Firefly

Jonathan M. Woodward in Toronto

So, this past weekend was Sunnydale Central 3 and one of the guests was Jonathan M. Woodward, Tracy in The Message. Quite apart from being just a really lovely guy, he was also really honest in answers at the Q&A’s about things. And as much as I love Buffy and Angel, I wanted to find out Firefly stuff; I’m far too addicted to FF at this point to NOT ask the guy about the show when he’s standing 10 feet away.

I asked what it had been like to having been filming The Message when word came through that the show had been cancelled, and how everyone had reacted. He said that the cast and crew of FF, by the time of his appearance, were like the happiest family he’d ever seen on a TV show; he said he dreamed about lucking into being on a show like that and would have happily stayed on for 100 years had they asked him. He said he was "morbidly depressed" (his words) that he wasn’t going to get to be on it anymore after his episode because the situation was the most amazing he’d ever encountered. Said Nathan and Gina were inseparable on set, and that he found a lot of the relationships between the actors were very similar to their character relationships. Except that Gina had Laurence Fishburne to go home to so she and Alan were really just great friends...

In terms of when word came through about the cancellation, he likened his feelings of having been there to having a brand new girlfriend and your relationship is only two weeks old, and you go over to her family’s place for Thanksgiving dinner - and one of the grandmothers keels over into her mashed potatoes dead of a heart attack at the table. He said he felt really bad for everyone because they were so devastated and destroyed, but felt he wasn’t really a part of the sadness because he’d only just come on to the show - and that they were such professionals that they got the job done. They put their heads down and just worked through the depression.

He said that they were one of the most talented groups of people he’d ever met - Sean is quiet and thoughtful, Alan is goofy and smart, Morena and he have become really good friends and she’s a lovely woman (they worked on a project together in Vancouver after his stint on the show), Jewel is of course amazingly sweet and wonderful, that working with Adam was really intimidating because of his past career, and that Nathan was in actuality the natural leader of the bunch off camera as well. He said that Nathan has this incredible natural ability to be able to help focus people and keep them together and moving in a forward direction, and that he’s - - - - um...an amazing - - - - errrr...how does one say this delicately...he has an amazing ability to pass wind. They’d all be stressed after a long day of work and touchy as people get when they’re tired, and Nathan’d come along to any one of them at any time and say, "Pull my finger. No, really, pull it." :oD Jonathan said that would break the tension every single time, for everyone.

He said they hadn’t told him ahead of time that he’d in fact be naked for an entire scene and that he found out when he got the script. So they had him onto the set a bit early the day they filmed that scene and put make-up all over his body, and then he spent much of the rest of the day putting his butt into Gina’s face - and that she was very gracious about it.

He said he kept falling asleep in the coffin, and that at one point he was actually snoring, and jokingly said they were all looking at him like, "How DARE you come onto OUR show and fall ASLEEP in the coffin?" hee hee He said the last scene was really bizarre ’cause he was trying so hard to stay awake and they had the "snow" falling (he called it cancer in the air), and then all the extras were crowding the coffin and kept touching at him like, "I’m the mother!" "No, *I’m* the mother!" He said that was very bizarre but really amusing.

That’s all I remember right now, but I thought some ’round here would want to know what had been said of our BDH...

rockgoddes