Bruce Boxleitner from Cedar Cove - Exclusive Interview
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: BRUCE BOXLEITNER ON “CEDAR COVE”
By Abbie Bernstein
Bruce Boxleitner is an actor with followers from many different sources. Western lovers know him as Luke Macahan from the two HOW THE WEST WAS WON miniseries in 1977 through 1979. Romantic/spy comedy aficionados still revere him for his four seasons as “Scarecrow” Lee Stetson opposite Kate Jackson’s Amanda King on THE SCARECROW AND MRS. KING. Science-fiction fans have a wealth of reasons to love Boxleitner – he was the title character (plus Alan Bradley) in 1982’s feature film TRON and its 2010 sequel TRON: UPRISING, as well as various animated TV and videogame iterations and an announced big-screen third movie, and he was Captain-then-President John Sheridan on J. Michael Straczynski’s series BABYLON 5.
Now the Illinois native is appealing to yet another group of constituents: readers of Debbie Macomber CEDAR COVE book series. CEDAR COVE, about the inhabitants of a friendly small coastal town, has been successfully adapted for television by the Hallmark Channel. CEDAR COVE is now in its second season on Saturday nights. Boxleitner plays Bob Beldon, a recovering alcoholic who, with his wife Peggy, played by Barbara Niven, is the new owner and operator of the town’s B&B.
Hallmark is having a party for its talent and executives, along with the Television Critics Association. Boxleitner is here as a guest and to talk about CEDAR COVE, so he takes some time to do just that.
Boxleitner explains that Season Two began filming in Vancouver earlier this year – but not too early. “We have to wait until it’s decent weather up there.”
Season One
Bob’s first major arc came toward the end of CEDAR COVE’s first season, Boxleitner relates. “I had a very simple storyline until the very end. The last two episodes, I was Mr. Christmas for Cedar Cove and I was trying to win this Cedar Cove contest of who has the best decorations and everything, and Bob was very anal about it. I was up on the roof – they had me up on crane shots up on the top of this huge house that we use as the Time and Tide, our bed and breakfast. But I gave it up to a little old lady – that was all she had of importance in her life – who lived down the road and I pulled the plug on it. I became a nice guy. I was overly obsessive about it and my journey was, I came to realize, it wasn’t all that important that I win and that she didn’t.
Was Boxleitner on some sort of a cable for the shots where he was on the roof? “No, but there were people screaming, ‘Don’t break him!’” he laughs. “If the lift that I went up on collapsed or something, it would have been very nasty, but I’m kind of foolhardy that way. I climb up on top of things all the time when I have no business being there.”
So what’s going to happen for Bob in Season Two? At the time of this interview, Boxleitner says, “I have no idea. Nobody has told me a thing. It seems awful early that we’re having this [interview], but I’m fine with it. I’m anxious to get back. I love it up there. I want to do some more boating – I want to learn to do that more, because it’s so beautiful up there. It’s a part of my life that I haven’t explored yet. I want to learn to sail, maybe, and do something like that at this stage of my life. I’ve done everything else, so …”
Want to Read
The Books?
In first season, Bob dealt with his recovery from alcoholism. Will we see more of this?
“I think so,” Boxleitner relates. “And Dylan Neal’s character [Jack Griffith], since he’s sort of his mentor. And I think that something may happen tragically there. We have to have that – we need to have some pathos.”
Is Boxleitner happy with the way BABYLON 5 wrapped up? “Well, personally, no, because I wished it would have gone on forever. But he [series creator and primary writer J. Michael Straczynski] had a lot of challenges. I can do nothing but praise Joseph Michael Straczynski. He had a rough time. A television series is tough, but he got to achieve what he finally wanted. You know, we were basically canceled our fourth season, and as any B5 fan knows, there was a five-year arced story that he wanted to do, and we felt like we had failed, and then at the last minute, TNT came in like the cavalry in to save us, and so he had to cobble together everything he had tried to put it back together again to finish the fifth season, because we had tied it up by the end of the fourth. And that was it. He did, and then we felt vindicated. TNT did a couple of spinoffs, which never really succeeded. I was bitter about it myself, because I thought we were just really happening, and I wanted it to continue. But c’est la vie.”
In 2011, Boxleitner starred as the base commander in 51, a Syfy Channel film constructed around the premise that the U.S. government’s famous Area 51 in Nevada contains real live extraterrestrials, some good, some bad. The telefilm was directed by Jason Connery. Boxleitner says he has wonderful memories of working with the helmer. “I love Jason. I really do. The biggest thrill working with Jason was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; we were trying to make the Nevada desert, Area 51, in the middle of Louisiana. But we did it. I loved it.”
Boxleitner shares his reaction when director Connery received a phone call from his father, actor Sean Connery. “I’m forgetting – it’s Jason Connery. Sean Connery is probably one of my top five all-time favorite movie stars and actors. And I grew up with James Bond, and every role he’s ever played, he’s phenomenal. And I know he’s retired now, off in Bermuda, playing golf. So anyway, Jason’s working, and suddenly his phone rings, and I hear, ‘Yes, Dad, yes, Dad.’ And I went, ‘Dad – oh, my God!’ And I hovered around, going, ‘Jason, can I say hi to him?’” He laughs. “I was like a fanboy. I am a fanboy. I didn’t get to talk to him. They had a very quick conversation and I couldn’t do it, but oh, well.”
Meanwhile, Boxleitner is working on producing a new science-fiction TV series, LANTERN CITY. The announced cast includes Boxleitner’s onscreen BABYLON 5 love interest Mira Furlan, as well as John Rhys-Davies and Raphael Sbarge.
Does Boxleitner have any other projects going on right now? “Nothing at the moment, other than I’m anxious to get back to work on [CEDAR COVE]. It’s a great group of people; I love them and you kind of make an instant family out of a cast. Some families don’t get along so well and some really get along well. So it’s all good.”
Written by Abbie Bernstein
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