By Jamie Ruby

When the fifth season of USA Network's Burn Notice ended, Fiona Glennane, played by Gabrielle Anwar, had turned herself into the FBI on false terrorism charges to stop her boyfriend and formerly black-listed spy, Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), from being blackmailed. He and the rest of the crew must try to deal with that as they try to find a way to rescue Fiona.

Anwar was recently interviewed by the digital media where she talked about her role and what's it's like to be for her character to be in prison.

USA Conference Call
Burn Notice
Gabrielle Anwar
 
June 21, 2012

SCIFI VISION: I thought that the job you guys do on the show has to be so fun, but could also potentially be a lot harder. You play so many different personalities on the show when you’re undercover. Can you talk about that, and is it more challenging?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Actually, it has its moments of being challenging, particularly when there’s different dialects involved, but I am very grateful to play these (unintelligible) because after six years of playing the same character, it really does breathe a breath of fresh air into each episode when we get to do something that’s completely out of character. Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Michael, gets to do it much more frequently than I, and I get a little bit sulky about that.

 SCIFI VISION: Got to tell them to give you more undercover work.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Exactly.

SCIFI VISION: Have you had weapons training for the show? You’re always shooting guns and blowing stuff up and all that fun stuff.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I haven’t had any formal training in much of anything, actually. Now that I say that out loud - I did go shoot some pretty heavy machinery a few years back, because not only are the weapons incredibly heavy, but they’re very disconcerting to be holding something that actually is a murder weapon, that is something that is - unless used properly, could bring down an entire family, which kind of throws me for a loop. I’m an ardent pacifist in reality, so I’ve made it very clear to my children from the get-go that there would be no guns in the house, and here’s mummy going off to work, doing that very thing for a living. So I’m a bit of a bloody hypocrite now that I think of it.

QUESTION: Do you have a favorite episode or a scene for this season?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: We did in fact just shoot - let me think, what was this - episode 6.09 - I think it was 6.09, could have been 6.08. They all kind of merge into one after six years. I get to play a Boston mobster, so that was tremendous fun for me. We get to sort of mix it up a little bit and incorporate different characters and accents and costumes and hair and makeup. It’s just fun. It’s like dress-up as a kid.

QUESTION: After six seasons, what has been your biggest challenge on this show so far?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: The heels. Yes, my little toes are - they’re done. They’re completely - they’ve left the building. They retired, I think season two.

QUESTION: We’re seeing a lot more strong female roles on TV these days, and how does it feel to continue to play such an awesome female character like Fiona? She certainly does her part at standing out when it comes to female roles.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, doesn’t she? I’m very grateful that she was even created. I think there are more fabulous female roles coming our way lately, particularly in television, Homeland and The Good Wife. There’s plenty of good women being represented as we are, which is incredibly exciting and refreshing, and let’s hope that there’s more to come. I think we’re well deserving.

QUESTION: Oh, absolutely. And six years into this series, is there a piece of advice that you would share with your character Fiona?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, that’s a very good question. I think I would probably just tell her to relax. I think though, having said that I think that Fiona is chilling just a tad over the years. I think with the lowering of her skirt hemlines, I think that her angst has been somewhat calmed, quelled. Let’s hope so.

QUESTION: How much of a challenge is it to keep a straight face when you’re working with Bruce Campbell and Jeffrey Donovan?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: It’s a huge challenge, and one that I’m not particularly good at, as the gag reels will attest to, particularly Bruce, he just has such as phenomenal sense of humor. His wit is unparalleled.

QUESTION: Yes, having seen his movies I agree.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, and even his tweets, I can’t help but read his tweets, and I’m around him all day long and I’m reading his tweets on top of it.

QUESTION: If it was up to Fiona, where would she and Michael be in ten years?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Oh. Well, they would definitely be together. There would be no CIA in sight, nor FBI, and they would be saving the world one hand grenade at a time.

QUESTION: How much research went into the prison scene? Did you visit any prisons, or did you do any research on it?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: No. Oh, God, what a dreadful actress I am! I did not. I didn’t, and I have no excuse. I figured that I would just feel what was going on in the moment. I mean, the set design and the over-props and all the extras and it - it was pretty realistic, I have to say. I actually had the most phenomenal shooting schedule while I was in jail, because they carried on shooting all the other storylines, and so I would work maybe one day a week, which is unusual on this show. So when it came time to be talking about Fiona’s release from jail, I was begging the writers to keep me in so that I could spend more time with my children, so I think I may be one of the few people on the planet who was begging to stay incarcerated.

