Nathan Fillion

March 15, 2009 - Geeks know him as the salty Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly and Caleb from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Middle aged women as Dr. Adam Mayfair from Desperate Housewives. Horror fans know him as Bill Pardy from Slither, and anyone who’s anyone knows him as the nefarious Captain Hammer in Joss Whedon’s online musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. But the genre-crossing Nathan Fillion is about to acquire a whole new legion of crime drama fans in the ABC series Castle.

Airing Monday nights at 10pm, Castle is not your typical CSI / SVU dark and creepy sort of show. Fillion’s Richard Castle is a wise-cracking horror novelist with writers’ block, who finds a muse (and a potential love interest/verbal sparring partner) in Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic).

Last week’s premiere has been garnering strong reviews for Fillion. We got a chance to chat with the actor - who proclaims he’s not only a geek, but he actually loves talking about Firefly. He told us what’s so fun about doing this new show, how he got involved in Halo and whether or not he’d be willing to do a Dollhouse cameo.

IGN TV: So you’ve been getting some great reviews...

Nathan Fillion: Yes I have! [laughs] Oh, I shudder when I think about those things, but when they’re kind, I love them!

IGN: For people who missed the first episode, tell us a little about your character.

Fillion: Richard Castle is this kind of a rock star author who is bored with his success. And he kills off his main character in his hit series of mystery novels, and he’s stuck with writer’s block. He’s afraid he’s never going to come up with a character as cool as Derek Storm, the character he killed. And circumstances put him together with this Kate Beckett. Someone’s copycatting the murders from his novels and he’s called in as a consultant on the case and he finds himself super-attracted to Kate Beckett...and in her, he finds a muse and a new character for his new series of mystery novels. He gets the mayor, who is a friend of his, to make sure Detective Beckett has to take him along for research for his novels.

IGN: You guys have some really great chemistry, but in a show like this, if you guys ever hook up, do you have the whole Moonlighting situation?

Fillion: Well here’s the thing. If you oversimplify it into a "will they or won’t they" it doesn’t seem super-interesting. But if you look at real life, I mean, how many times have you heard about someone’s relationship woes and said, ’Uh! Drama! Why would he do that? Why would she say that? Why won’t she just open herself up and be emotionally available?’ But then we go on TV and we oversimplify it. So, as in a real relationship, you’re going to see real people spend time together and get to know each other. You can only get to know someone by spending time with them, learning their choices and how they react in certain situations. That’s why long distance relationships don’t work out. Because they’re over the phone...in any relationship, it has it’s hurdles and some things are going to set it back.

IGN: I think that’s the fun part of it. The back and forth.

Fillion: Me too. As long as it can be realistic, it’s satisfying.

IGN: I know Kate is aware that you’re writing about her but what happens when she actually reads the book?

Fillion: She gets curious. We start to address it later on in the episodes. She addresses these concerns and these facts. ’What is this character going to be like? You called her what? That’s a stripper name!’ [laughs] She’s sort of flattered but it’s like, nothing with Castle is ever easy. He’ll say something nice but kind of backhanded nice. He’ll say something nice just to bug you. He’s very child-like in that way. He’s very immature. He doesn’t really ever come down. He’s never had an adult role model. An adult male role model. And he’s kind of short an adult role model given the kind of person his mother is.

IGN: The relationship with Castle’s mom...it’s sort of a backwards relationship because his daughter [played by Molly C. Quinn] mothers him and Castle mothers his mother [played by Susan Sullivan from Dharma & Greg].

Fillion: Yes, and also, you know, married couples are no longer the norm. Divorce is the norm now. It’s the majority. These single parent families are very common. And how many perfectly-functioning families do you know that play the role that they ought to?

IGN: Don’t know any of those.

Fillion: They’re in short supply. I think we put tags on these things...it’s not an overly-contrived situation. It’s reality now. It’s how things are now.

IGN: The humor in the show is one of the things that make it fun. All of the movies and shows in the past year have been so depressing. It’s nice to see something actually funny.

Fillion: [laughs] You know, when we were in New York, doing the pilot, they were kind enough to have these homicide detectives come by and hang out with us. Give us their expertise. Lend a hand with their expertise and tell us how this would go down. These guys are not dark, haunted tough guys who are brooding, jaded... They see the darkest side of New York that there is. These guys are hilarious! And the stories they have are incredible. They all start with murder and then go on from there. I mean, they have incredible stories but they’re so entertaining. They’re funny. These guys are dry. ’Let me tell you what this guy did. Ok, so he’s killed six guys and we’re after him...’ I mean it starts with that and now you’re into the story. So incredible. That’s where Castle kind of comes in with the reality. It’s not dark and haunted the entire time. It’s regular people who enjoy their jobs, who have friends and laugh and hang out.

IGN: You had a couple of interesting cameos in the first episode, including author James Patterson. Did you sit and talk to any writers?

