QUOTE (The Oregonian)
Burn Notice' finds ex-spy in a hot spot
Michael Westen's in a delicate position as season two delves into what makes the former CIA spook tick
Sunday, July 06, 2008 JOHN CROOK ZAP2IT The Oregonian
The last time we saw Michael Westen, in the first season finale of "Burn Notice," the former CIA spy was driving his car into the cargo hold of a large truck that was going to transport him to meet the people behind his inexplicable job termination. Expect some answers, then, as the series returns to USA Network on Thursday, July 10, but don't be surprised if they raise even more baffling questions, cautions series creator Matt Nix.
"At the end of last season, Richard Schiff's character, Phil Cowan, said, 'The people I work for have big plans for you,' " Nix says. "Season two is about those big plans and the fact that Michael is in a delicate position: The only way he can find out more about the people who burned him and perhaps ultimately do something about that is by playing along with them.
"Just because you find the guy whose name was on the file that got you burned, that and a buck-fifty will get you a cup of coffee -- especially if the guy is dead. I think a lot of people expect us to spend a lot of time on 'who did it' as far as the burn notice, but that's not really the question. It's less about who burned Michael than what Michael can do about it." In fact, Nix adds, "Burn Notice" never was designed to be a conventional procedural drama. Less a "whodunit" than a "whaddya-gonna-do-about-it," the series deftly hopscotches across genres, delivering belly laughs even as it probes what drove Michael into his dangerous line of work and, now, his tricky attempts to reconnect with his family, including prickly mother Madeline (Sharon Gless).
"We wanted to go to a place where a spy is born: What is his family background, and what turns him into a guy who goes around the world doing this?" Nix explains. "Because it really isn't a good job. It doesn't pay that well. It's very dangerous. You have to be pushed by some very real conflict within you to do that kind of job.
"That's the emotional core of this series, that Michael can do all these things, but he has paid a terrible price for all of them. If you're always checking all the exits in the restaurant, you can't really enjoy the food. You are constantly figuring out what agenda people have, which makes it very difficult to have a real relationship with them."
While "Burn Notice" doesn't stint on the action sequences, it's the four richly drawn main characters -- which also include Michael's former CIA colleague, Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), and quirky ex-girlfriend Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) -- that kept an average of nearly 3 million viewers tuning in each week during the show's first season.
"On USA, the cliche may be 'characters welcome,' but I've found it mostly to be true." Campbell says. "When stuff blows up, you have to care that stuff blows up. If you don't care about the people, you don't care that stuff blows up. You want to think, 'Oh, God, are they OK?'
"This whole show is about how Michael becomes a human. He was trained to be a spy and a killer, but he didn't have to do any social interaction. He never even dealt with his family, because he was gone all the time. Now, because of his situation, he has to deal with his family and some other people from his past. That adds another layer of intrigue and, hopefully, that's what's going to keep it on the air if we don't screw it up."
It's also what, at long last, may finally make a major star out of Jeffrey Donovan, whose mercurial Michael is easily the best role of his career to date.
"Michael Westen is not me, but I do understand his outlook very much, of being a fish out of water and trying to meld his personal life with his professional life," Donovan says. "It's been a challenge not to play the role, but to find the break-off point between Jeff and Michael and how they differ. I've never been a spy, but I left my hometown to go study to be an actor and never looked back. I worked my butt off for many, many years, and the success came to me rather late. I mean, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff has really been happening in the last couple of years.
"Michael is not really like anyone else on the planet, and yet he is so familiar to everybody who watches the show. People go, 'I know who this guy is.' Maybe it's the thing about trying to find a place in society where you feel you are contributing but always battling some past demons. With Michael, usually it's his family."
While Donovan focuses on personal issues for his character, Campbell says he just struggles to stay cool while filming on location in Miami. Production, originally scheduled for last winter, got pushed into the heat of summer by the writers strike.
"Jeffrey Donovan is cool as a cucumber, but I start projectile sweating from the moment I wake up," Campbell says. "The wardrobe department just dreads me. I have two shirts on under my Tommy Bahamas to just soak up the sweat, but we have to keep changing the T-shirt, then changing the shirt, and then my legs are sweating after a while, and I have to change my pants. They have three of everything. They'll be drying one shirt while I am soaking the other two, so they just keep a rotation going.
"My skin loves it, though. I dumped my moisturizer about a day after I got here. I'm from Oregon, which is actually pretty dry. But Miami is a character on this show, which means we have to be out and about in it, not on a cool soundstage all the time. You just have to fight the heat any way you can."
