(January 2009) - PCM's Joe interviewed the creator, writer, and executive producer of USA Networks' Burn Notice show, Matt Nix! Check out the complete Q&A with the actor and find out all the info about the show!

Q: The first question I had for you, what does the success of a show like this mean to you as a show runner? What does it mean to have a show that's so successful and so, I guess, just well received by the audience?

Matt Nix: Well, I guess in terms of the job, the sort of day-to-day of it, not much actually. I find, like I sort of - you know, people ask me, like, how has your life changed? And really it's sort of, I come into the office every day, and then I work for a really long time, and then I go home. But I mean the truth is, it was always a really fun process, and it still is. But really, like, kind of the best thing about it is all of your friends from high school call you.

And just all the people getting in touch with you and, you know, I think that for a lot of people on the show, oddly and nobody expected this, but everybody comments on it and how kind of weirdly unexpected and mildly spooky it is. Everybody says to us, oh, your show is the only show that my daughter watches with her grandmother or - its people have this sort of family thing about it, and in a funny kind of way, that's the most gratifying because it's totally not something we expected, and having it well received in that way, I don't know. It's not like I sat down to do a family spy show, but I guess it turned out that way.

Q: I was wondering, what are your sources of inspiration for each of the storylines in the episodes?

Matt Nix: Well, they come from a lot of places. I'd say, with regard to the sort of case of the week stories, well, I mean really with regard to the case of the week stories and the overall Burn Notice arcs, we focus a lot on taking elements of spy craft from the history of espionage, including the very early history of espionage, to World War II stuff. I mean, really kind of, it runs the gamut. And we have the advantage of being able to use stuff from all around the world, you know, so we'll read a history of Russian spies or read all about the Mossad and techniques from everywhere. And then we also talk a lot to our consulting producer, Michael Wilson, who has worked in that field and always has good ideas for places to go for stories..

Because, I guess, even though we're using it in a different context, it's a really useful touchstone for us to know that we're using something that has a basis in reality, and we're very interested in technique and how this stuff works. And we're all fans of the genre. We all read that stuff for pleasure, and we'll call Michael Wilson and just ask him questions because he's fun to talk to.

But then we really focus on, okay, how could we use this thing that was done by Aldridge Aims, who was a famous mole in the CIA. How can we use - you know, we all read the Aldridge Aims book. What's something Michael could do using an Aims' like strategy, or what something Michael could do using the strategies that we used to catch Aims? And then we'll put that in a different context.

Then with regard to the other storylines, the family storylines and the Burn Notice storylines, a lot of times we look at what are fun - especially now, as we go into the - I think you'll see it more in the second half of the second season, and even more in the third season. We think a lot about what does doing this kind of case, what does this situation mean for Michael as a character? What would the resonance of this technique be for him? What does it say about him as a guy? What does it take out of him personally? What does he - are there some things that he would enjoy? What are the things that he enjoys?

What does that mean for his family? What would his family think about that? And so we tend to sort of bounce the emotional stories and the character stories off of the A stories, and so we'll think about where are we in the season. What would that mean for Michael and Fiona's relationship? And how can their relationship echo where Michael is with regard to his burn notice or with regard to the case of the week, so that's sort of how we tend to think about it.

But to answer simply, we do a lot of reading and a lot of talking to sources. Every week we bring in sources, you know, just people who we think might be interesting to talk to. And I will say, actually, one of the great things about, as the show has become better known, it's been great for us in terms of consultants popping up, you know, just people who were willing to talk to us and be helpful.

Q: We'd like to know how much of season three have you planned already? Where do you think you're going to take us in season three?

Matt Nix: Well, we have planned a lot of it, so we're working on it now. And I think, I don't want to give too much away, but basically I think that season three, we're going to find out a lot more about Michael's past, and not just Michael's past - Sam's past, Fiona's past. For various reasons, they are all going to be engaging with some of the ghosts of their previous careers.

And so that's something that we're really excited about, and it's a way of exploring. We've done some of it, but it's not really - it's not something we've done for a season, and so we have Michael engaging with his past, so it's not sort of the perpetual search for the name behind his burn notice. It's a different thing.

And then, I think people are going to see in the second half of season two that we're really trying to push the boundaries of what a Burn Notice episode is, like how he deals with things. What are new ways of - new kinds of clients, new ways of dealing with problems, new - you know, as we've gotten more comfortable with the format of the show, and as we all become more sort of facile with how Michael deals with problems, it allows us to spread our wings a little bit and have him deal with really new and really different kinds of problems. And I think you'll see some of that definitely in the second half of season two where we're doing things that we've never done before.

And then, season three, you know, it's going to be a really eclectic and fun mix of episodes. I think we've got some really neat ideas, and we're all really excited about them. But, you know, the thing for the show for a lot of us, and maybe I shouldn't say this, but it's true. Is it's not as if there's a whole - we're kind of inventing a procedural format. You know, Michael is not a straight up PI. He's not a doctor. He's not a cop. He doesn't have a way of doing things that has a lot of kind of procedural history on television, and there's not really a book that you can go to and say, you know, how would a spy deal with this civilian situation? And so we've been kind of exploring and defining how to do that because, from week to week, Michael is dealing with some civilian situation using spy crafts, and that's just not a sort of - I mean, there are shows that we could point to. I mean certainly Magnum had a history in intelligence. In the Equalizer, he was doing some of those things.

But we are so focused on the deceptive arts of spy craft in particular on really looking at what specifically did Robert Hanson do at the FBI, and how can we use that, you know, as a technique for a Burn Notice, and it's a whole different kind of thing. So the more we read, the more we observe, the more we explore creatively, the more things we can do. So we have some neat episodes in the second half of the season. There's an episode that's nearly in real time. And then in the third season, we take that to another level.

I mean, it's a little funny to talk about it because I've been living with all of these episodes from the second half of the season for months, you know, they've been done. And now I want to talk about them in referencing the third season, but I can't do that. But suffice it to say that we're really stretching the boundaries, and it's very exciting for everybody here.