Burn Notice’s Bruce Campbell And Sharon Gless Q&A Interview

For a little more push toward the summer finale of Burn Notice (which is tomorrow, August 6th at 9/8c), I got a chance to take part in a Q&A session with Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless.  This was especially interesting for me, as I've long been a fan of Bruce Campbell.  Call me crazy, but it's actually The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. that holds a special place in my heart.

Of course, don't forget to head over and get your chance to win some great Burn Notice stuff here before you go.  There are also a couple of clips for the show over there.

The interview session was a lot of fun, and it was really great to hear Bruce go on about the show and his role.  Sharon Gless was a lot of fun as well, and they both provided some great responses.  Have fun, and be sure to tune in for the finale.  You'll notice that I am listed as Sir Not Appearing In This Interview, but I had several questions lined up, and they were all asked before I got a turn.  Such is Q&A, but it was a great time.

Here we go!

Moderator                   And we will begin with the line of Jennifer Iaccino with MediaBlvd Magazine.  Please go ahead.

J. Iaccino                     Hello there.

B. Campbell                Greetings, how are you doing?

J. Iaccino                     I’m very good.  Hello, so wonderful to speak to both of you.  I know I’ve spoken to Bruce, but it’s an honor to speak to you, too, Sharon.

S. Gless                       Thank you.

J. Iaccino                     Alright, my question is Bruce, I know that you played in Xena and Hercules as sort of a rogue who helped out the good guys as well.  And Sharon, obviously you played Cagney, a bad-ass cop and she also knew her way around bad guys.  So I was curious how these roles and others may have helped to cultivate the characters that you play on Burn Notice.

B. Campbell                Go ahead, Sharon.

S. Gless                       Well, the only bad guys I have to find my way around are Jeffrey and Bruce.  I mean, my job on the show is the mother from hell.  I don’t get involved in the heavy stuff like they do.

B. Campbell                Sharon, your character is scarier than some of the bad guys.

J. Iaccino                     You helped out in that case when Bruce got captured and you were sort of interrogating the one guy.

S. Gless                       That’s right, I think that’s when Michael was captured.

J. Iaccino                     Yes, that’s when Michael was captured.

S. Gless                       Right, that was very, very funny.  It’s not often that I get to do one-upsmanship on Bruce Campbell.

B. Campbell                What’s amazing is she turned out to be a very good interrogator and then who knew.  I actually think we’re going to see in the scenes that come – because Sharon, you were also on a stakeout and you had to spot somebody.   You had to be a lookout.

S. Gless                       At the bingo game.

B. Campbell                Right.  So don’t kid yourself.  You’re going to be an operative before too long maybe.

S. Gless                       Okay, look out.

J. Iaccino                     How about you, Bruce?

B. Campbell                Well, I mean, I’ve always enjoyed playing a little left of center characters.  Otherwise I’d be on a soap opera, you know.  What’s attractive to me was that these are real characters.  These are characters who drink and smoke and make mistakes and have foibles in love and try to fix their mother's garbage disposal.  That’s what’s attractive to me.  That’s what got me into this show and knowing that I’m with four, three other kind of seasoned adult actors.  That’s always attractive when you know you’re going to be working with people that it’s going to be worth showing up for.

S. Gless                       It’s true.

B. Campbell                It’s made a big difference.  And this show, I can’t speak for Sharon, but this show came out of nowhere.

S. Gless                       Yes.

B. Campbell                The things that I plan never happen.  Things that I don’t plan do.

S. Gless                       Exactly.  That’s how I thought.  I think that when Bruce and I first – we were interviewed together.  Do you remember that, in Pasadena or somewhere?

B. Campbell                Yes.

S. Gless                       And I was actually sitting in the fat farm and this script arrived and I was sitting all alone in  my room and it made me laugh out loud and I was all by myself.  And I thought, this is funny.  This is fun, I like this.  It had substance to it, too.

B. Campbell                It probably didn’t hurt that you live in Miami, too.

S. Gless                       I forgot about that, but I didn’t tell them that during the interview.

B. Campbell                Exactly.

S. Gless                       I wanted to live in a hotel like you guys.  And then when it sold, I had to ‘fess up.

B. Campbell                Right.

S. Gless                       Yes, I do, though, I do live here in Miami.

Moderator                   Back to the line of Keely Weiss with Aced Magazine.com.  Please go ahead.