QUESTION: Who are some guest stars you haven’t yet worked with that you would like to work with?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Oh, let’s see. God, I don’t know. It’s funny because all the guest stars that we’ve had for the last six seasons have been so good that I’ve never spent an episode going “God, I wish this was being played by Harrison Ford or whomever.” I’ve been very impressed with all of the actors that have contributed to our storylines. It’s been such a joy. And when the guest actors come, it really does infuse the cast and the crew to bring in some fresh blood and something new to play with. It’s a wonderful thing.

QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about what it is about Michael and Fiona’s relationship that would make her sacrifice her freedom and possibly her life for him?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Love? I think it’s just plain old love. I like to think that when there is that sort of commitment and devotion to another person that you would in fact sacrifice your freedom for them. I certainly feel that way in real life about my children, so that kind of love does exist, and I like to think that that’s what Fiona and Michael have between them - between each other.

QUESTION: He was a little standoffish until last season, but she has been there for him since season one, so I’m just curious what you thought. Fiona is such a strong woman, making it in a man’s world of guns and explosives, and I know you just said you’re anti-guns, but is there anything about her you can relate to?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: To Fiona? Oh, God, yes. I mean I really appreciate her impatience, her intolerance, her disdain of men on many levels. And I love that she’s just so erratic and uncontrollable. All those things about a person that are considered negatives are my favorite things about Fiona.

QUESTION: Do you share any qualities with her?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Most of those.

QUESTION: For five years, Fiona has primarily interacted with Michael and Sam and Madeline and Jesse, and now that Fiona’s in prison, she has very little contact with them. What challenges or benefits came to you as an actress because of this change of pace?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, as I mentioned earlier, my shooting schedule was an enormous benefit for me, there was, I think, a maturation of Fiona while she’s in prison where she realizes the importance and significance of her relationships with those characters that you mentioned. I think she had somewhat taken them for granted, and when she’s in prison I think that there’s the realization that they really are her family, even though she would hate to admit that she even likes them. And then she develops relationships with some of the female inmates, which is hard for Fiona to do, because in the last six seasons Fiona hasn’t really had any BFFs. There’s no girl action. She doesn’t have a lot of female cohorts, which is very interesting, because I think that there’s an element of distrust between women and reliability and I love that it’s being somewhat, even though it may be subtle, somewhat portrayed in Burn Notice, in the show.

QUESTION: We’ve had just snippets of Fiona’s background, and quite frankly those have always been my favorite episodes. Are we going to see anything like the Bruce Campbell movie where we got background on him, or are we going to get more of Fiona’s background in the show?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I don’t know. That would be a question for the (unintelligible) who created the Sam Ax movie and Fiona. I have my own version of who Fiona is and where she came from, and I don’t know if I have anything in common with Matt Nix’s variation. I guess we could find out, but as far as I know there are no plans to delve any deeper as of yet.

QUESTION: You’re going into season six now, and that’s a pretty good run for a TV series. How many more seasons do you really think are sustainable for the show, and do you have any plans after that?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, I think as long as the writing team can continue to come up with stories, and there are so many spy stories. We’ve all been watching spy thrillers for so many years, if we run out of our own we could certainly pinch some of those, but I don’t know. I don’t know how long Fiona can be running around in a bikini and high heels carrying a shotgun. I’m not sure if the audience is going to want to see me doing that into my 50s. So I don’t know. Six years is a damn good run and I’m incredibly grateful for the longevity thus far. So I’m in for a little longer, maybe without the bikinis.

QUESTION: How do you run in those heels? I can’t even walk in them.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I don’t know how it happens, but I have a little window of the ability to run in my heels, and if we don’t catch it in the first couple of takes, it’s over. I think it’s an incredible skill that I have developed, and I’m going to put it on my resume.

QUESTION: Can you dance (unintelligible)?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I don’t know. Possibly. The pain that one endures as a dancer certainly is comparable to the pain I’m enduring when I’m running around in those bloody heels, so perhaps it has paid off, all that dance training.

QUESTION: Fi is a clothes horse. She has probably a second house filled with clothes, kinky little outfits and all that. What do you think of prison clothes all of a sudden?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: It’s funny because I had this idea that maybe I would somehow temper the orange jumpsuit into something kind of hip and cool, and then once I got into jail I realized that it was something that Fiona wouldn’t even think of. She’s so intent on finding her way out of the prison that her outfit had no relevance whatsoever. And I was grateful that she wasn’t as vain as I thought she was.

