Joss Whedon

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Serenity creator Joss Whedon’s writers’ strike project "Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog"—starring Nathan Fillion and Neal Patrick Harris—premieres the first of three fun-filled acts Tuesday. To that end, the director has done the unthinkable—agreeing to a Q&A session with Weekend Gawker! Yaaaay! The totally biased interview after the jump.

Q. Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris in an Internet musical in which the lovable loser baddy is kind of the good guy, and the good guy is kind of a dick—and it’s a musical?! Um, how? Wha? How on earth did this develop?

A. Who is to say who is the villain and who is the hero? Probably the dictionary. But I know that people who grow up identifying with outsiders are the people I are. Plus singing is the universal language, along with being on fire.

Q. You worked with Nathan on the last season of Buffy—he was scary and he thumbed poor Xander’s eye out!! I hate him! But, oh, he was awesome in Firefly and Serenity, so I love him!—but how did you hook up with Neil Patrick Harris for "Dr. Horrible"? Do geek heros (or heros of geeks) just hang out in all the same places?

A. You can go to Famousperson.org and rent them. You can also get lesser celebrities on EBaio. Hey-oh!

Q. Nathan Fillion strikes me as a great big pirate/cowboy sort of man-among-men. Surely such men cannot sing! Can he? LIke really?

A. Nate’s got pipes. (But we used Marni Nixon’s voice anyway.) There’s very little Nate can’t do. He’s a renaissance man! Like with the sculpting and the Italian guys!

Q. In my dreams I traverse great depths and voids of unnamed space and find myself in a netherworld where untold numbers of Buffy and Firefly props are just laying around and I can just take them back to my apartment and mount them in the sweetest little shrines. What Buffy/Firefly props have you held onto as personal mementos?

A. I have a life-sized Sean Maher made of human flesh that keeps screaming that it’s the real Sean Maher and I should unchain it. Amazing technology!

Q. Seriously, though. Nathan Fillion. Singing? James Marsters, maybe, but Fillion?

A. Nathan will sing your scrotum off, Poi-Dog!

Q. Any surprise cameos we can look forward to in "Dr. Horrible"? I know I could use a fix of some Anthony Head or Emma Caulfield about now. I’m dying!

A. Two words, true believer: no. Ah, there was no second word. Sorry.

Q. I love that your fiercest ass-kickers are always girls. Buffy, Willow, Anya, River Tam, and I’m kind of assuming that Eliza Dushku’s character in Dollhouse is going to be the main force to be reckoned with. Yet we’re in the middle of a summer of action blockbusters and only one of them, Wanted, even involves a powerful woman. Is there some reason that we can have a woman or a girl be the main action hero on TV but not in movies?

A. Movies are from the Devil. Also, it’s only recently women got to be action heroes on TV. Progress is slow, and often non-existent. There’s plenty of cool comics with female characters... But all it takes is one Catwoman to set the cause back a decade.

Q. Speaking of which. You’re becoming an important voice for equal rights and protection for women and girls. The mainstream press seems to think that problem’s been largely solved. But it remains, of course, a cultural disaster. You’ve written and spoken about this quite a bit. Where can people sign up to get involved?

A. Equality Now could always use support. Sadly, always.

Q. On a lighter note: Han or Luke?

A. Admiral Akbar, loser.

Q. Some fans have already launched a campaign to save Dollhouse from fickle network programmers who cancel everything that doesn’t have enough fart jokes. Other fans see these organizers as casting a desperate light on Dollhouse since it hasn’t even aired yet. Do you have a stand?

A. I love the effort, but do think it tends to put us in the cheap seats.

Q. Battlestar Galactica’s Blonde Tomboy Space Girl (AKA Starbuck) is so clearly Wheadonian with her hot, hot fighting abilities and messianic visions... The BSG writers love you. When are you doing a cameo?

A. When Ron Moore stops admiring his shiny mane long enough to realize Starbuck could never love Lee as she would love pasty me.

Q. Quick! Best episode of The Odd Couple ever.

A. The last. No wait! The one in the middle.

Q. No matter where in the world you live nowadays, the monkeys—especially the terrible, terrible spider monkeys—are encroaching with hateful motives. What do you intend to do about this?

A. Until you take Monkey into your heart, you will never be allowed into the Jungle of Heaven.