Emily Deschanel Says ‘Bones’ Creator Told Her She Was ‘Unprepared’ Filming First Season

Emily Deschanel is opening up about the “shame” of being told she was “late and unprepared” while working on the series Bones.

In a recent episode of David Duchovny’s podcast, Fail Better, the actress noted the demanding schedule of the show, in which she starred for 12 seasons as Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist.

“We were working insane hours, longer than just a normal series. You’re working 14- to 16-hour days, and then I had to memorize the lines,” Deschanel, 48, said. “So I’d be staying up late [at] 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.”

She continued: “I’d come to set and I would be trying to remember the lines … that I had memorized the night before, and then I had them in my head and couldn’t remember them.”

But eventually, the late nights caught up with her and one day, when she arrived to set late after getting caught in traffic, series creator Hart Hanson came calling.

“Hart knocked on my trailer door, which was not a usual thing, he wasn’t knocking on my door often,” she said. “He took me aside and says, ‘The studio has concerns about your work.’ They said that I was late and unprepared. That to me — I get emotional just thinking about it now because it was probably shame.”

She continued: “I mean, I was a wreck. I took it so hard. 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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The conversation ensured that Deschanel was never late again and the forensics drama, which also starred David Boreanaz, would go on to complete a successful run, eventually being picked up for more episodes just as Deschanel was feeling discouraged. It ran from 2005 through 2017.

Deschanel and her Bones costar, Carla Gallo, launched their rewatch podcast Boneheads, produced by Lemonada Media, last year.

Speaking to PEOPLE about the podcast in an earlier interview, Deschanel said, “I would say it makes you reflect on how it was a different time.”

“There were some not-cool representations and some stereotypes, things to apologize for,” she says. “But otherwise it is a total trip down memory lane.”