Burn Notice's Bruce Campbell Answers a Ton of Questions! Part 1

Burn Notice Premiered last Thursday, 6/4 and it was a real hummer of a episode. Before you get to Thursday 6/11’s Burn Notice show (USA Network @ 9 PM), you might want to check out some of the videos here on this post.
Since the season premiere, I was able to be part of a round-table interview with Bruce Campbell who plays Sam Axe in the series, a sidekick/friend to
Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan)

This phone interview was over 1 hour long. While I had the recording, there is no editing of this kind of interview other than splitting it in half. Rather than have you sitting there listening to it *all*, I ditched the podcast/audio portion in favor of the transcription here.
Sorry but breaking up the podcast into several bits would make you insanely crazy and me going nuts trying to keep the order straight.
Moderator Our first question today is from Suzanne Lanoue with TV MegaSite. Please go ahead.
S. Lanoue Hi. Thank you, Bruce, for being with us today.
B. Campbell You’re welcome, it’s my pleasure.
S. Lanoue I’m one of your big fans, ever since Brisco County.

B. Campbell You’re the one who watched that show.
S. Lanoue I loved that show. I was going to ask you, a lot of your work has been in the, sort of what we call genre shows; science fiction, fantasy, horror, comic book –
B. Campbell I don’t know what you’re talking about.
S. Lanoue And I was wondering if this was a planned effort on your part, or just sort of happened?

B. Campbell It’s a little of both. You are guilt by association, so when my first movie was Evil Dead, which is now 30 years ago …
S. Lanoue Wow.
B. Campbell … when we made the movie – so yes, you are all very old, all of you who are listening – that film was pretty successful and allowed a couple of others to be made and what it did is, it just sort of put me in the genre world, right from the go-get. I suppose if I had made a romantic comedy when I was 21 and that did crazy, then I’d be the romantic comedy guy. It’s kind of how Hollywood works. So, it’s material that I’m sort of interested in, though, too, at the same time, so part of me perpetuates it in that I gravitate toward oddball stories, some genre stuff, not all horror. I like fantasy and sci-fi and that sort of stuff, too, but for me, I guess it’s the combination of starting out in the genre and then being attracted to certain material that could also be considered genre.
S. Lanoue All right, thank you.

B. Campbell Thank you.
Moderator Our next question is from BethAnn Henderson with NiceGirlsTV.com. Please go ahead.
B. Henderson Hi, thank you for taking my call today.
B. Campbell You’re welcome.
B. Henderson Can you tell us a bit about what direction we can see Sam going in this third season?
B. Campbell Well, Sam by now is, we’re now past the point where we don’t trust him. He’s a hopefully valuable member of the team now, and so, like Michael Westen, Sam is taking the twists and turns as they come now. I don’t know that Sam is going to get married or any personal revelation. Sam is pretty much living in Michael’s mother’s house, a room in her house, so he’s just kind of a permanent loser, at least in this season. And he’s always there to help.
B. Henderson Okay, thanks.

Moderator Next we got to the line of Emma Loggins with Fanbolt.com. Please go ahead.
E. Loggins Hi, Bruce. Thanks for doing the call.
B. Campbell And how.
E. Loggins I watched the screeners and it felt to me like the third episode should have been the first episode, since it picked up right where the second season left off. Do you know if there was a reason that they were ordered that way?
B. Campbell Well, that is tough for me to answer, not being in on the big picture like. Actors, we’re always the last people to know anything.
E. Loggins Right.
B. Campbell So I can’t really help you there. I know that we shot them out of order.
E. Loggins Okay.
B. Campbell But they were meant to be screened where, Tim Matheson’s episode, I think it’s “Friends & Family” is the first one, and we shot them out of order because we wanted to kind of get up to speed for the new season before we let them have it with the big opener.
E. Loggins Right.
B. Campbell So we shot the first episode third, so I don’t know, maybe they gave it to you in some strange order.
E. Loggins Okay.
B. Campbell But it will hopefully make sense when it airs on Thursday.
E. Loggins Right.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Anthony Nepal with BurnNotice.com. Please go ahead.
A. Nepal Hi, Bruce. I was wondering, how is Burn Notice different from past TV shows you’ve done?
B. Campbell Well, the making of television is the same, it’s very fast. You’re doing between 6 and 11 pages per day, which is a lot. Features probably do three pages. Big features do one page a day. So that’s not different. What’s different, of course, is we’re in Miami, which is a completely out of the box thing for me because I live in Oregon, at the complete opposite end of the country. So it’s different in every way physically, and the dynamics are different. I’ve never really done a spy show before, so this is a first for me. I did a western show, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., and I did a – well actually, no, I did a spy show, Jack of All Trades, where I played the very first spy, but this is, I guess, you’d say sort of modern day, realistic approach where it’s not Hercules or Xena or something fantastic going on. What’s different is also the subject matter. It’s a fairly mature, adult sort of comedy/drama, with no fantastic special effects.
A. Nepal Okay, thank you for answering that.
B. Campbell All right.

