Bruce Boxleitner

 

I just wrapped production on The Thanksgiving House for Hallmark. As many fans of True West already know, I’m also starring in the Western Comedy Smokewood, Nevada, as the cattleman Johnny Morgan.

I’m currently working on a project with Trevor Crafts. We are producing a wonderful Steampunk Sci-Fi drama called Lantern City. Written by Matthew Daley, this Steampunk TV show will truly define the genre.

For my money, the best Western ever is a tie between 1969’s The Wild Bunch and 1956’s The Searchers.

History has taught me that throughout time, man has never changed, except for the wardrobe and mode of transportation.

Tequila is a good friend…when no others are available.

The one actor I am in awe of is Robert Duvall. Having worked with him in Gods and Generals, I felt that I was attending a master class in acting each day on set.

I learned everything I know from working alongside James Arness. He taught me what it was to be the star of a television series and the responsibilities that came with it. I did a miniseries, How the West Was Won, and two TV movies, Red River and Gunsmoke: One Man’s Justice, with Arness, and he never failed to inspire me.

Wish I had a dollar for every time I heard, “They just don’t make good Westerns anymore!”

Show me an open highway, and you will see me as  a happy camper.

I had a mid-life crisis when I was working in Vancouver, and I saw Kate Beckinsale in a bookstore. I had to pick my jaw up off of the floor.

My mother always told me, “Put on clean underwear every morning; you never know what the day is going to bring.”

The secret to a happy marriage is who knows? Obviously I have no idea. I’ve been married twice!

Nobody can touch Western writer James Donovan, author of A Terrible Glory and The Blood of Heroes. He is a historian who writes like one of the great novelists.

Nobody can touch movie directors John Ford, Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, John Sturges and Akira Kurosawa.

The hardest part of writing a successful screenplay is writing something that you know you would want to watch and is also producible.

When it comes to Western films, I admire Ride the High Country, Tombstone, Open Range, and for TV, Lonesome Dove.

 

BRUCE BOXLEITNER, ACTOR
We know him as Luke Macahan in How the West Was Won, as Billy Montana in The Gambler, Wyatt Earp in I Married Wyatt Earp and Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet in Gods and Generals. Bruce Boxleitner is also a Sci-Fi buff, which you might have known from his roles in the original and sequel of Tron and his role as Capt. John Sheridan in Babylon 5. But you may not have known he has also written two Sci-Fi novels with a Western setting: Frontier Earth and Searcher. This native Midwesterner is an alumnus of Chicago’s prestigious Goodman Theatre, and he has made more than 100 film and TV appearances from 1973 to today. The actor currently resides in southern California.