Nathan Fillion

A discussion with the Slither and Serenity star.

March 29, 2006 - By way of happenstance, I feel as though I’ve been stalking Nathan Fillion over the past few years. I’ve been on the set of his last two films, Serenity and Slither. I’ve interviewed him multiple times for both and I even ran into him at the recent Slither premiere. Luckily for me, Fillion is a pretty great guy to talk to. He’s funny, forthcoming and easygoing. He’s also still pretty gracious, which is always kinda nice in this business of egos and divas.

In Slither, which opens this week, Fillion plays the town Sheriff, Bill Pardy. The most a cop in this quiet little town has to do normally is nod to the townspeople and break up the occasional bar fight. Unfortunately for Pardy, he’s about to encounter the biggest challenge of his career, an alien slug invasion.

In the small hunting town of Wheelsy, a large meteor falls to Earth. Grant Grant (Michael Rooker - and yes, his name is Grant Grant) is the town’s resident rich jerk, married to the beautiful and far younger Starla (Elizabeth Banks), and Grant is out for a night of potential marital indiscretion with Brenda (Brenda James) when the two stumble on the remnants of the meteor in the woods. Out of the wreckage pops a small slug which burrows its way through Grant’s chest and up into his brain, taking over his body in order to use him as a vessel for world domination. Grant takes hold of Brenda to use her as the womb for a giant breed of slugs set to unleash on the unsuspecting citizens of Woolsey on their way to taking over the world. Out to try their best to stop them is Chief of Police, Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion), who also has long since held a torch for Starla. Also somewhat concerned with the situation is the mouthy, brazen town Mayor Jack MacReady (Gregg James). The slugs are everywhere and spreading quickly.

IGN FILMFORCE: So Gunn is pretty open to shooting a take a few different ways as the mood strikes?

FILLION: Extremely open. He’ll let you change a line while shooting it, he’ll shout out from across the room, ’Now say this!’ (Laughs) That whole kind of, what was it, Shadow of the Vampire, where the director is shouting out, ’You’re scared, you’re very, very scared! Not that scared.’ And the guy’s acting along the way, on the fly, I just thought that was brilliant. And then James Gunn actually did it for real. IGNFF: So there’s no silence on a take, he’ll speak out when needed?

FILLION: Oh sure, if a line occurs to him, he’ll shout it out. We were in rehearsals in the barn one time and I say, ’Well we better get you to a hospital right quick’ and behind me, Wally, my co-star Don Thompson says, ’What the f**k they gonna do for her in a hospital?’ And I turn around and I say, ’Shuuuut up,’ because I’m trying to keep this woman calm obviously, but that wasn’t the line...and James said, ’You know what,’ that’s completely reasonable, that absolutely has to be said. It’s in the movie. That’s the example...

IGNFF: Is it sort of a discovery process watching the film now and seeing what parts he chose to use and what he cut on top of the finished effects and everything thrown all in together?

FILLION: What I was amazed by, and I talked to James a couple of times throughout the film while we were making it - We were having a lot of fun and we were poking a lot of fun at our characters and the situations we were in, we were playing it very real but poking a lot of fun. I asked him about it and he said, ’It’s a fine line that you have to walk between letting it be funny and allowing it to be a comedy.’ I think he did that extremely well. I remember filming this thing, thinking, and I’d be playing Halo into the wee hours of the morning with my friends back in Los Angeles. We’d be playing Halo and chatting and they’d ask how filming was going and we’re chatting about it while we’re on Halo and I would say to them, ’You know, we get to really kick our characters around a lot. I’m always kicking my character,’ which I find really fun to do. I think it’s really great to kick the piss out of your own character, and everybody was doing it. I thought to myself, ’We’re making a very funny movie, I’ve got a very funny character. We seem to be making a lot of jokes,’ yet in seeing the movie I discovered I was the straight man and I just didn’t know it. I think that’s brilliant and I think that’s James Gunn. That’s the story, that’s the idea, that’s the tone and I think that’s what he created.

GNFF: You mentioned on the Serenity set that you kind of modeled your character after Harrison Ford. Who’s the model for Bill Pardy?

FILLION: Me. I kind of fell backwards into acting. I was studying to be a high school teacher. I look now and I understand completely, or actually barely, how much work it is to be a teacher. It’s an incredible amount of work. I’m really not cut out for it. I’m not the kind of guy who, I can keep all these things under control, I can do this and I can multitask, but don’t worry I’ll take care of it. I’m not that guy. I’m the kind of guy who, I need a watch that tells me what day it is. I need to know it’s Friday on my watch. I need to look at it and go, ’Friday today.’ Tomorrow I will not know it’s Saturday until I look at my watch. My watchband broke, I was crippled. I have no concept of time, I have no concept of dates. If I’ve got to put something in alphabetical order, I have to run through the alphabet from beginning to end to know what letter comes before which. I still don’t know the months of the year, which months and how many days.