QUESTION: Bruce once told me that the reason he became an actor was because it was the only career he could think of where he could screw around all day.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, and he’s still screwing around.

QUESTION: What compelled you to become an actor?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I was training as a dancer, and I had an accident and was transferred to the drama department, and was so enthralled by the comparatively easy drama classes compared to the grueling ballet, so I said, ah, this is the job for me.

QUESTION: Okay, a similar story in a different way.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, there’s so many actor stories like this, aren’t there? That they basically were just a bunch of lazy bums.

QUESTION: When you signed on with this show, what were your expectations? Does it boggle your mind that you’re still playing the character and doing this show at this point?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: It does. I’m a little bit in denial about the length of Fiona’s role. I didn’t think that the pilot would even be picked up, because I’d heard so many horror stories about so many pilots that are shot and then never go to an actual show, so I had no expectations whatsoever. I got into so much trouble shooting in South Beach for the three weeks of the pilot that when they did say that this was going to be going into a first season, I thought, “God, I don’t know if I can survive South Beach for a year, a year or two or three.” And here we are six years later, and I’m still alive.

QUESTION: That’s intriguing. So what did you do? What do you mean?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, I liken Miami to Vegas, Vegas at the shore. And so there’s an inordinate amount of partying that is inherent in landing at Miami International Airport, and it seems to not cease until you get back on the plane to wherever you may go. And so I just indulged.

SCIFI VISION: Do you do a lot of stunts yourself on the show?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I do. I do do a lot of stunts, hoping to do less now that I’m not quite as flexible as I used to be, but yes, I do do a lot of stunts. It’s odd. I think it’s easier somehow. When we’re coordinating the stunts, and our schedule is so tight and we shoot so quickly that it’s almost easier to just say, “You know what? I’ll just do the bloody thing so that there’s not these cuts of the stunt girl doing some sort of tae kwon do, and then me jumping in and pulling the expression on my face that I kicked someone. It just takes longer and I’m rather impatient, so I just say, oh, bloody hell, just teach me the moves and I’ll do it. And obviously I’m not as equipped as the stunt double, but I give it a damn good try.

SCIFI VISION: So you talked about how you have your own idea for your backstory for Fiona, but is there something specific that you’d like to see happen for her on the show, if you could, write your own episode? What would you want to do?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, that’s a good question. I think I would like us to do an episode in Dublin, in Ireland, maybe a parent is sick and she flies home and we get to see who she is, just walking into the front door of her home would say so much. We know so much about Michael and his family of origin and I would like - even though there’s something to be said for the enigmatic idea of where she came from and who she is, I would love to go to Ireland and just take a little slice of her life and reveal something. And I have a whole concept of who her family is and how she lived and perhaps the idea that she came from a significant amount of well-to-do upbringing, and so the fact that she’s running around with Michael and Sam and Jesse is not because she has to support herself financially by these means. It’s because she wants to. I think that’s an alluring idea.

QUESTION: Of all of the undercover personas you’ve played so far on the show, is there anyone in particular that you’ve really, really enjoyed?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, I played a gum-chewing New Jersey girl a few seasons ago, which was so much fun. I had some cleavage, which (unintelligible), and prancing around with an attitude. And I just recently played a Boston girl, which is a very hard accent to do well. So I like to play these women that are sort of clichés, sort of bimbo-esque gals who actually underneath it all have a whole other world of intelligence and skill, and that’s always a bit of a fun role.

QUESTION: Does Fi end up having a CIA relationship post-prison?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Oh, can that be my response? Oh! There is some CIA influence that takes place, much to her absolute chagrin.

QUESTION: What can fans expect this season? We know that you’re going to be separated for several episodes. Does Fiona get to at least hear from Michael or any of the characters about what they’re trying to do, or is she in the dark?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well you know, it’s interesting, having spent a bunch of episodes in jail, so to speak, there is this whole underground (unintelligible) that goes on in prison where these prisoners, if they have a means to information, whether it be trading cigarettes or other kind of favors, which we didn’t really explore too much as this is USA. But I became very keenly aware that there’s a lot more access to the outside world than you might think, even in a top security jail, because it’s a whole other existence in there with a bunch of trading that takes place in order to get the information that one requires. So there is some connection that takes place between Fiona and the outside world.