K. Weiss                      Hi, it’s really great to be able to speak with you both.  Thanks so much for doing this.

B. Campbell                Thank you.

S. Gless                       Thank you.

K. Weiss                      So I was wondering, what sorts of methods and what type of influences do you use to kind of inform your characters and your portrayal of each of your characters?  Like what do you draw upon to, in your characterization of Sam and of Madeline?

S. Gless                       Bruce?

B. Campbell                Mother first.

S. Gless                       What do I draw on?

K. White                     Yes, for your characterization of your character kind of what informs that?

S. Gless                       Well, my husband said, when he read the script, chain smoking half the time.  And he said, how lucky are you, they’re paying you to smoke.  So he said, wow, you do all the things with the cigarette.  I said, “Well, yeah, I already knew how to do that.”  What do I draw on?  I’ve never actually had children, myself, but I just connected with Jeffrey’s character and every week it’s different and as the show goes along, Madeline, my character, first she’s totally in the dark and very needy and very sort of just all sort of emotional things that are unattractive.  And as time went on, Matt Nix said, “Sharon, she’s smarter than what I was writing.”  And he gave me one clue, he said, “Remember, he gets his smarts from her.”  I said, “Oh, okay.”  So I just took that information and it gave me and my character a little more confidence.  But I don’t know, how do you prepare for playing someone who’s manipulative?  Is it built in?  I don’t know.

B. Campbell                When you’re in show business, you know lots of manipulating people.

S. Gless                       Yes, that’s true.  But I try to do the manipulation with humor.  Hopefully, that’s how it’s coming across.

Moderator                   And next, we will go to the line of Gabel White with Fan Bolt.  Please go ahead.

G. White                     Hey, Sharon, Bruce, how’re you all doing?

S. Gless                       Hey, Gabel.

G. White                     My first question is for Bruce.  Why doesn’t Sam Axe’s personality match the normal ex-military stereotypes?  He seems really upbeat compared to how most shows depict characters that have been in serious military situations.  I was just wondering why that was.

B. Campbell                I think my character is actually more accurate.  I think I run into some of these guys.  My first wife remarried a police officer, and I’ll tell you these guys like having a good time when they’re not working.  They don’t sit around mopey dope, they sit around and crack gallows humor, lots of gallows humor, dark humor.  Frankly, I think they’re happy that they’re alive most of these guys after going through all of this and they have a good joie de vivre that the average executive might not have.  So I should think Sam is very indicative of the real guys, you know guys who are my age who have mustered out in their 50’s.  Believe me, most of them are drinking beer and sitting around a pool cracking jokes about the old days.

S. Gless                       In my experience in having done Cagney & Lacey many years ago, we had technical advisors on the set and we had detectives and police.  Not exactly in the role that Bruce is playing, but these guys who see so much really do have a very macabre sense of humor.  And I do think that’s how they stay sane.

Moderator                   Next we will go to the line of Troy Rogers with TheDeadbolt.com.  Please go ahead.

T. Rogers                     I think I’ll get my questions out of the way, too, right away.  Now aside from you two getting drunk together, how do you want to see Sam and Madeline’s relationship evolve in season four.  And for either one of you if Michael did re-establish his link to the espionage community, what would happen to Sam and Fiona?

B. Campbell                Well, go ahead, Sharon, give it a whack.

S. Gless                       Well, I think Sam and Maddie have kind of a really cool relationship.  We were given a chance to live together.  That helps.  I didn’t tell you this, Bruce, that I really miss the fact that you moved out.

B. Campbell                I know.

S. Gless                       Yes.  But that gives you a chance to come back.  How do I see the relationship evolving?  I see it as all good.  I see that it can get rougher, it can get more tender, and I think there’s a myriad of things that can come out of a relationship with two people who do respect each other and who both love this one man, this boy, my boy and his friend.

B. Campbell                And you know the one thing I should say, too.  I can’t speak for other actors, but I don’t really probe the writers, I honestly don’t.  I haven’t bugged them in three years about what’s coming up with Sam.  Whether he’s going to have a home or a girlfriend.  I like to sit back, just like the audience, and let it happen.  I get excited reading the next script, because I don’t really know what they have planned.  The season finale, I couldn’t tell you sitting here right now what’s going to happen.  Not because I’m lying or that I’m not supposed to, I don’t know because I haven’t asked, I don’t want to know.  So you know . . .