Michael Westen's in a delicate position as season two delves into what makes the former CIA spook tick
Sunday, July 06, 2008 JOHN CROOK ZAP2IT The Oregonian
The last time we saw Michael Westen, in the first season finale of "Burn Notice," the former CIA spy was driving his car into the cargo hold of a large truck that was going to transport him to meet the people behind his inexplicable job termination. Expect some answers, then, as the series returns to USA Network on Thursday, July 10, but don't be surprised if they raise even more baffling questions, cautions series creator Matt Nix.
"At the end of last season, Richard Schiff's character, Phil Cowan, said, 'The people I work for have big plans for you,' " Nix says. "Season two is about those big plans and the fact that Michael is in a delicate position: The only way he can find out more about the people who burned him and perhaps ultimately do something about that is by playing along with them.
"Just because you find the guy whose name was on the file that got you burned, that and a buck-fifty will get you a cup of coffee -- especially if the guy is dead. I think a lot of people expect us to spend a lot of time on 'who did it' as far as the burn notice, but that's not really the question. It's less about who burned Michael than what Michael can do about it." In fact, Nix adds, "Burn Notice" never was designed to be a conventional procedural drama. Less a "whodunit" than a "whaddya-gonna-do-about-it," the series deftly hopscotches across genres, delivering belly laughs even as it probes what drove Michael into his dangerous line of work and, now, his tricky attempts to reconnect with his family, including prickly mother Madeline (Sharon Gless).
"We wanted to go to a place where a spy is born: What is his family background, and what turns him into a guy who goes around the world doing this?" Nix explains. "Because it really isn't a good job. It doesn't pay that well. It's very dangerous. You have to be pushed by some very real conflict within you to do that kind of job.
"That's the emotional core of this series, that Michael can do all these things, but he has paid a terrible price for all of them. If you're always checking all the exits in the restaurant, you can't really enjoy the food. You are constantly figuring out what agenda people have, which makes it very difficult to have a real relationship with them."
While "Burn Notice" doesn't stint on the action sequences, it's the four richly drawn main characters -- which also include Michael's former CIA colleague, Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), and quirky ex-girlfriend Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) -- that kept an average of nearly 3 million viewers tuning in each week during the show's first season.
"On USA, the cliche may be 'characters welcome,' but I've found it mostly to be true." Campbell says. "When stuff blows up, you have to care that stuff blows up. If you don't care about the people, you don't care that stuff blows up. You want to think, 'Oh, God, are they OK?'
"This whole show is about how Michael becomes a human. He was trained to be a spy and a killer, but he didn't have to do any social interaction. He never even dealt with his family, because he was gone all the time. Now, because of his situation, he has to deal with his family and some other people from his past. That adds another layer of intrigue and, hopefully, that's what's going to keep it on the air if we don't screw it up."
It's also what, at long last, may finally make a major star out of Jeffrey Donovan, whose mercurial Michael is easily the best role of his career to date.
"Michael Westen is not me, but I do understand his outlook very much, of being a fish out of water and trying to meld his personal life with his professional life," Donovan says. "It's been a challenge not to play the role, but to find the break-off point between Jeff and Michael and how they differ. I've never been a spy, but I left my hometown to go study to be an actor and never looked back. I worked my butt off for many, many years, and the success came to me rather late. I mean, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff has really been happening in the last couple of years.
"Michael is not really like anyone else on the planet, and yet he is so familiar to everybody who watches the show. People go, 'I know who this guy is.' Maybe it's the thing about trying to find a place in society where you feel you are contributing but always battling some past demons. With Michael, usually it's his family."
While Donovan focuses on personal issues for his character, Campbell says he just struggles to stay cool while filming on location in Miami. Production, originally scheduled for last winter, got pushed into the heat of summer by the writers strike.
"Jeffrey Donovan is cool as a cucumber, but I start projectile sweating from the moment I wake up," Campbell says. "The wardrobe department just dreads me. I have two shirts on under my Tommy Bahamas to just soak up the sweat, but we have to keep changing the T-shirt, then changing the shirt, and then my legs are sweating after a while, and I have to change my pants. They have three of everything. They'll be drying one shirt while I am soaking the other two, so they just keep a rotation going.
"My skin loves it, though. I dumped my moisturizer about a day after I got here. I'm from Oregon, which is actually pretty dry. But Miami is a character on this show, which means we have to be out and about in it, not on a cool soundstage all the time. You just have to fight the heat any way you can."
BC's last quote about his skin & moisturizer cracked me up!
Thanks Natasha.
Love reading all the information.
