Bones' Tamara Taylor Put Her Own Spin On Cam's Initially More Serious Persona
For a working actor, there is nothing quite like getting a recurring role on a long-running network TV show. While the days of a show running for 100 episodes or more are quickly dying out in the age of streaming, for a long time, such shows were golden tickets for actors as they could provide steady work (and a steady check) for years well beyond the show's initial run. Such was the case with "Bones," the beloved Fox procedural crime dramedy, which ran for 12 seasons. Among those who became mainstays on the series was Tamara Taylor, who made her debut as Camille "Cam" Saroyan, the then-new head of the Jeffersonian Institute's Forensic Division, in the second season. Originally, however, Taylor was only going to be a guest star.
Having also appeared on shows like "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." and "Party of Five," Taylor would ultimately star in 223 episodes of "Bones." The reason Cam became a fixture on "Bones" came down to the choices Taylor made as an actor. Rather than perform the straightforward version of "the boss" that was on the page, she tried to bring a little something extra to it, as she explained to CherryPicks in 2021:
"Rather than just being 'the boss,' which felt very two-dimensional, I tried to bring a sense of humor to her and a deep appreciation for her team. Cam Saroyan was originally written pretty straightforward, but I noticed, the more fun I had with her, the more I started to see that reflected in the writing."
So, rather than a guest star whose character would've been swiftly killed off, Taylor wound up being a main cast member right alongside David Boreanaz (Booth) and Emily Deschanel (Brennan) for a 12-season run on a hit show that's had a long life. That's impressive.
Turning a small role into a career-defining one
For Taylor, there probably wasn't much to lose by trying to bring something more to the role of Cam. When she first got the gig, it was a smaller thing, so why not try to do something unique with it? Fortunately, that's something that caught the attention of the writers and brass behind the show, which led to by far the most steady role in her long, impressive career. Not many actors get to say they starred in more than 200 episodes of a show.
Taylor has also had an impressive career in television outside of "Bones." Some of her other notable credits include "Lost," "Law & Order: Organized Crime," and "Snowfall," just to name a few. But when you spend more than a decade of your life on the same series, working with the same people, that's undoubtedly significant. That's why it was, in many ways, difficult for the cast to say goodbye when the show ended its run in 2017. In the same interview, Taylor explained that it wasn't so much a celebration as it was a low-key farewell:
"We didn't really celebrate it. It was very emotional saying goodbye to a place we'd called home and people who had become an extended family for over a decade. I think we made the goodbyes low-key because it was too much to process at the time."
You can currently stream "Bones" on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.