SCIFI VISION: You have a lot of tense, dramatic scenes in the beginning of the season. Do you prefer more of the drama or more of the action type scenes?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Like most sets, television also, it’s a very male-dominated environment. There’s a lot of men on the set, and there’s a handful of girls, women, and so when we’re doing action sequences on Burn Notice, the boys get really excited, and it’s kind of overwhelming. You know, our stunts often take over - explosions and all the pyrotechnic stuff take over the day, and the drama falls a little bit to the wayside so that the boys can do their thing with their big toys and their weaponry and all the booms and pows and kapoos and kapows. And I get a little overwhelmed, to tell you the truth. I just want to go sit with the girls, with our script supervisor and our makeup and hair department and wardrobe department and just talk about shoes and have a cup of tea. So the drama I think is what (unintelligible), and I think I blame the men because of it.

SCIFI VISION: You talked about how a lot of times it’s hard to be around the guys when they’re being silly and all that.

((Crosstalk))

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, it’s kind of like being around a bunch of 10-year-old boys playing war in the back garden, and there’s no room for a chick. I feel like I’m back in school, and there’s a very, very poignant divide between the girls and the boys.

QUESTION: One of the comments that I get on my reviews probably at least once a month is a comment about how the intro had Fiona listed as “trigger-happy ex-girlfriend” and this season in last week’s premiere, they changed it to “trigger-happy girlfriend”. What was your thoughts on that?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Oh, they did? I didn’t even know that.

QUESTION: Yes, there was - they voted on initially said, “trigger-happy ex-girlfriend” and there were comments about wow, it’s a really great new intro except that you should really fix this, and they did a quick edit...So I was curious if you had seen that and what your thoughts on that was, from the point of view of Fiona and Michael at least the last season and a half, two seasons, have really been back together as best I could tell. It’s definitely a dynamic relationship, but I would never consider them as looking at anyone else. I know that Jesse and Fiona kind of got close, but I don’t think there was any kind of romantic notions on Fiona’s part.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Really.

QUESTION: It looked like Jesse, when we was first burned, he was flailing in the wind. It looked like he was f trying to find a rock to anchor to, and in my opinion, it looked like he was looking at Fiona for some of that, but Fiona only had eyes for Michael. I was just curious what your thoughts on the reference of Fiona being an ex-girlfriend versus girlfriend.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Well, you just broke the news to me, so my initial reaction is a little - I have a little bit of temperature rise in my body, because I think that Fiona doesn’t like to define things. You know what I mean? Like the relationship, or the house with the white picket fence. I don’t think that’s what she’s about, and so hearing that it’s official that the two of them are dating, I am having a visceral response to it. So it’s interesting. I think that she thrives on an unconventional definition of life, of who she is and who they are, so I’m going to have to watch that intro. Right now my heart is racing. I may be getting hives. I’m teasing.

QUESTION: When you boil it all down, it really is an awesome romance story when you look at Michael will do anything for Fiona, and Fiona has literally gone to the wall and has given up everything for Michael. It’s really kind of a nice.

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I think it is. I think we need more of this in our lives, we compromise only so far and we sacrifice only so much, and I think that true love is about making those choices, and you’re not doing it for the other person. You’re doing it because it’s what you are compelled to do for yourself. That’s the key.

...

SCIFI VISION: Are they very strict with the scripts? Do you guys improvise sometimes?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: I think it depends. If the dialogue is pertinent to the plot, they get pretty specific about having to really be able to stay on point. It’s interesting, unlike film where it’s usually just one writer for the entire script so there’s sort of a continuity in character and nuance and the pacing of the dialogue, we have different writers for each episode. So it’s interesting how some writers have a specific voice for Fiona or for Michael, and then other writers have their own ideas, so after six years of speaking as Fiona, sometimes I’ll read the script and go I don’t know if Fiona would say it that way, or I don’t know if that sounds a little masculine, because most of our writers are male. I don’t know if a woman actually says “douchebag”. You know what I mean? I think mostly that comes from men. Women don’t usually sing about douchebags. It’s just not what we do. So then I’ll argue my point as a chick, and then they roll their eyes because I’m being a bloody feminist again. So it depends whether it’s of value and significant to the plot rather than if it’s a character choice.

SCIFI VISION: Is there a specific scene that you’re looking forward to fans seeing this season that you can talk about without spoiling it too much?

GABRIELLE ANWAR: Yes, there are some scenes that are emotionally charged, romantic. Because there’s so much action and there’s humor and bikinis, I always gravitate towards those scenes of true emotional vulnerability and connection between characters, so there’s some rather endearing scenes to look forward to in the near future.