USA Network’s Burn Notice wraps Season 3 with a real twisted finale and it’s definitely worth watching and recording to DVR, because you will miss things in this episode if you blink !
A round-table interview with a packed conference call of journos got a chance to interview Gabrielle Anwar (Fiona) and Jeffrey Donovan –first time– (Michael Westen) for a really interesting and unique series of questions and the most amazing answers.
This is a *L O N G* podcast. I did edit it but I couldn’t edit so much because of the way the two actors were interacting with each other and reporters. So stick with it; you will learn a great deal about these characters! Note there is a print transcript which is easy enough to read, but honestly if you miss the podcast, you miss serious nuances and insight into these two characters and these two actors!!
Transcript: Gabrielle Anwar and Jeffrey Donovan, Burn Notice
Moderator We’ll go to the line of Kenn Gold with Media Blvd, please go ahead.
K. Gold Hello, I want to thank you both for taking the time today, I really love the show and your performances. It’s great to talk to you.
J. Donovan Thanks, Kenn.
K. Gold First question I had, I just wondered if you could talk about, are you surprised at the success of this show? And I know at times, for USA, the show is either competitive with NBC or sometimes even through passing and are you surprised with the following that it’s gotten over the years?
J. Donovan Well, I think that all you can hope for is that you make something that people want to watch and then somehow keep integrity while doing that. And so I think we’re very happy with the ratings definitely. I know we work really hard, so surprised, yes, we’re always surprised when anything succeeds in this day and age.
K. Gold Okay, great. And one for both of you, can you talk about your characters and just kind of the evolution that we’ve seen in your characters, and are you happy with where you guys have ended up with your characters? And if you’re in charge of everything, where would you like to see them go I guess in the season or in the future?
G. Anwar Do you think we’ve evolved?
K. Gold I’m sure you could always do it better, I mean everybody’s got to have that feel for their character.
G. Anwar I don’t know where we’re going, where are we going, Jeffrey?
J. Donovan Well, I think that, I’ll speak for Gabrielle, I mean I know from talking with all the other cast mates, we’re very happy with where it’s going. But sometimes Matt Nix and all the other writers keep us slightly in the character dark, not because they don’t trust us with the knowledge, but they’re just trying to figure it out as well along the way.
When you’re dealing with espionage and covert affairs, sometimes the secret is more exciting than the knowledge. If we were both in charge, I would love a deeper insight into Michael’s past, that’s for me. I don’t know about Gabrielle, what would you like?
G. Anwar I’m quite happy with Fiona’s enigmatic state of being. I don’t think I need to know more about, I’d love to know more about where you’re from, absolutely, but I quite like not knowing. I don’t like to know who I am.
Michael Westen
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of Jenny Rarden with TVismypacifier.com, please go ahead.
J. Rarden Hello. Thank you, guys, for speaking with us today. My first question is for Jeffrey, I read online that in an upcoming episode, Michael will be going somewhere other than Miami and that he won’t be alone. Can you tell us where your characters going and why, as well as who’s going with him?
J. Donovan Well, obviously I can’t. It’s the season finale, and it’s really literally in the last five minutes of the show. It’s a bit of a cliffhanger. Michael’s been stuck in Miami for quite some time, and there’s a couple of psychopaths on his tail, and things come to a hilt. And by the end of the show, Michael is actually transported out of Miami, but I can’t tell you where, but it’s a bit of a cliffhanger.
J. Rarden Well that’s good enough, yes, we wouldn’t want to give everything away. Okay, and then my second question is for both of you, when my husband and I saw the previews for Burn Notice before its first season, the thing that first caught our eye was you, Jeffrey. We’ve been huge fans of yours since we saw you in Touching Evil, which we loved.
J. Donovan Thank you.
J. Rarden The other things that caught our attention were the plot and that it was on USA, which we feel is a terrific network for bringing out new and extraordinarily interesting shows and characters. So for both of you, what first drew you to the show and to your characters?
J. Donovan Gabrielle?
G. Anwar I was drawn to the character, Fiona, I just thought it was so brilliantly written. It was sparingly written, but so insightful. I couldn’t believe that a man had actually written the script, I mean at least her character. When I first met Matt Nix, who created and wrote the script, I actually said to him, you must have a remarkable relationship with your wife, because you have such incredible insight. So that was what intrigued me about playing a character.
When you sign up for a TV show, you don’t know if it’s going to be for a pilot or for the rest of your life, so I wanted to play a character that I enjoyed thoroughly, and there weren’t that many of them out there. So that’s why I clasped onto this script with great hope.
J. Donovan I got hooked on the voiceover, the first page is a voiceover, it says, “You know what it’s like to be a spy?” I love the idea that not only do I get to play a spy, I get to play a burn spy, and on top of that, I can talk to the audience about what it’s like being a spy. I thought I had never seen anything like that on television, so that’s what hooked me.
Sam Axe
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of Susan Leno with The TV MegaSite, please go ahead.
S. Lanoue Hello. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the rest of the upcoming episodes, especially Good Intentions?
J. Donovan It’s difficult, because a lot of it is, The Penultimate Episode and then the finale have a lot of cliffhangers and a lot of reveals.
S. Lanoue Right.
J. Donovan So without giving too much away, Gilroy, who’s basically a psychopath controlling Michael’s actions, has to deliver a plane that has a secret piece of cargo in it and needs Michael’s help to do it. When that happens, you find out it actually is someone quite dangerous, and Michael unfortunately allows him to escape.
And then the finale is about trying to capture this psychopath that’s loose.
Burn Notice: Season 3 Finale
S. Lanoue Alright, and what was it like working with Carlos Bernard in the episode?
J. Donovan: Gabrielle?
G. Anwar Fantastic. He’s such a wonderful man and a fantastic actor, it was an absolute pleasure.
J. Donovan I didn’t really work with him much, so it was all Gabrielle and Carlos. So I only met him in brief, I think at the lunch table.
