‘We toyed with the idea’: SEAL Team star says Jason was almost killed
Paramount+’s SEAL Team recently wrapped up its seventh season. Following the series finale, David Boreanaz, who plays Special Forces Command Officer Jason Hayes, addressed the fate of his character on the military drama.
Speaking to Variety, Boreanaz revealed that the creative team considered killing Jason off. “We toyed with the idea of a season where he had more command in the HAVOC control room and tried to get a feel for what that would feel like,” the actor said. “Personally, for me to put the character in that situation, I didn’t feel right. I thought it would be more awkward and a little more fish out of water. I mean, Master Chief wouldn’t really be a fish out of water, but it would be boring in that situation.”
“The real nature of this guy is, he’s going to break some rules. In the opening sequence of the first episode, he’s going to go into another room, grab the files, jump down, and almost get killed. He’s always put himself in that situation and barely escapes. That’s who he is, and I’m glad we stuck with that,” Boreanaz explained. “In terms of discussing whether he’s actually going to be killed, I thought about that at the end of Season 4, when I just thought, ‘Maybe we should kill him and get it over with.’”
Killing Jason would be a bad choice
“Because it makes sense not to finish another traumatic event that these people have endured, I think I would be playing the role of the unjust one [if we killed him],” Boreanaz continued. “Coming into the season, before the writers’ strike, I said this would be my last. This wasn’t something that was thrown at us. It’s pretty well-known to me, and because of that storyline and considering that third-order trauma, I knew I did the character justice.”
Created by Benjamin Cavell, SEAL Team debuted on CBS in 2017. The show moved to Paramount+ in the middle of its fifth season. “The series chronicles the lives of the Navy’s elite SEALs as they train, plan, and execute the most dangerous, high-risk missions the United States could ask of them,” the official synopsis reads. Along with Boreanaz, the cast includes Max Thieriot, Jessica Paré, Neil Brown Jr., A. J. Buckley, and Toni Trucks.
Boreanaz previously explained that it was the right time to end the series because he was “done, physically and mentally.” The actor went on to elaborate on the challenges of playing a military man. “From my perspective, as an actor portraying these emotions, I can only imagine what it’s like for people who are actually living through it,” he said. “There’s a process. There’s a grief. Ultimately, I don’t think it ever really goes away, but you can figure out how to manage it.”
