Burn Notice is entering the third season on the USA Network, and I asked Matt Nix, Executive Producer and creator, about the roots of Burn Notice. Matt gave an amazing amount of detail of about the thinking behind the concept of Burn Notice.

"The truth is, the direct inspiration was conversations that I had had with our consulting producer, Michael Wilson, who had worked in that environment. And the thing that really struck me about talking to him and interacting with him was that we tend to think of people who work in those arenas as superheroes, you know, people who are not human beings. They don't have likes and dislikes. They're just sort of like robot people who protect us, and they can do anything."

"I became really interested in the idea that when people devote themselves to mastery of a craft like espionage, they pay a real price for it, and it's not - I mean as much as I love movies and books that do the sort of like, and the price they pay is they have robot arms, or the price they pay is mind control or things like that. Really, in the real world, the price that these people pay is, you know, I mean, they entered that world because it's something they need psychologically, and to me it was always a fascinating question to say, like, what sort of person wants that? What sort of person is okay with saying, like, I hold some ideal so sacred that I'm willing to make my entire life a rouse in service of that ideal."

"You know, I so love my country that I'm going to go and pretend to hate my country and have all of my friends be the enemies of my country, and spend years doing this just so that I can strike a blow on behalf of something that I care about. You know, what is that? Like, what sort of person devotes himself to a single principal at that level, and so there's that question. Like, what background do you come from"

"And so, I looked into it with Michael Wilson, and I also read other things. And it's, frankly, been an interest of mine since I was a little kid. Like, who really becomes that? And then, at the same time, I'm interested in what are the costs ongoing. I mean, one of the things that we talked about on the show is that things should come at a cost. Like, we'll ask, what is the human dimension of this thing that Michael is going to do? What sort of practice does he have to undergo? Like, he may be able to do this particular kind of fighting, but does he enjoy doing it? Does he find it unpleasant? Are his muscles sore for days afterwards? Like, what are the practical human realities of becoming this kind of superhero? And so, I guess my inspiration is, you know, a real interest in the human dimension of those abilities, where they come from, what spurs you to want to do that, and what price you pay ongoingly."

"And, I mean, actually, even down to the fact of, even down to the way that I became friends with Michael Wilson was, you know, he sort of contacted me because he like a short film that I had done that was available on the Internet, and as we talked over time, I realized that all of Michael's friends essentially are people that he had to choose almost at random because if you work in the world of intelligence, if you sit down at a bar and there's somebody next to you, and you strike up a good conversation, and you have a wonderful time, you can't ever talk to that person again because that person could be a plant. That person found you. That person happened to be in the right place at the right time, and you happened to get along with them. It's much too dangerous to make those kinds of friendships."

"You really need to make friendships with people that you select because the danger that someone that you randomly select on the Internet and decide I like this guy's short film, let's be friends. The chances that I'm going to be someone who is out to undermine him in some way are vanishingly small. But if you're just bumping into people on the street, well, somebody may have put that person there for you to bump into. And it struck me, like that's a big way to compromise your life. That's a huge deal to say you can never have a friend that you didn't choose."

"And so, looking at what does that mean for Michael and, like, what does it to explore that kind of character, and what does it take out of him? And I also think that what's fun about that is it generates a lot of drama, but it generates just as much comedy as it does drama. One of my central inspirations and one of the things I talked about in pitching the show was something that I had talked about with Michael and also with some other people, which is the idea that a lot of these people who are doing this kind of awesome commando stuff, you know, they parachute into a jungle, and then they've got to run around doing things. If they bought that awesome jacket at REI before they parachuted into the jungle, and now they have to leave it behind because they're in the jungle and they're not really going to carry around that jacket, but they needed it because they were parachuting through the upper atmosphere."

"I had this great conversation where - it was actually Michael Wilson was saying basically it's a bummer to leave that REI jacket behind because you went and you picked it out, and it was fun, and you kind of liked the way it fit. And then you've just got to leave it in the middle of the jungle. It sucks. And that was hilarious to me, and so pitching that to USA, you know, it's real. There's a sort of pathos there. Your heart sort of goes out to that poor spy who has to leave his favorite jacket behind in the jungle, and it also sets up an awesome action scene. It's exciting. Honestly, I can't get enough of it."

Read the entire interview with Matt Nix here.