Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Get ready to feel the 'Burn Notice'

I'm taking a few days off next week and am busy trying to get ahead, but I'll have at least one other post up later today. In the meantime, I'll point you to another of Mo Ryan's in-depth showrunner interviews, this time with "Burn Notice" creator Matt Nix. I particularly like this bit where he talks about Bruce Campbell:
Honestly, we were so lucky with Bruce, I didn’t believe we’d get Bruce. When they said that we might, I was like, “Really? How about Leonardo DiCaprio and a flying car too?” And then he said yes. I thought they were joking and they weren’t.

In some ways, he’s the heart of the show. He embodies the tone. He always strikes a somewhat ironic tone in his acting, but when you watch him, he’s fun to watch. There’s always a part of him that is clearly having fun. He brings that to the set. He brings that to acting. So when you put him and Jeffrey in a room together, they play in a really fun way.

I kind of don’t know what the show is without Bruce. We were incredibly fortunate to get him. That character [of Sam] is one thing, then there is that Bruceness to him as well. The Bruceness is irreduceable [laughs]. It’s hard to put your finger on. Sometimes I feel it’s easy to forgive the show [with him on it]. Things are tightly scheduled, it’s very challenging, there are a lot of things [to sustain], but when Bruce is on the screen, it’s like, “We’re all doing a show here!” I think he buys us a lot of goodwill.

He actually just pulled his hamstring doing a stunt, I just got a call, he’s on the way to the hospital. But that’s a great example of Bruce – he called me on the way to the hospital to say, “Here’s my idea of how we’ll write it into the show.”
I have the first two episodes of the new season (it's back on July 10, with Tricia Helfer as Michael's new "handler"), but haven't had a chance to watch them yet. Looking forward to it.

8 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing that, Alan! I'll trundle over to Mo's site later to read the whole thing, but reading Matt's praise of Bruce was quite uplifting :-)

    I agree that Bruce is the heart (and probably swallowed soul) of Burn Notice. Of course, I'm totally biased in Mr. Campbell's favor.

    --evil dez >;-)

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  2. I liked this show last year, and I'm looking forward to its return. If I had any complaints, it was the almost criminal use of a Richard Schiff. Teased us with his voice on the phone, and then a few weeks later they give us a single scene?! Had I liked the show even a tiny bit less I might have stopped watching on principal. But Bruce Campbell's good.

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  3. Jeez, if I'd known that Bruce Campbell was in this show, I'd have started watching it a long time ago. Now I'm going to have to play catch-up.

    Loved the bit about the "essential Bruceness" -- does anyone not love Bruce? Anyone who doesn't love Bruce must have zero sense of humor.

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  4. I hate Bruce Campbell. I think he has very little talent.

    But I like him a lot in Burn Notice. It shocks the hell out of me.

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  5. I was happy to go to the full interview and read the Nix Love for Jeffrey Donovan; based on only the Campbell excerpt, I'd be kind of pissed off if I were Donovan. I mean, he does contribute as well, right? So I was happy to hear the good words on Donovan, who has been a revelation in this show. I mean, we all knew that Campbell would rock; that's a given. But who thought that anyone as pretty as Donovan would bring so much to the table? He's got fantastic chemistry with all three of the other leads, and is completely convincing.

    I really do love this show, although I didn't expect to. I don't even know why I watched the pilot, but I'm so happy I did. I can't wait for July 10!

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  6. And this is the only reason I would like to be a television writer, so I could see all my favorite shows first. That is, however, the only reason, since I would hate having to watch all the crap I have no interest in seeing, I don't like writing professionally and I dislike deadlines.

    I did not watch Burn Notice last summer, I was very busy and never remembered when it was on, but caught a re-run a couple on months ago and LOVED it, I've been DVRing the re-runs weekly and then I discovered that all 12 episodes were on Hulu.com and watched the last four episodes in one sitting.

    I really enjoy the show...although I could use less Sharon Gless, they really write her very one dimentionally.

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  7. I just finished watching the first 6 eps of Burn Notice on DVD via Netflix and I am hooked. I absolutely love it and can't wait for season 2 to start. Even my husband enjoys it and he pretty much hates all TV.

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  8. Michael Shanks, Stargate's Daniel Jackson, will be appearing in four episodes this season. I'm hoping for scenes with Tricia and/or Bruce. A multi-fandom mashup.

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