Moderator Our next question is from Zach Oat with televisionwithoutpity.com. Please go ahead.
Z. Oat Hi, Bruce. I wanted to ask about the Expo Center almost getting demolished recently, and it sounds like you got a one-year reprieve to stay there for a while longer.
B. Campbell We did, we got a one-year reprieve.
Z. Oat I was wondering A) how do you feel about that; and B) if the show had actually got up and moved, where would you have liked to have seen it gone?
B. Campbell Hypotheticals are tough and I don’t ever want to give any impressions that I don’t like shooting in Miami. It’s good for the show. Miami is a character in this show, and if we moved it would probably be to California because it makes casting easier, all the writers live there, the actors, half of them live there. I live in Oregon, but it would be closer to my West Coast. I have kids there, too, so a lot of personal reasons.
But for the sake of the show Miami is a good spot. It’s an unexploited city. Even CSI: Miami doesn’t even shoot in Miami, they shoot in California, so we’re it. We’re the only show that is currently shooting in Miami, and the governor even came, Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida. It was great palling around with the governor for a day, trying to bend his arm a little bit, saying, “Hey, Gov, why don’t you help us out here?” Because producers tend to go where it’s the least expensive, and that’s nothing against producers, every producer does that. So we have to see, as long as we can get incentives to stay in Florida, we’ll stay. But there’s also the reality of, if we don’t then we’ll leave and fake it. Television is fake, so if we had to fake Florida we could.
Z. Oat Thank you.
Moderator Thank you, and next we go to the line of Stevie Wilson with LA-Story.com. Please go ahead.
S. Wilson Hi, Bruce. How are you doing today?
B. Campbell I’m doing good, thank you.
S. Wilson Good. It’s interesting, the first episode that’s showing up Thursday night, the way it was constructed, that it really ends up with Madeline talking to all three of you saying that as characters that you all three needed to work together to watch each other’s back, and it seems like Michael has the biggest target. Is that pretty much the whole theme as the season seems to evolve?
B. Campbell I think so. It’s going to get worse for Michael Westen this year, because of a couple of things that have happened as a result of the last two-parter. So his world is a little more unstable this year. He’s not necessarily under the thumb of Carla any more. She was the evil temptress of the last season.
S. Wilson Right.
B. Campbell She’s out of the way, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. His sort of veil of protection has been lifted by these shadowy figures, so now anybody who wants to put a bullet into Michael Westen, which is actually a lot of people, I don’t know – so yes, we do have to stick together. In order to pull through, we’ve all got to be on the same page and watch each other’s back, including Madeline. So, yes, the interpersonal dynamics will get theoretically tighter because if things get worse, you’ve got to know who you can count on

.
Moderator Thank you, and next we’ll go to the line of Stew Miller with Gunaxin.com. Please go ahead.
S. Miller Hey Bruce. How are you doing? It’s nice to talk to you.
I have a question that’s going to be the most simplistic answer you can probably come up with. I notice on the show you drink beer, and I’m a huge beer fan; I write about beer for the site. My question is just simple, what is your favorite beer in every day life?
B. Campbell I gave up beer last March.
S. Miller Really?
B. Campbell Yes.
S. Miller Well, I guess I’m proud of you for that.
B. Campbell Well, I was only using it to wash my tequila down.
S. Miller Oh, well, see, now I wish …
B. Campbell I’m just a tequila guy now. But on the show, obviously, it’s a fake brand, but we were actually introducing Miller Genuine Draft 64.
S. Miller Oh, yes.
B. Campbell And there, I think they’re doing a product tie-in, so Sam’s generic labels in some cases will now go to MGD.
S. Miller Very cool.
B. Campbell Now what do you think of that beer?
S. Miller What do I think of it personally?

B. Campbell Yes.
S. Miller Swill.
B. Campbell Awesome. Okay, I’ll be sure to tell them.
S. Miller That’s just my opinion, though.
B. Campbell No, that’s okay. It’s not going to change the product label.
S. Miller Yes, I didn’t think it would. I appreciate it, thank you.

Moderator Thank you, and next we go to the line of Jennifer Iaccino with Media Blvd Magazine. Please go ahead.
J. Iaccino Hey, Bruce.

