Nathan Fillion

Believe everything you’ve heard about Nathan Fillion.

He’s incredibly kind, funny, talented and good-looking. He’s also quite easygoing when it comes to picking a restaurant and eager to show you photos of his cat, Spartacus.

I met Nathan for lunch on Saturday. He’s in town promoting the second season of ABC’s Castle, which premieres tonight at 10 ET. After ordering some coffee and pierogies at East Village diner Veselka, we chatted about the show, Joss Whedon, video games, Dr. Horrible — actually, we talked so much that I’m splitting this interview into two parts.

Here’s the beginning:

I’d imagine there’s some anxiety when you’re filming the first season of a TV series. Is there a different feeling on the set of Castle now that you’ve been renewed and have fan support?

Nathan Fillion stars in ’Castle,’ which premieres its second season tonight.

You know, the first season was a very interesting experience, because we filmed 13 episodes and then packed everything up and said, "OK, everybody, great season," and went our separate ways. And then it started to air. It had this wonderful feeling of, "It’s out of our hands," so it was actually quite freeing. And I’ve learned ... I’ve had a long line of failed television programs, pilots that were never picked up, series that didn’t go very long. I’ve learned that there’s really nothing you can do. If it’s not in my control, I try not to worry about it.

Getting a second season, though, that was a pleasant surprise. I thought, "This is great, we get to go back and take a crack at it again." I started to run into people who are fans of the show saying great things about it. Obviously, Andrew Marlowe, our creator, is playing some notes that people want to hear. It’s a good feeling.

There have been many comparisons to Moonlighting. Are the writers paying attention to the mistakes Moonlighting made in later seasons with the two leads?

You know what is great about how they’ve arranged it ... In the beginning of Season 1, Castle forces it — he forces Beckett to have to put up with him. She’s trying to constantly rein him back at the same time as being forced to put up with his antics, but at the same time they have a mutual respect. They’re solving murders, so regardless of the personality conflicts, they are making headway in their cases. They’re building a relationship, which happens when people work together. Obviously, these people are attracted, but things are keeping them apart. As we get to the end of the season, Castle blows it — that’s his manner, that’s his way. He betrays her trust. In any friendship if you’re betrayed by your friend, your friend has to work to get the trust back. So that’s what we’re gonna have to do in the second season. Castle’s gonna have to work at the trust.

How much of Castle is Nathan? Intelligent, charming, witty, self-deprecating, sexy, fun, flirty, mischievous, playful. I could go on, but you get the idea ... — LostIn24

I don’t know, I think I’m pretty all right to hang out with. If Castle were a real person, I don’t think I’d hang out with him very much. I think he’d be too much of a pain in the a— for me to deal with on a consistent basis. He would eventually, I think, wear on my nerves.

What is an attribute you see in Stana (Katic, his Castle co-star) that you have not seen in other actors? — Boston

Stana is as serious as a heart attack about her work. She’s got this binder ... she kind of dogears pages, she highlights, she writes notes. She has this binder with her all the time. And when I’m not doing a scene, I’ll often be reading a book or playing a game on my iPhone or Twittering. She’s got her nose in her binder, drawing notes and folding pages. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody work so hard.

OK, so we’re hearing stories about many former Lost cast members returning next season. Have you been approached to go to Hawaii to appear in the final episodes?

No, I haven’t. And if I was, I would be so disappointed if I couldn’t go and do something, because that was a lot of fun. They really went out of their way to make me feel comfortable and welcome. But my schedule at Castle is terribly busy — I work at least 12 hours a day, five days a week. So it kind of kiboshes any other jobs — a guest shot on Dollhouse or Lost or anything else I might want to jump into at the moment.

And since everybody is so busy, how on earth will we ever going to see more Dr. Horrible?

Thank god there is a such thing as hiatus. We got the first Dr. Horrible done in six days, we banged it out.

(We pause here to eat sandwiches and pierogies. Nathan generously lets me double-dip.)

What’s the most embarassing thing he knows about Joss Whedon? — Adam R.

(Laughs) You can’t embarrass Joss Whedon, he’s got no pride! He fully admits it. (In a Whedon-y voice) "Oh, it’s me. I’m little and goofy." You can’t wound his pride. He’s too self-deprecating.

Have you talked to Joss since the Emmys?

I was with him at the Emmys. Wanna see pictures?

Yeah! (Nathan whips out his iPhone and shows me a bunch of photos.)

It was a great night. Here’s us walking down the hallway after having won ... Felicia (Day) started Twittering right away. Look at all that gold. Isn’t that great? Everybody was so excited.

That’s so cool.

We laughed and loved it, and I just thought it was so wonderful, because the whole point of Dr. Horrible was to make a point during the writers’ strike, to take the producers out of the equation and just do the stories a writer wanted to do in a manner a writer wanted to do it. I consider Dr. Horrible a tremendous success. The fact that it won an Emmy I just think lends validity to what we were doing and the point we were trying to make: taking the power into someone else’s hands and changing the world.

I know that you are a big Halo fan and that you voiced characters from Halo 3 and the upcoming ODST. Who do you voice in ODST? And would you be able to give me your Xbox 360 gamer name so that I may multi-player firefight with you and my friends? — E. Francis L.

I won’t give out my gamer tag because when I’m playing, all these invites start popping up, and when my friends that I do want to play with invite me, I have to scroll through so many names. In Halo 3: ODST I’m a sergeant, and I’m sent on this mission, and you’re essentially a rookie on this mission.

I just played a little bit of ODST yesterday, but the highlight was Bungie flew me down to Seattle where their offices are. You walk in, it’s kind of an auditorium with computers as far as the eye can see. You lean over someone’s computer screen, you can feel the heat coming off it. All this energy, all these guys typing away, drawing away, building characters, building levels, every little detail. They’re just working away, toiling. Incredible.

When did you become a gamer?

When I was a kid, we had a Telstar, which was kind of a console with slide switches for on/off and Pong. And that was all we had. I move to New York and I’m on my own, and PlayStation came out. So I bought it, and I started playing Tomb Raider, Resident Evil — those were my two games. I moved to Los Angeles, and they came out with a couple other systems. I went through Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, then I heard about Xbox.

And I had a double hernia — I was moving a giant sea chest and I got a double hernia out of it. So I was scheduled the following day to go for my surgery. The doctor said, "You’re gonna be down for a little while." So the day before, I bought an Xbox and said, "Give me that game, that game and why don’t you throw in Halo?" I’d never heard of it. And that was it. I was down for two weeks, sitting on my couch, playing Halo. So Xbox became the thing, Halo was the thing and I haven’t moved on since.

Well, that worked out well for you.

That’s the thing, you know? Halo, Firefly ... I’m a huge fan of these fantasy realms. And at the same time as being a fan I get to also be a participant.

In the second part of my Nathan Fillion interview, we get to the important stuff, like music and Halloween. I’ll post it tomorrow.