MATT Nix has this effortlessness about himself that ensures conversation is free- flowing. He loves bantering and, I’m told, regaling friends and relatives with wonderful anecdotes – a childhood skill he has clearly harnessed to brilliant effect.
Reflecting on the success of Burn Notice, which has enjoyed the longevity of six seasons, he laughs: “All of my friends who have watched the show said it sounded like me talking for an hour.”
Although Nix previously wrote for short films (Mike Feeny’s Secret for Success, Chekhov’s Gun, First Prince, Me and the Big Guy and Mementoke), he ploughed his way to fame with Burn Notice in 2006.
The series is centred on agent Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) who, after learning he has been burnt, goes freelance while also trying to figure out who “burnt” him. He is joined by his dangerously sexy GI Jane-type ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) – they have rekindled their romance since the earlier seasons – and Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), an old friend who used to snitch on him. In season four, Jesse Porter (Coby Bell), a spy Westen accidentally burnt, allied with him.
Shedding light on the conception of the series, Nix says: “Well, it was a combination of things. As a little kid, I had been interested in espionage and the criminal procedures like: how do con artists or soldiers or firemen do their thing?
“Originally, my idea was to do a more traditional spy show. As I was working on it, though, the skills of the spy outside of the spy world gave me what was a more interesting window in the spy psyche. It was far more interesting than having someone running around Moscow in a trench coat.
“That led to the voiceover aspect – that is kind of a marriage of my tendency to tell people stuff I find interesting at a dinner party.”
He continues: “Setting it in Miami makes it possible to make smaller action scenes cool and exciting. Like the scene in the pilot episode where they cut through the wall – we get into the head of the person doing it.”
With casting as crucial to the success of the show as the writing, I asked Nix if Donovan embodies the essence of the Michael Westen he envisioned.
“Absolutely,” he says. “Originally, there was talk of casting a giant television star. But from the moment Jeffrey came in to read, it was clear. In fact, when he read the script he said, ‘I know how to be this guy.’
“He walked in with the confidence and he was able to improvise lines before and after the scene. He was just right from the get-go and a pretty obvious choice.”
Although Donovan isn’t the archetypal hero, he commands attention.
Nix nods: “That is one of the interesting things about him as a lead. If you look at his career as an actor, a lot of the times, he plays the bad guy. Sometimes he plays the good guy. But you don’t look at him and say: ‘There is a good or bad guy.’
“On set, we joke about his unusual hero role in that he is a good guy pretending to be a criminal. He has to be convincingly heroic and villainous. It is a very interesting thing to see an actor pull off.”
Expanding on the other cast, Nix comments: “Bruce, in his movies, plays both the heroic and a bit of a lazy kind of guy, who is sort of a jerk, or vain. Gabrielle is good at being heroic, but is also dangerous. She got the part in the first moment of her audition where, in a scene with Michael passed out on a bed, she was meant to gently wake him up. Instead of doing that, she came in and kicked him awake.”
As for Sharon Gless as Michael’s mother, Madeline, he offers: “That strength we now see was not apparent in the pilot. But when Sharon read for it… that was when I learnt more about the character being stronger. Over the course of the seasons, you see this evolution. I think it works dramatically, as well. The more she is exposed to Michael, the more you see the grit that makes her who she is.”
Interestingly enough, the TV series also gave birth to the movie Burn Notice: The fall of Sam Axe.
Although Nix’s second exploit, The Good Guys, was canned for business reasons outlined by the network – an issue he didn’t want to expand on – the writer within refuses to be subdued as his determination to create more spellbinding heroes for television continues to soar.
“When I started as a writer, if you asked me what I would be writing about in 15 years, I would have said something different. But it happens to be that I gravitate towards heroes fighting crime. That is what I like and what I will not go without,” he promises.
Until further notice of his next outing, TV buffs can enjoy the thrills of his current espionage action-drama.
• Burn Notice, season 5, airs on M-Net Series at 9.30pm on Thursdays.