Who Played Hannah On Bones? Katheryn Winnick's Career Goes Beyond One Character
Throughout their messy and prolonged courtship, "Bones" couple Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) and FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) played their fair share of romantic musical chairs. They both tested the waters of a workplace relationship fairly early on in the show's run, with Brennan hopping into bed with Booth's FBI colleague Tim "Sully" Sullivan (Eddie McClintock) — and causing a bit of a ruckus among Fox's censors — in season 2. This was around the same time that Booth restarted his own amorous association with the then-newly-appointed boss of the Jeffersonian Institute's forensic division, Camille "Cam" Saroyan (Tamara Taylor).
As the saying goes, if you can't be with the one you love, hook up with the one who will abruptly vanish in a few episodes (unless they become a fan favorite like Cam).
By the time Hannah Burley (Katheryn Winnick) entered the scene in season 6, the Bones-Booth ship was perilously close to coming into port. The multi-Peabody award-winning journalist hooked up with Booth during his stint in Afghanistan between seasons 5 and 6 and more or less operated as the disposable fiancée in the show's greater (emotionally guarded) girl meets (emotionally transparent) boy plot ... or at least she would have, had she not shot down Booth's sporadic proposal after a night of drunken engagement ring buying.
It all worked out, though. "Bones" overcame the so-called "'Moonlighting' curse" and thrived for another six years after Brennan and Booth brought their will they/won't they tango to a close that season. Meanwhile, Winnick has gone on to land a lead role in several TV series since then, in addition to further carving out a career for herself as a character actor on the big screen.
So, naturally, Winnick became a Viking
Winnick popped up all over the place in the decade leading up to her "Bones" run, from rom-coms like "Two Weeks Notice" and "Failure to Launch" to Doug Bradley's final outing as Pinhead in "Hellraiser: Helloworld." However, her recurring role as Hannah marked a turning point in her career, after which she would go from one-off parts on shows like "House," "Law & Order," and "CSI" to headlining series herself. She also played Ivana Trump in "Trump Unauthorized," a 2005 TV movie biopic about the Trump family that I will happily go to my grave having never watched (with no disrespect intended towards Winnick, who I'm sure is perfectly fine in it).
Her biggest post-"Bones" role is unquestionably that of Lagertha on "Vikings," the first wife of Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) on Michael Hirst's popular historical drama series. She also served as part of the main cast of Tony Krantz and John Wirth's short-lived yet well-received supernatural martial arts Netflix show "Wu Assassins" and led David E. Kelley's "Big Sky" — an ABC crime drama series based on C. J. Box's "The Highway" books — over its three seasons. Notably, Winnick has kept busy on the film side even while juggling several TV roles, having since popped up in director Jonas Åkerlund's "John Wick" wannabe "Polar" and "The Marksman" (2021's entry into the "Liam Neeson is a gruff old-timer with a violent past who gets a shot at redemption" catalog).
It's a good reminder: behind every disposable love interest on network television is a hard-working actor whose career goes well beyond a single character.
You can revisit Booth and Hannah's doomed romance by streaming "Bones" on Hulu and Freevee now.