Interview with James C. Burns

Welcome to my interview with actor James C.Burns, who played and was the voice behind Sergeant Frank Woods from Call of Duty: Black Ops I & II. Read on for the interview!

1.  What was it like working with the rest of the cast on both Black Ops games? And what was it like working with other big-name actors, Gary Oldman as Viktor Reznov, Sam Worthington as Alex Mason etc.?

A.  I mostly worked with Rich MacDonald (Section) who I knew from a movie we did together in 2011, great guy... and Kamar who played Menendez,  both guys were absolute pros and made the whole thing a lot of fun.  Oldman and Worthington only worked as voice-actors, so we never crossed paths...

2. What instructions were you given before voicing Frank Woods?

A.   None really, we'd go over the dialogue, I'd Woods-ify it and then we'd capture the magic on set.  

3. What kind of process did you have to go through in the studio? In regard to the voice-acting as well as the motion and facial capture.

A. I'm not really a voice-actor. The Woods character has always been shot using full performance capture, just like a movie. So I do very little in the VO booth.

Every action scene you see Woods in was shot live in a P-CAP studio in Playa del Rey.

4. I'm sure everyone has opinions on this subject, but I want to hear it directly from you, what did you first think when you saw the 95-year old Frank Woods for the first time?

A. Scared me... looked just like my old man.   I knew what was intended so I was pretty excited for the world to get to know Old Man Woods, he's making a wheelchair badass.

5. Frank Woods has had a good amount of fairly memorable quotes throughout both games. Which would you consider your favourites and/or the most fun to voice?

A. Depends on the day... "You can't kill me,  this is Nam baby and Nurse Batshit, where's my smokes!!"

6. As we all know, Black Ops II has several different endings to the single-player campaign. Which would you consider the most 'official' ending out of all of the possible endings?

A. Woods and the Mason boys all live.

7. Is it true that Woods originally was given a character name called "Frank Barnes", but this was changed to Frank Woods?

A. Yeah, it was the character that we used to developed the Performance capture technology.  That was how I originally got involved, they needed an actor with stunt and weapons training to run the new gear through its paces... they liked me and it stuck.

8. Would you agree that Woods is possibly the most psychologically tortured of the Black Ops series characters? He does have a rough time throughout both games, seeing Bowman killed in Black Ops I, killing Alex Mason which depends on where you shoot Mason in Black Ops II, and also witnessing the death of Jason Mudson by Menendez, not to mention the rough times Woods himself had after the incident with Kravchenko which saw Woods go to two prison camps, and ended up leaving Woods thirsty for revenge against Menendez. Would you agree with this statement?

A. Woods is the worlds greatest optimist. He only sees opportunity and possibility. No situation is hopeless to him, so what appears as an impossible thing to bear for most is really just another day for him... he's a soldier, he takes orders and gets shit done, end of story.  As he ages he gain perspective on the world and his function,  he may beat other people but rarely himself.

9. Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions! Just to wrap things up with a simple one, what advice would you give any aspiring actors and/or voice-actors?

A. Have skill that allows you to make a living and have a life.   Don't expect the craft of acting to bear much financial  fruit for a long long time.