David Boreanaz: Will There Ever Be An Angel And Buffy Reunion?
David Boreanaz has said he won't be going back for a Buffy and Angel reunion with Sarah Michelle Gellar
David Boreanaz has had a huge career in television. The actor has been a part of numerous hit TV series and has added his latest venture to that list of wins.
Unfortunately, for those of you who may be nostalgic about his past on iconic shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (with Sarah Michelle Gellar), David Boreanaz doesn’t want to look back. And along the way, there have been a few controversies with the actor.
HE SAYS THERE WON’T BE AN ANGEL AND BUFFY REUNION
Don’t ask about David Boreanaz going back to the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it ain’t happening. Okay, you can ask, but it still isn’t happening. He’s pretty adamant about it.
What about David Boreanaz being part of a Buffy remake? He feels the new reboot is a good thing. He was pretty exact with his answer.
He said, “No, never; that’s done, see ya, next. I have no problem with the cult audience, and I would totally get back into the genre, but I’m not a big reunion guy. I tend to like to go forward. I don’t like to go backward—except when I’ve got ice skates on my feet, and I’m playing hockey.”
With David Boreanaz’s current career, and his feelings stated pretty clearly, it doesn’t look like this is going to be happening.
DAVID BOREANAZ WAS SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT BY BONES CO-STAR KRISTINA HAGAN
Bones was a huge television hit for David Boreanaz, but there were some problems along the way. In 2011, actress Kristina Hagan sued David Boreanaz for sexual harassment she claimed she suffered on the set of Bones.
Hagan accused the then 41-year-old and married David Boreanaz of hitting on her while she was working on the show as an extra.
She alleged that then later, he texted her unsolicited photos of his penis. She further claimed that in an incident where David gave her a ride home, he told her he was “the boss and that he “could make things happen for her” before pulling into a park and forcing himself on her. She claims he tried again later in his trailer.
Boreanaz claimed the whole thing was absurd, but he later settled the lawsuit out of court. After that it all seemed to just go away with Hagan telling E! News, “The matter has been resolved”.
HE STARTED OUT ON MARRIED… WITH CHILDREN
David Boreanaz’s jump into an acting career was more of a stumble out of the blocks. While the acting bug came to him out of necessity, it took awhile for roles to find him.
During an interview with Parade, David Boreanaz reflected back on when and why the itch began for him. “When I moved to Philadelphia, I got pushed around a lot and had to try to find my way. It was a different environment than Buffalo.”
Even more different was Boreanaz’s move to Los Angeles. He would dress in a suit, pass out résumés around town and try to get himself onto different movie or TV sets. It worked when he found his way onto the Cheers set. “I looked like an extra, so I blended in and got lunch that day for free.” But lunch didn’t turn into a role.
David Boreanaz’s first two roles were uncredited background gigs: one as a spectator and the other as a parking valet. His very first credited role came on the comedy series Married… with Children. It then took another three-plus years of kicking around Hollywood before the door would open again.
DAVID BOREANAZ WAS BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’S ANGEL
According to David Boreanaz, it was the right place at the right time. As a true struggling actor, Boreanaz had been trying to make ends meet while deciding if acting was his true path.
He told Entertainment Weekly, “When Buffy hit, I was in the right spot at the right time, but I had been struggling for years just to get in the door. I couldn’t even do a commercial, like a gum commercial without freaking out. You have to go through the pain to get to the other end, and then once you get to the top, you’re not down — you gotta climb other mountains. It’s not like “Hey, let’s pack it in.”
David Boreanaz looks back on his audition as fortuitous. “So I walked in, met with [casting director Marcia Shulman], read for the piece, then went back. When I met Marcia, we just connected. She is such a beautiful lady, someone who was in my camp. We talked a lot about the East Coast and New York restaurants and then got into this character, finally.”
“Then, I went in the room and read for (executive producer Gail Berman), (creator Joss Whedon), and (co-executive producer at the time) David Greenwalt. They were kind of pressed against the hour to cast this character because I would have been shooting, I think, the next day. The day after they cast me, I remember being thrown into this world of complete chaos.”
After a long time down and out, David Boreanaz nailed the role of Angel. “It was all timing, really. [Angel] initially had an arc of 6 out of the 12 episodes. He was somebody who could be recurring and a love interest to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar). It happened so quickly, but in order for things to happen quickly when you recognize them, you have to be ready; when it hits, it’s quick.”
Not only did it hit quickly, it hit big. Boreanaz was able to turn his Buffy role into his own starring vehicle in the spin-off series Angel.
DAVID BOREANAZ GOT HIS OWN SPINOFF, ANGEL
As Angel, David Boreanaz was an immediate fan favorite. Co-creators Joss Whedon and David Greenwalt saw this and knew they had something. So, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer was rolling, they put together the spin-off Angel. It, too, was an immediate hit.