B. Campbell Hi there. How are you doing?
J. Iaccino I’m doing good, although I do have to say I’m a bit offended that you think that only old people like the movies like Evil Dead here. Come on, come on.
B. Campbell No, I’m poking fun because I’m older than all of you.
J. Iaccino All right, all right. In fact, you mentioned on, I think it was the commentaries for Evil Dead II that Sam Raimi stands for just like, sort of, beat you up and smack you around.
B. Campbell Yes.
J. Iaccino And other than that, how do you think that Sam compares to your other roles, and what is your favorite part of playing him?
B. Campbell Oh, I see. Boy, I like Sam because he’s my age. He’s, when I got the original script for the pilot, it said Sam Axe, who’s 50.
J. Iaccino Yes?
B. Campbell I thought it, okay. I’m finally playing a mature adult who doesn’t have to, he’s an ex-Navy Seal, he’s tacking around now, he’s trying to get laid and drink beer. And I love the fact that all three characters on this show are sort of damaged goods.
J. Iaccino Yes.
B. Campbell Sam has his issues, Michael has his issues, Fiona has her issues, mostly anger issues. And he’s a character that, to me, feels like an old slipper. He’s not stiff. He doesn’t use all the same terminology. He uses slang. He’s a little bit laid back. He’s wearing Tommy Bahama all the time. And to me, I love the fact that there’s a character who’s that lackadaisical. But at the same time, he can look up anybody; he’s got friends for days, he always knows a guy who knows a guy. So hopefully it’s just a guy that you’d want to pal around with, but yet these guys are very tactical when they want to be.
J. Iaccino Very cool. Thank you very much.
B. Campbell And … he’s actually more similar to real guys than not. I’ve talked to a bunch of ex-police officers who watch the show, and they like the fact that we’re capturing the human side of spies. Everybody knows James Bond, he’s the greedy tough guy, but no one really knows what he’s like, and no one ever really knows what his relationship is with his mother. In this show, you get to know that; I think it’s great.
J. Iaccino Was that like part of your research for becoming Sam?
B. Campbell With what, bleep with a lot of rich Miami women?
J. Iaccino No, I mean – yes, that, of course, but also talking to ex-cops?
B. Campbell No, that’s as a result of the show. You run into a lot of police officers who help us on the show, and they have buddies and buddies, and my ex-wife is remarried to a cop, and so I’ve been talking to him and all his cop buddies, it’s their favorite show now because we do things in an unorthodox way and I’ll bet many police officers wish they could do what we do.
J. Iaccino Cool, cool.
B. Campbell Because we don’t have to answer to anybody. We do things that are illegal but not immoral.
J. Iaccino Damn right.
Moderator And next we got o the line of Kristyn Clarke with popculturemadness.com. Please go ahead.
B. Campbell Popculture Madness, hello.
K. Clarke Hi, how are you?
B. Campbell Good, thank you.
K. Clarke In playing the character of Sam, you would know him better than anyone else, so what is your favorite and least favorite aspect of Sam’s personality?
B. Campbell Of his personality?
K. Clarke Yes.
B. Campbell He’s very loyal. He’s not going to rat on anybody, even in the first season where you didn’t know if he was ratting on Michael, he never really did. He always just stalled the cops, so very loyal. And he is trustworthy, even though he drinks a lot of beer. His other traits are, I wish he could get a job and an apartment, and a car that he can hang onto. We’re going through, like about every fourth episode, Sam gets another one of his cars wrecked. So he doesn’t even have a car, and he doesn’t even have an address, so I’d like to see, I wouldn’t mind some of that happening. But, whatever, I’m not telling the writers what to do. They’re doing a fine job.
Moderator Thank you, and next we go to the line of Brian Fitzpatrick with Lair of the Green Knight. Please go ahead.
B. Fitzpatrick Hi, Bruce. Big fan, thanks for talking to us today.
B. Campbell And how.
B. Fitzpatrick Obviously Burn Notice has a lot of action sequences, do you find the action sequences to be the hardest part of each episode to film, or are they one of the things that are the most fun during production?
B. Campbell It all depends on what you’re doing. Fight scenes can be fun, but they can be very tedious and sweat-inducing, so those take a little more effort. I blew my hamstring last year during a fight scene, so they don’t have me fight as much these days, but action sequences are very broken up when we film them. They’re little tiny pieces that get all put together. So with an action sequence, you just have to hope that what you’re doing is fitting in, because you’re only getting a tiny sequence of view, like looking through a scope ready to fire, or something like that. So when it’s all put together is when it becomes an action sequence, but actually shooting an action sequence, unless you’re chasing somebody, they’re actually the least exciting to film.
Part 2 will run on Thursday and you will get the rest of that information before episode 2. If you didn’t see the premiere (shame on you!), you can see a video clip of it tomorrow.
Check out Burn Notice on the USA networks.
Find more Burn Notice information and videos on
Youtube.com