Q&A Fun with ‘Burn Notice’s Bruce Campbell

Thanks to his unforgettable work in enduring cult movies like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, Burn Notice star Bruce Campbell was mega popular long before the USA Network series took off and became the huge hit it is now.

Ever gracious and entertaining, the star of film and television recently answered questions to help spread the word about the return of Burn Notice next Thursday, January 22, at 10pm EST. The first of seven remaining episodes out of the midseason stable is the medical-scam caper “Do No Harm.”

If you weren’t already salivating to pick up where the current sophomore season left off last September and to see what happens to Sam Axe (Campbell) and his fellow spies Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) and Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) next, maybe the following fun interview will help get you in the proper mood.

Do you have a most memorable moment from filming the series?

BRUCE CAMPBELL: For me, I’m just convinced one day that some bystander’s going to shoot me with a gun. And the reason why I say that is because my character Sam has a rifle with a scope and often he’s up on high rises and overpasses taking potshots at people.

And sometimes you can’t see the crew connected to me, because they put me sometimes far away. And Miami has a lot of guns, and so I’m just afraid some do-gooder’s going to see me up there firing away and they’re going to save Miami from that criminal. And then Burn Notice will have three main characters.

How much of yourself do you see in Sam?

BRUCE CAMPBELL: Well, that’s always a tough call. Actors can’t escape their own physical being. You’re always going to see Bruce Campbell there doing whatever. I don’t drink as much as Sam does and I don’t womanize as much as Sam does because I’ve been married for 17 years to the same woman. So, it’s always fun to just let loose.

Sam is a much more relaxed character than me. I live in the Pacific Northwest and by the time I show up in Miami this March, I’m going to be white and pasty and I’m going to be squinting at the sun because it’s been raining and snowing here in the Pacific Northwest. So, I’ll go back down to Miami, I’ll strip my work boots off, my jeans off and get back into that character, get back into that basically removing clothing.

You know, I get my t-shirts off, I get my flannel shirts off and start getting back in flip flops and shorts because I literally live at the complete opposite end of the country and it’s a huge adjustment every year. But it kind of cracks me up that people perceive me as this kind of, hey, beach guy with a beer in his hand, and I’m kind of the opposite. I’m such a woodsy guy. I like mountains and streams and rivers and lakes.

Every time we see Sam, it seems like he has a beer in his hand. What are you actually drinking?

BRUCE CAMPBELL: Well, as an actor you can’t even really go near that these days. The days of sort of the John Wayne drinking in your trailer days are kind of over.

It’s just good old-fashioned water. Because sometimes if you put real fizzy stuff in there or even like they have the non-alcoholic beer, which still has a little percentage of alcohol, but it will just make you burp. It gets you all bloated and burpy. So, I just go for water.

What we do is we use always a colored bottle. You’ll notice it’s either a green bottle or a red bottle, and it kind of disguises what’s inside. You’ve blown my cover. Sorry.

What would you say to someone if they came up to you and said that they were such a big fan of yours that they named their son Ash [after Campbell's Evil Dead series character Ashley "Ash" J. Williams]?

BRUCE CAMPBELL: I’ve already had that. Multiple times, as a matter of fact. I would say have a long and prosperous life as Ash. And hopefully he’ll have a life that’s not as bad as being named Sue, you know? But Ash is a little on the girlie side, so he might have to stand up tall.