S. Gless                       I’m the same way.  I never ask about what’s going to happen with my character.

B. Campbell                No, because . . . as we’ve seen, they’re good writers so you know, get out of their face.  We don’t like them in our face, I don’t get in their face.

Moderator                   Next we will go to the line of Traci Grant with TheStarScoop.com.  Please go ahead.

T. Grant                       So my question for you is, for both of you, the show sort of projects itself as a tutorial.  It teaches you about different operatives and things you can use in real life.  Have either of you ever been motivated to go ahead and try some of these things that the show teaches?

B. Campbell                No, and I don’t recommend it either.  I don’t recommend that anybody build anything from any fictional show.

S. Gless                       Right.  Don’t try this at home.

B. Campbell                It’s very important, do not try this at home for all kinds of reasons.  I do know, as an adventurous child, we sent UFOs up that were constructed of dry cleaning bags over balsa wood struts with candles as thrusters.  And you know, we could have set the woods on fire.  We had homemade explosives, we could have blown our hands off.  So growing up in suburban Detroit, I definitely had an older brother who was crazy and we were always mixing the wrong things together.  Making gunpowder, and so I’m glad to have survived, actually.  But now as an adult I can look back and go, “Yeesh, man that was stupid.”  So I don’t caution the separation of church and state when it comes to TV shows it’s all fake, folks.

S. Gless                       When I was watching the show.  Alright, we know I can’t look at my own stuff.  But anyway, I asked Matt in reading all these scripts.  I said, “Matt,” I’ve been in scenes or standing by watching Michael and Sam and Fi build stuff right there with whatever they had.  And they go in really close and said to Matt, I said, “Matt, this looks really real.  I mean you’re going to have people go home and aren’t children watching this?”  And he said, “Sharon, I always leave some things out.”

B. Campbell                There’s always about three ingredients that he leaves out.

S. Gless                       Yes.

Moderator                   We now go to the line of BethAnne Henderson with NiceGirlsTV.com.  Please go ahead.

B. Henderson              Hi, thank you for taking our calls today.  I’m a huge fan of yours, Sharon, and I’m just thrilled to be on this call with you.  I’ve been a fan since Marcus Welby.

S. Gless                       Oh my God, you don’t sound that old.

B. Henderson              But we are, and Cagney and Lacey of course.

S. Gless                       May I interject something for a minute?  Do you know I was put on Marcus Welby as a regular for a year because I was to be a love interest of James Brolin, and they said that there was absolutely no chemistry between James Brolin and me and I got fired.

B. Campbell                You failed the chemistry test.

S. Gless                       He was waiting for Barbara, I guess.  I don’t know.

B. Henderson              And so you ended up on Cagney and Lacey.

S. Gless                       Yes.

B. Henderson              So it was a good thing.  Speaking of Cagney and Lacey, you’re going to have somewhat of a reunion coming up this Sunday night.  Can you talk about that a little bit?

S. Gless                       We’re having what, a reunion?

B. Henderson              A reunion.

S. Gless                       A Cagney and Lacey reunion?

B. Henderson              Well, sort of, on Burn Notice, on the show.

S. Gless                       Oh, excuse me, I was going to say I wasn’t invited.  It’s not – is it this episode?

B. Campbell                I think Thursday, yes.

S. Gless                       Oh, it’s this one coming up, that’s the one?  Oh I didn’t realize that.

B. Campbell                The actors never know anything.  We don’t know when things are on.

S. Gless                       I don’t.  I’m sorry, forgive me, what was your question about.

B. Henderson              I just wanted to know if you could talk about getting together with Ms. Daly again and working with her again.

S. Gless                       It was wonderful.  And I’m not just saying that.  Tyne Daly is one of the finest actresses I’ve ever met or ever had the pleasure of working with.  It was just like old times.   I mean they were different characters, but we know each other now and her mother had a great expression.  Okay, her mom said, “Sweat makes a great cement.”  And she and I sweat together for six years and we just know each other’s timing, we know, and we love, we love to rehearse, we love to work, and it was a real treat for me and I think for all of us to have her on the show.

B. Campbell                It was great to watch.  Yes, we loved it and the crew and the cast. …

B. Henderson              Well, thank you so much, I’m looking forward to it.

S. Gless                       Oh, thank you.

Moderator                   And next we will go to the line of Russell Trunk with ExclusiveMagazine.com.  Please go ahead.

