episode, you get that feeling of trust between them.

From what I’ve seen, I can totally buy the trust between them. Obviously the dynamic between the three main characters is important, because while it’s a BONES episode, the hour really is about setting up Walter, Ike and Leo to potentially go forward. How was it working with Geoff and Michael?
SB: Absolutely. The three of them together, they’ve all got specific…Hart’s very good at writing language so that myself, Michael Clarke Duncan and Geoff all have very specific voices in the piece so hopefully they blend in a way that feels like family. You know when you sit with your family around the dinner table and you all have well-defined personalities? They do feel like they’re related to each other in this storyline and hopefully with the work we did.

The boys were really lovely with me and decided to rib me a lot. [Laughs] I like my home comfort so they, literally on day one, nicknamed me “five star.” We shot most of it in Miami and when I got to LA to shoot on the FOX lot, I got to my chair, my actor’s chair, which would normally say my name or say the character name and instead of either of those, it said on the chair “five star.” So they were very funny with me.

If I was a minute late to makeup, it was a whole story. They became like brothers. It was really sweet. I’d be in there early because of course the girl is always in make-up early, right? So I’d be in there at five or something and then they’d call at six or text me and say, “We’re coming in, you better be ready.” They were pretty funny.

I heard they were trying to one-up each other, too.
SB: Oh my God, with their muscles? Who’s got the biggest muscles? Absolutely. They still now send me texts of their torsos or how well their pecs are looking. Actually, I should rephrase that because that sounds really rude. [Laughs] But, yeah, they do. They’ll send, like, contrasting arms and go, “Who is more buff?” Absolutely.

Well if you have the deciding vote, they should suck up to you to try and sway you. You should remind them of that next time you see them.
SB: [Laughs] It’s pretty funny. They’re also tall. It’s great fun working with men, it’s just…I guess we’re all tall because they can fit us into a single frame. You have that challenge with the varying size of actor, using the same close-up, and that’s not a problem with us.

No apple boxes were needed on your set.
SB: Exactly.

Have you and Hart talked about what Ike’s character arc will be if this goes to series?
SB: A little bit, yeah, we have a little bit. I mean, Hart’s got really exciting ideas and obviously they’re all a secret but, yeah, I think Hart does think quite far ahead for people in an exciting way. I also don’t mind an element of surprise as an actor. Obviously that’s the nature of episodic television that will go in one direction and then realize, “Oh, this is where the story’s taking us,” so there’s a bit of both.

I think some things he probably knows what to do with us and then other things will develop — or perhaps he knows everything. But I think it’s quite nice not to know too much

[However, Ike’s] bar is definitely the focal point where, in a police show, it would be the precinct, so the bar is really our starting off point and the point where we mull things over and problem solve and them go out in the world and be brave together. But that’s our sort of home base.

Did you have a favorite scene to shoot from the pilot?
SB: In terms of shooting it or from when I’ve watched it?

Whichever you prefer.
SB: The speedboat stuff was pretty fun because I drive a speedboat across open sea and that was a fantastic day out on the boat. We all were a little trepidatious, I think, because it’s a lot of work to be done. When the thing is cut together, it’s just a few minutes of screen time, but I think that was good to make that work.

There’s a little bit of airplane action, which you’ll see on the show, but the boat was great fun. It sort of unites everyone -– the cast and the crew, you know, everyone rubbing sunblock on each other and it was challenging, you know, it was not easy, but I think we pulled it off.

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Will you be tuning in to “The Finder” episode of BONES tonight?

Related:

BONES: Hart Hanson Talks ‘The Change in the Game’ and a Potential Season 7
BONES: John Francis Daley Teases ‘The Truth in the Myth’
BONES: Michaela Conlin Teases ‘The Feet on the Beach,’ Prompting Radical Honesty and an Upcoming Surprise

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