Boreanaz’s character moved out to Los Angeles to continue his vampiric ways. He would occasionally cross over back to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even appearing in Buffy’s series finale, then spending one more season in his Angel attire.
HE HAD ANOTHER HIT SERIES WITH BONES
When the massively successful run as Angel ended, Boreanaz was looking for more to do. It didn’t take long as he had made a great name for himself in Hollywood. His next big, juicy role came shortly after the end of Angel with the hit TV series, the long-running Bones.
As Seely Booth, he played the cocky, wise-ass FBI Special Agent partner to Emily Deschanel’s Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan. You thought the Buffy/Angel relationship was something, but it didn’t hold a candle to Booth and Bones.
Theirs was a match made in heaven. It was so heavenly that the series ran for 12 seasons, with the pair appearing in each and every episode.
While Bones was making a name for itself, Boreanaz found other projects around Hollywood. These ventured more toward the feature film arena as he starred in The Hard Easy, Mr. Fix It, Suffering Man’s Charity, and The Mighty Macs. He also found time to do some voice work on Family Guy and American Dad while also appearing on TV shows such as Full Circle and Sleepy Hollow.
HE STARRED IN SEAL TEAM FOR CBS AND PARAMOUNT+
You’d think that with the success of Buffy and Angel, then following that up with an extremely impressive run on Bones, that David Boreanaz best work was behind him. That would not be true.
David wasn’t sure what his next move was going to be after Bones ended, “I’m in a position now where I just don’t feel like I need to chase anything in my life, so whatever happens, happens,” he told Parade.
SEAL Team came quickly. Turns out, this role is the one he is most proud of. He said this about Jason Hayes, the Tier 1 Seal Team member he portrays, “He is really important to me and, playing him, I feel more in tune as I’ve ever been with a character.”
But it’s not simply the character and how he’s drawn up, but what he stands for and what the soldiers he portrays stand for. “We’ve gotten very positive feedback from veterans, Tier-One operators and armed forces people thanking us.”
The goal for the series is to “shine light on these guys who suffer in what they do for a living and how they protect us.” With that in mind, David Boreanaz pays homage to a real-life SEAL, one who was deployed on many a mission including the mission to take out Osama Bin Laden.
“I wear his helmet. I could wear a lighter [prop] helmet, but I decided to wear his actual helmet to honor him and I will do that throughout the whole series of its run.” It was this SEAL who brought the idea of the series to the network.
For the first four seasons, David Boreanaz’s SEAL Team was a proud member of the CBS family. The hit series, which had ranked high on the most-watched CBS shows, is not leaving the CBS family, it is just moving over to the Paramount+ streaming service. The fifth season premiere was seen on the CBS network but has since made the move and remained a hit.
“The streaming format allows us just to do more, more action, more intense scenes. It just gives us that extra fabric of getting deeper into the character development, and what these veterans and these characters struggle with, whether it’s PTS (post-traumatic stress), or TBI (traumatic brain injury),” David Boreanaz told Entertainment Tonight.
But it’s not only the move to Paramount+ or the fact that the show continued to pull in strong numbers or even the fact that David Boreanaz got to continue to tell the story of his Jason Hayes character that got him revved up.
No, it was also the fact that David Boreanaz got to sit in the director’s chair again. His first directing gig came back in 2004 on an episode of Angel. After that, he put on his director’s cap on a series he is very well known for – Bones. During the show’s 12-year run, Boreanaz was behind the camera for 11 episodes. He took that experience with him to SEAL Team, where he directed six episodes.
David Boreanaz spoke highly of the new season and what fans will be seeing, which includes one of the latest episodes that found him behind the camera. “We’ll be heading to Venezuela, doing a huge undercover op, which really will start to expose his brain issues and where they’re at,” he explained.
“…it can shed some light into some dark corners of people who are suffering out there.”
-David Boreanaz
“And one that I actually finished directing that is really gonna be intense as far as, you know, he could’ve really caused a major problem, which leads into the Venezuela hit, which is the end of season 4’s run. But there’s a really big arc with these characters, and that’s gonna pay off nicely.”
Although there has been plenty of talk of a Buffy/Angel reunion, David Boreanaz’s focus was strictly on SEAL Team. Along with starring in the series and directing a few episodes, Boreanaz was also one of the series’ producers. And what he loved most about being able to produce the show is how they continue to share stories of veterans who have been affected by mental health issues.
“The veterans that are on our show, who have suffered from these particular illnesses and have struggled with mental health, that reflects on our show and that was one of the biggest things that Chris Chulack wanted to do when he did the pilot,” he said.
“And we’ve kept it real since day one and we’re continuing to do that. It gives a good insight into what these characters are going through, and at the end, it can shed some light into some dark corners of people who are suffering out there. So that’s our biggest reward.”
SEAL Team completed its run with the seventh and final season which premiered on August 11, 2024.