R. Trunk                      Good, good, good.  Hey, Bruce, firstly maybe this is something you can help me with.  In the very first episode, Gabrielle’s character who was Irish throughout it and then come the second episode without any explanation, she was suddenly American.  Or it was almost like that and Sharon, Madeline in the show, is an unsecure, attention-seeking, chain smoking hypochondriac so I was wondering how much of the real life you is involved in that role?

S. Gless                       Let’s see, insecure and chain smoking, hi.  Madeline, your direct question to me was how much am I like Madeline.  Madeline is growing, even though she doesn’t take as many pills.  How much am I like her?  I don’t know, I think there’s always a piece of me in everything that I play and you just go somewhere and you say, “Yeah, I can imagine that,” and you play it.  Well, I’ve never had children but I’m, as the years go on in the show, I’m understanding every episode more about my relationship with this boy.  He’s complicated, but I’ve not had children of my own, but I’m an actress, so I don’t know how I do it.

B. Campbell                And with regard to your question about Fiona, I can’t answer that because it’s not a Sam question.

Moderator                   Next we will go to the line of Mark Rivera with Genre Online.net.  Please go ahead.

M. Rivera                    Hi, Bruce.  It’s great to speak to you again.  I had a question for both of you.   Gosh last time I spoke to you Bruce, you had just done your directorial debut, you had the audio book of your second novel out and both of you have been on network television.  Bruce I know you’ve also been very successful on syndicated network television.  I wanted to ask you both, what is the difference between working on both network and/or syndicated so to speak, free over the air television as opposed to being on a basic cable satellite fiber-optic, for lack of a better expression, television show that’s as successful as Burn Notice from both experiences?

S. Gless                       Bruce?

B. Campbell                Well, I think, here’s what I would say.  With regard to the difference between network and television, network you have a lot more chefs.  We would having people crawling up our behinds much more often about scripts, about performance, about hair, makeup, what you look like.  There’s a lot more micromanaging because there’s more at stake.  The funny thing is, on cable, you’re a little more left alone.  You’re only doing between 11 and 16 episodes a year, not 22 or 26 or more.  I’m sure Sharon had to do more per season on Cagney and Lacey, but my experience has just been more oversight in the network side.  But the funny thing is on the cable side on any given night, Burn Notice is the number one show on television in that slot for our demographic.  So ironically, it’s a cable show that’s actually beating the networks. And you’re not really supposed to do that, so I think we’ve confused our parent company, NBC, by outperforming one of their network shows with one of their cable shows.  I think . . . .

S. Gless                       I think we’re beating all the cables, too, aren’t we?

B. Campbell                We’re beating everything on cable and also Sharon, we’re beating the network broadcasts in certain demographics. We’re actually the number one show on television at that time for those demographics.

S. Gless                       I love that.

B. Campbell                Yes, it’s cool.

S. Gless                       My experience – the difference between working on network and working on cable is that you’re allowed to say things.  You’re a lot freer on cable than you are on network.

B. Campbell                On network, they probably wouldn’t want you to smoke.

S. Gless                       No, I’m sure.

B. Campbell                Unless you were a bad guy.

S. Gless                       Yes, and then I mean USA’s a little more alert about what comes out of your mouth because we have a demographic of age 10 to age 80.  But like working on Showtime, on Queer as Folk, I mean the things that were allowed to come out of my mouth.  I was stunned.  I enjoyed it, but having worked on network most of my life, you have much more freedom on cable.

M. Rivera                    Thank you for answering my questions.

S. Gless                       Okay.

Moderator                   Next we will go to the line of Chris King with StarPulse.com  Please go ahead.

C. King                       Hey, guys.  With Burn Notice appealing to such a wide audience, have either of you noticed like a shift in either of your fan bases.  Like Bruce do more people come to you and talk about like Sam Axe and Burn Notice or is it still mostly people showing you tattoos that they’ve gotten of your face?

B. Campbell                No, it’s been nice.  I’m now the old guy on Burn Notice, so it’s awesome.  I get to be a whole new persona of being spotted.  And then there’s all those fans who will discover Burn Notice and then they’ll go back and go, “Oh, he was in these weird movies from years ago.”  So I don’t care how they discover whatever, it’s all fine, I’m just glad they’re watching the show.

