Burn Notice

Season 2 e.tv (*194) 09:30 Action

Jeffrey Donovan knows all about the tough times that his former spy character Michael Westen is going through after being named, shamed and framed in action series Burn Notice (2007-2013). “He can’t get a break and no one wants to work with him. Growing up, no one wanted to be my friend because I was so poor,” says the 50-year- old. “It’s not fun being a loner but like Michael has his team, I had my brothers. So I had the training for this role – and I have a few more friends now as an adult.”

1 Jeffrey was so poor growing up in Massachusetts that he got Christmas presents twice. “We were on welfare and my mom would re-wrap gifts from the year before,” says Jeff. He got a scholarship to a private 2 college after his high school drama teacher lied to him – he thought that he was auditioning for a school play but teachers from a private college were in the audience watching. Jeff got into martial arts at college 3 and has been a Shotokan karate practitioner for 30 years. He also practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and aikido. Despite doing his own stunts, he 4 didn’t get injured on set. He’s a lot more clumsy at home though – he cut open his hand on a drawer and fell off a boat dock and slashed open his knee. His biggest splurge is the garden 5 at his Los Angeles home, which Jeffrey says he never dreamt of having as a kid: “We never had a yard and we moved almost every year. Now I spend as much time as I can in my garden.” He doesn’t need to worry about 6 money – his salary for Burn Notice was $150 000 (R2 million) per episode and he sold his Miami condo in 2015 with a $1 million (R14 million) profit.