(May 2009)PCM's Kristyn Clarke recently had the opportunity to speak with actor Bruce Campbell, currently starring in USA Networks' Burn Notice and promoting the series 3rd Season! Here's what he had to say:

Q: Your work has been in what we could call genre shows, such as science ficition, horror, fantasy, comic book. Was this a planned effort on your part or did it just sort of happen?

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 ...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.

Q: 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.

Q: 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.

Q: 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. 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.

Q: 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 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. 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. 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.

Q: 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 ; 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.

Q: 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.

Q: What is it like playing the comical one to Michael's kind of straight man? It's kind of a pattern here, you've got Jack Stiles in Brisco, you didn't really have anyone to play off there, you were the main character, the main guy. What is it like playing off of him?

B. Campbell: It's great, because he carries the show. I'm just hiding behind him, cracking jokes and getting out of there. So it's fine to actually be the guy who doesn't, you know, Sam can be a little snotty, he can be a little snide, he's sort of a naysayer, and he always second guesses things that these guys do to make sure it's safe or tactical, whereas Michael gets involved from a passionate level. He's got to help these people, whereas Sam's like, no, you don't, no you don't. So sometimes he's the voice of reason. But it's nice to have that difference between the characters, and Michael does have kind of his funny wit, a lot of it comes out in the voiceover that he does, but someone's got to be the straight guy, and fortunately, it's Michael Westen.

Q: I've always gotten the sense that behind his wise-cracking, easy-going facade that Sam is actually tougher than people realize, with a pretty intense background of his own. Is there a darker side to Sam in his past, and might we see that touched upon at all this season?

B. Campbell: Well, you saw a little bit in the first season when he was being interrogated, you realize that he's interrogated people a lot, he's been interrogated, and he knows how to handle it. So yes, it's nice to see that there is a tough side to these guys amid all the joking, because I think that's really how it would be. These guys are tough on the inside but on the outside they're just normal schmoes.

As far as the dark side, I'm sure that Sam has killed multiple people. I'm sure Michael Westen has killed multiple people. Fiona probably has killed more than both of us. So, you'll have to ask her about her dark side. Sam, I think, will go to the dark side, but he doesn't stay there. That's not his bag. If something is horrible, it's horrible, and then you move on because the next day you don't know if you're even going to be around. So I think Sam has appreciated a sense of life, by being so close to death.

Q: Now, you just mentioned that we'll see a bit of Sam's past and I read somewhere that season three will be dealing a lot with Michael, Fiona, and Sam's past. Is everything from Sam's past going to be connected to Michael, or will it be unrelated events?

B. Campbell: Oh, no, Sam's got his own past, but I'm sure if they bring up any of our pasts, it will relate to the future; like we're shooting an episode right now that is very Fiona-oriented. Her past is coming back to haunt us now, in a very, very bad way. So I think what they'll do in that case is that they allude to someone's past, it'll be because somebody, you know, Sam's done something in the past. We even had an episode with this character Virgil who is dating Michael's mother. The first episode that he was in was he was an old pal of mine who got into some trouble, and that happens a lot. Sam has things from his past that come up to haunt us currently, so I think you'll see more of that.

Q: Could you tell us something about Sam that the audience doesn't know, that you know, maybe even the writers don't even know, but something that you know about Sam?

B. Campbell: About Mr. Sam Axe? That he reads a lot. He reads fiction, because it takes away from the reality; and that his favorite book is Wuthering Heights. That Sam is a secret romantic. That's all I can reveal. I'll have to kill you if I tell you more.

Q: So you mention a little bit about Tim Aston coming back, so can you tell us anything about any other guest stars you might be seeing this season?

B. Campbell: Oh, boy, guest stars. They come and go. We got Nick Turturro, who was on NYPD Blue, he's playing a weasely criminal character. I'm not so good with rattling all the things off. We're starting to get a good stable of directors, like Tim Matheson is becoming a stable director element. So it would be nice to see him come back. I hope he's in another episode as this guy Larry. He plays this crazy guy, Larry, who, I hope he comes back, because Tim is a really good actor, too. We had Lucy Lawless, I think on our second episode we got Lucy in. That was real fun to do. I got a bunch of friends we're always trying to get in there. They're coming and going. So it's sort of a stay tuned thing, to see who is coming. But the nice thing is when you have a hit show, you can get better actors. No one wants to be on a show with lousy ratings.

Q: I heard that there were rumors of new movies such as, like maybe another Evil Dead, maybe another Phantasm, maybe even another Bubba Ho-tep, which has sexy vampires, so you could be good with the ladies. I was wondering if there are any other projects underway other than Burn Notice that you might like to get involved with or that you know of that you're going to be doing?

B. Campbell: Well, I'll clarify a couple things. There's really no sequel for Evil Dead planned right now. We are going to forge ahead and do the remake; we are going to do that. There's nothing for me in the remake, though, do you know what I mean? That's a cast of young people. So I'll be on as the producer but I won't be in it other than playing the old guy at the bait store at the beginning. So there's nothing for me in that. Another thing to clarify, they're probably going to do a Bubba Ho-tep sequel, but it won't have me in it. I couldn't come to an agreement with the director, Don Coscarelli, on a story, so I think it's going to be Ron Perlman in that. And as far as the things to look forward to, I have another book coming out eventually called Vagabond, The Gypsy Life of an Actor, which should be out in a couple of years. And that's the answer to that.

Q: Between doing TV and movies, is there a dream role that you would like to some day tackle?

B. Campbell: No, only because I live in the world of reality. I know that Marty Scorsese, he's not going to be calling. So those misguided dreams I don't really deal with. What I really try and do is make the best out of every situation, because in B movies you're not always going to work with the top people, you're going to work with people who are either on their way up or on their way down. But that's where I think kind of the fun is and the original ideas, which is why it attracts me to that world.

Q: I've noticed that you've been in all three of the Spider-Man movies. Are there any future plans on being in any of the future Spider-Man movies?

B. Campbell: I'll probably be in Spider-Man 4, but I never hear from Sam usually until the last minute, when they've got everything worked out. So we'll just see what he's got up his sleeve.

Q: Some of my favorite parts on the show are when Sam and Fi have to go ahead and be on stakeouts, and always something ends up going wrong. Can we anticipate any really good Sam and Fi action here this season?

B. Campbell: Oh, sure. Whatever you get on the other seasons you'll get this season, too, because they're still not fishing buddies. I mean, they'll agree to work with each other but I don't think they would associate with each other otherwise, so it's a good opportunity to let the sparks fly a little bit. So that won't change. That will continue to happen.

Be sure to tune into to the season 3 premiere of Burn Notice Thursday, June 4th and it's new time of 9:00/8:00 Central on USA Network !

Also, check out PCM's previous chat with Bruce Campbell! ( interview here )