C. King                       Okay, have you seen a Sam Axe tattoo yet?

B. Campbell                No, I haven’t seen a Sam Axe tattoo.  I’m looking forward to my very first one.

C. King                       What about you, Sharon, is it still mostly Cagney and Lacey for you or are you getting more recognition for your work in Burn Notice.

S. Gless                       It would depend on who I’m talking to.  They may initially say Cagney and Lacey, but most people who come up to me now are still, and now do recognize me as Maddie in Burn Notice.

B. Campbell                Also on Queer as Folk.

S. Gless                       The demographics we have on this show span such an age range.  I mean what I’m getting that’s neat for me is young people.  Sometimes they’re a little too afraid, but their parents may be with them.  And I mean I actually I’m not used to this.  I actually had a 10-year old that’s not usually my demographic, had come up and his father brought him up and the boy said, “Are you on Burn Notice?”  And I said, “Yes, I am.”  He said, “That’s so cool!”  So I’m learning more about the younger ones and it’s fun for me.

C. King                       That’s great.  Thank you very much.

S. Gless                       Thank you.

Moderator                   And next we will go to the line of Bridget Adolfi with Spoiler TV.  Please go ahead.

B. Adolfi                     Hi, first of all, it’s such an honor to be talking to both of you.  I’m a huge fan and what you do is really great.

S. Gless                       Thank you.

B. Adolfi                     You’re welcome.  I think the characters and in particular the main cast of course are what makes this show really stand out, and it’s not only the four kind of mains but the caliber of guest stars is constantly top notch and I particularly love that the show will bring people back from time to time often when we would least expect it or it would be somebody we assumed we would never see again.  And that’s really fun and adds a depth to the show and a level of weight to the guest stars that they’re more that just plot devices.  So I’m wondering if you guys personally, if there’s any past guest stars or characters you’d really like to see make a return appearance or if there’s anyone out there like a fantasy guest star that you’d really like to have on the show or work with personally.

S. Gless                       I’d like to have Tyne Daly come back.  She wants to come back as a bad guy.

B. Campbell                And she’d be a great bad guy.  I’d bring her back.

S. Gless                       I know.  Like Judy Dench on the James Bond things.  Not a bad guy, but she would be running the whole thing.

B. Campbell                Exactly, she’s the big evil temptress.  But you know we had Lucy Lawless a couple years ago, which was a lot of fun for my old Xena pal.  One of these days I’d love to get Kevin Sorbo, my Hercules buddy, to be a bad guy.  Nice thing is when your ratings are good you get good guest stars.  That’s really just the bottom line.  Everyone wants to be on a popular show.  Nobody wants to be on a marginally rated show.  So we’re actually very fortunate – that’s what ratings bring to you.

S. Gless                       Yes.

B. Adolfi                     Great.  Thank you guys so much.

S. Gless                       Thank you, Bridget.

Moderator                   Next question comes from the line of Tom Peter from Geeks of Doom.  Please go ahead.

T. Peter                        I was very curious since you guys both had said that you don’t really want to know what happens with your characters in the future … Have there been things that you’ve kind of ad-libbed or done specific to your acting approach that have shown up in later episodes that you were happy with or . . .

B. Campbell                Yes, I feel that at the beginning, you speak how the writers write and after a while they write how you speak.  So I think there tends to be a line up there, an adjustment to every good writer knows what that particular actor does well and what they don’t do well.  And I think over time they’ll go, “Madeline’s really great at this or that.”  And they’ll write that sort of stuff.  Or, “Sam’s really fun with interrogations.  Let’s write that more of those.”  Or with the dramatic thing they might not see as many of those come up.

S. Gless                       And where I think we eventually are becoming what my husband used to call custodians of our own character.  And I mean I don’t screw around with the dialogue too much and sometimes I’ll add stuff just because I think it’s funny. I’m amusing myself.  And every once in a while, Oh my God, they kept it in.  And that tickles me, but I try to stick to what they write and then you know, you sort of add little stuff just to open it up a little.

B. Campbell                And I think generally, Sharon, neither of us really get up in the morning wishing we could come and sit and ad lib, but some things do occur to you on the moment.

S. Gless                       Yes, exactly.  And sometimes they stay in and sometimes they don’t.

B. Campbell                Right, exactly.

There you have it.

Bags of thanks to Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless.

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