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of Joshua Maloni with NFT, please go ahead.
J. Maloni Hello, guys, thanks for your time today.. Let me ask you both, you both obviously had success in film, and a lot of times when that happens, people are less likely to want to do television. What do you like about this particular medium and why do you keep coming back to television? What do you like about this?
J. Donovan I think that, especially with cable, it’s an avenue to be creative. I think why people are drawn more now to cable shows than ever is that they take more risks, they’re creatively pushing the envelope. I think that the networks have to answer to a bigger advertising calling, whereas the smaller cables have lower ceilings that they can bump their heads on. So I think that’s why I keep being drawn back to television, because I think it’s one of the most creative outlets.
And if you think about it, we make 16 one-hour movies a season. You don’t get any opportunity like that in movies. I mean, I can’t say I’ll be able to do 16 movies in the next year, and so that’s how I see it. How about you, Gabrielle?
G. Anwar I like the stability, the continuity of having a lifestyle where I know I can pay my rent at the end of each month. And also I have these children that I am raising and it’s nice for all of us to sort of know that we’re going to be in a specific place for a certain amount of time. I’ve never known that in my career. So I’m really quite grateful at this point that I get to have the sort of double existence and I can rely on both.
J. Maloni Right. And Gabrielle, I apologize if you’ve already been asked this, but take us a little bit inside Fiona’s mind with regard to Michael’s pursuit of the truth of trying to erase the burn notice. What is her sort of threshold? How long can she wait for him to sort of fulfill this quest that he’s on?
G. Anwar I don’t know. It’s really not up to me is it? I have my own personal threshold and it was at the end of season one.
J. Donovan Wow, wow.
G. Anwar I think it’s going to be a real testament to have patience and adoration of Michael, which I don’t think she would admit either.
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of Sheldon Weibe with Eclipse Magazine, please go ahead.
S. Weibe Hello, thanks so much for doing this call. One of the strengths of the show is that each of the three major characters is capable of assessing the strength and weaknesses of an opponent or an ally. What I’d like is if you would put yourselves in the mindsets of your characters and then assess your own characters and each others.
G. Anwar Whoa.
J. Donovan Well, Dr. Freud, I would say that Michael is probably some sort of borderline personality disorder who grew up in incredible fear in a dysfunctional hostile family. He ran away and escaped it, so he joined the U.S. Army to find a noble pursuit. Now, he uses all the things that damaged him as his abilities now to help others. I wouldn’t even go in to trying to figure out Fiona.
G. Anwar Well, I don’t even understand your question, so let’s just leave it at that.
S. Weibe Oh, dear, okay. What would Fiona’s assessment of Michael be from an objective potential opponent or ally position?
G. Anwar His ability to decipher the characteristics of the problem at hand you mean, that assessment of him?
S. Weibe That kind of thing, yes.
G. Anwar I think she finds it extraordinarily erotic.
J. Donovan Really.
S. Weibe Okay.
G. Anwar I do. I think it’s foreplay, all of it. I think she finds him the most fascinating creature.
J. Donovan Wait a minute, you said I do, and then you said she, is this Gabrielle talking?
G. Anwar Well, Dr. Freud, who’s the bloody doctor here, Jeffrey?
J. Donovan He is.
G. Anwar Look what you’ve caused.
Fiona
Moderator Next, we’ll go to the line of April MacIntyre with Monsters & Critics, please go ahead.
A. MacIntyre Okay, I’m going to compose myself from that last question. Okay, right. So I’m loving the series and the more I watch your series, Jeffrey, it reminds me of this old series from the 60s called The Avengers. It has that feel. There’s a very, the combination of real drama and camp and humor and lightness. And Gabrielle, you’re Diana Rigg for lack of, yes–
G. Anwar Yes, thank you.
A. MacIntyre And of course, Jeffrey, you’re Patrick Macnee for me, I feel the more I watch it, the more I’m reminded of that series as far as the pacing, the energy, the breaks of comedy into the drama. And I was wondering if you could tell me, I really enjoyed seeing Tim Matheson and you play off each other, and I’m wondering will we see Larry again?
J. Donovan Yes, you will. Larry’s such a pivotal thorn in Michael’s … and that gives my character great ammunition to kind of fight with. He’s a terrific character and Tim’s such a wonderful man and an extraordinary actor. One, we were lucky to get him, and two, he’s actually happy to be on the show and wants to continually come back. He’ll be directing season four’s premiere.
A. MacIntyre Wow.
J. Donovan And also, he’ll return as Larry at some point in the season.
A. MacIntyre Love that. And Gabrielle, I love the unspoken communication, you guys say more in glances and looks than what’s delivered on the script, and that’s another wonderful thing about this series. And Gabrielle, I was wondering about you and Madeline, your relationship with each other, and obviously she and Michael are a tribe of two, but I think it’s growing bigger. Can you talk about that?
G. Anwar Yes. I think that these two women have a tremendous amount of respect for one another. And you’re right, there’s so little spoken about what’s really being felt and really being witnessed with that connection to Michael, which I think is pretty accurate to real life, especially with the in-law figures. There’s so much that’s not spoken out loud, and yet there are so many physical undertones and it’s very apparent, and that’s thanks to Sharon. I mean, her performance is so beautifully nuanced and I find it terribly inspiring. She’s a wonderful woman and actress.
I love the series and never miss it. I have no problems watching repeats and if you are really into the Michael Westin spy game, then you need to play Covert Ops— on the USA network site. I This is the new game: Covert Ops: Vegas Heist featuring Seth Peterson who plays Nate Westen and will give fans the opportunity to win a car and other prizes.
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