Fillion: No. I’m not the kind of guy, the kind of actor that needs to write a book to play an author. Sit down and talk to an author for a day. I don’t feel the need to do that. I’m not very Method. I use my imagination. I always feel awkward talking about process... I don’t know. I feel like I never come off sounding anything but goofy. Actually, that’s what we’re doing. We’re pretending everything. So I say to myself, what would I do if I were an author? What would my day be like?

IGN: Imagine that! Acting.

Fillion: [laughs]

IGN: In the beginning of the first episode at the party for Castle’s book release, you’re signing some... um, chests... What is the strangest thing a fan has asked you to do?

Fillion: I’ve had things I’m not super-comfortable doing. The thing you have to remember when approaching a person you’ve seen on TV, is the familiarity factor. You see their face and you feel like you know this guy. You’ve got to remember, the TV doesn’t work the other way around. It’s a stranger coming up to them. A stranger comes up to you and starts baring body parts [laughs] and you say, "heeey...", especially when they’re all riled up. I’m not big on signing the body parts. I did a nude scene one time and people will take the screen capture and put it into an 8x10 and ask me to sign my naked ass. I’m not going to do that. It was funny in context but a picture of it to sign? Eeeeh. That’s something else.

IGN: Well, speaking of things like that, another thing that happens at the party is Castle saying that everyone always asks the same old question. And I’m sure you have tons of people yelling Firefly quotes at you on the street. Do you ever get sick of talking about it?

Fillion: Talking about Firefly? Oh man. I don’t. I’m a geek. I’m a nerd. I’m such a nerd. My mom always said, ’Yes Nathan, you’re a geek. The advantage is, you look mainstream.’ I’m kind of the ’you wouldn’t know to look at me’ kind of geek. It’s what I’m hoping anyway.

IGN: No, you wouldn’t.

Fillion: I’m just a huge fan of Firefly. Guess what? I’m the luckiest fan of Firefly there’s ever been, because not only was I a fan, but I got to be the captain. So, bite it is what I say to other fans. [laughs] Not really. But that was a dream. It was like, woohoo! Look at how big my boots are! I got boots on and I get to wear a space suit! Well, I actually hated the space suit, but I’ve got a gun! I get to ride horses! And be in a space ship. I was pretending. I was having a ball. Best job ever. So when people come up and talk to me about that show, I’m a fan too.

IGN: What other ways are you a geek? Are you a videogame guy?

Fillion: Uh huh. I’m a videogame guy. My first console was the PS2. I never had one when I was a kid. I never had Atari or Intellivision or Coleco.

IGN: Colecovision! Oh my gosh!

Fillion: That was a good one, wasn’t it? It had the most arcade-like games. But I never had those thing, so when I was on a soap opera and I was in New York, I realized I could just go out and buy one. No one was going to stop me! I just kind of looked around and realized, I could do whatever I wanted, I’ve got money in my pocket, oh my God! And I had a great time with this thing. What an interesting toy! And then I was introduced to this game, Halo on the Xbox and I loved it. And Halo 2... Now you can just go on the internet and you don’t have to invite friends over to play. Now everybody just stays home. When you’re done playing you just press a button and everyone’s gone. And I was public about liking the game, so the guys who make it are Firefly fans. And they called me up and said, ’how’d you like to be one of the voices on Halo 3?’ Sign me up! And Adam Baldwin would want to do it and Alan Tudyk, who plays with me, would want to do it, so we have half of the crew of Serenity in Halo 3.

IGN: Since we’re talking about the whole genre thing, I have to ask...I just spoke to Neil Patrick Harris [who starred with Fillion in Joss Whedon’s online musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog] about possibly doing a cameo on Joss’s new show Dollhouse. He said he might do it. Would you?

Fillion: Yeah! I would. I think, when Joss Whedon calls you up and says, ’hey, I’ve got this idea’ you say, ’Yeah! Yes please. Thank you. Anything you like. That would be great.’ It only works out for me.

IGN: And as far as Dr. Horrible goes, I’m assuming everyone would be willing to do a sequel.

Fillion: Yeah. I mean, again, it was one of those incredibly positive times where you know you’re doing a great thing and you’re having fun doing it and you can believe you’re involved, you feel really fortunate and you’re working with talented people that you like. I mean, how does it get better? It doesn’t get better.

IGN: Plus, you get to put a character called ’Captain Hammer’ on your resume.

Fillion: Yeah. [laughs]

IGN: Can you give us a sneak peak into the next episode?

Fillion: The next episode is called "Nanny McDead". This is what I like about Castle. You’re not going to find them investigating a bank robbery where a man was shot and killed. That’s not really the kind of homicides they’re into. Drive by shootings... no. It’s a nanny found dead tumbling in a laundry dryer. A clothes dryer. And you go, ’Where...? How did...? who in their right mind...?’ It becomes an entirely different kind of mystery. The ones that interest Castle are the ones that have an incredible story attached.

Castle airs Monday nights at 10:00 pm ET/PT on ABC.