IGNFF: So if you had become a teacher, the kids could just reset your watch and leave early.

FILLION: Yeah. (Laughs) All sorts of chaos would be reigning supreme. And that’s completely Bill Pardy. He’s the chief of police in this little depressed town where there is no crime. The most he’s ever done is broke up a fight... He doesn’t deal with holdups, he hasn’t had to draw his gun on anybody, he’s never fired at anybody. There was a scene actually at the beginning of the movie where he had to shoe a deer out of a woman’s house that just got cut for time, but that’s the extent of his responsibilities... He’s not a cop by any means, he doesn’t know about procedure, he doesn’t know how to handle these cop things, let alone the extreme circumstances of an alien invasion. And all the time too he’s got this high school sweetheart of his, this girl who he’s always liked, and he’s trying to be cool in front of her and it matters to him how she perceives him, and still he’s really trying to pull it together for his sake and her sake. He’s not prepared and that’s my life. Me put under those circumstances, geez man, you best look to someone else.

IGNFF: In the past few years, you’ve kind of jumped in head first into the genre crowd. With the Comicons and various conventions required in this world, have you gotten used to the geekdom and is it something you enjoy or is it a hassle?

FILLION: Enjoy? Absolutely. I was fully aware that there’s sci-fi magazines, sci-fi conventions, horror magazines, horror conventions. I was aware that these things were out there. What I wasn’t aware of was, when you go and you attend these events and when you go and get online, thank God for the internet because these people can all coordinate and they’re constantly in touch. It’s never-ending. The feeling you get when you attend these events, more than just comradery. These people, they are passionate about these things... These people are passionate about something and, well, I’m passionate about it too. I like making sci-fi movies because I like watching sci-fi movies. I like watching horror. I like being in a horror movie. I’m a fan. My perspective’s a little different just because I get to participate as well as spectate.

IGNFF: Would you be satisfied in your career sticking to those genres, or do you see yourself wanting to branch out and do something kind of unexpected, a drama or a romantic comedy?

FILLION: Well, you always want to do things that will challenge you. It’s not like acting is rocket science or even heavy lifting. There are different kinds of challenges... It’s about telling stories. There’s challenges, they’re just on a different level, and probably more emotional or cerebral. I would hate to have to only do sci-fi, I would hate to have to only do horror. I’d be grateful if I continued to work in horror for the rest of my life. I would be grateful, thank you. I would love to be employed for the rest of my life... But what I would want to do is things that would frighten me, things that would scare me. I’ve never done that before, can I do that, can I show them that I can do it? It becomes about just wanting to be better and wanting to be good.

IGNFF: Have you had fans approach you with those Star Trek kinds of questions about specific points of Malcolm Reynolds or episode moments where you have no idea what they’re talking about?

FILLION: The benefit of Firefly was that, the difference to the Star Trek kind of shows is [they] were very heavy with the technology, very, very heavy with the technology... so when these kids are watching Star Trek, they’re thinking, ’Okay, if the warp core were to overheat, would the plasma injectors actually... Those things are very important. In Firefly, if someone said to you, hey man, your carburetor’s shot, you wouldn’t say, ’Oh okay, well what I need to do is...’ You don’t go in there and fix your carburetor, you’ve got to talk to a guy who fixes it... That’s reality. When we say in Firefly ’The graph boot’s shot,’ we’re not explaining it in a technology way. We don’t say tractor beam, we say ’Too late, they’re pulling us in.’ The technology and the sophistication of the future world, it’s a given. In our present day, we don’t make a huge deal about our cell phones. Everyone’s got one, it’s attached to their heads now, it’s a nothing thing... That was the idea behind Firefly, it wasn’t about the technology, it wasn’t about the ships, it was about people, it was about personalities. What was important about Serenity was that she was a home, what was important about her was who she was and not her technology.

I’ve heard that Brent Spinner attends conventions and gets people asking him to do massive computations on the spot. It’s like, ’Guys, I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not a robot.’ I feel badly. What I get is, ’Nathan, in that scene where you were talking to this girl and you reached out and you touched her shoulder, was that your idea or was that Joss’ idea?’ And I’ll say, ’Did you like it?’ If they say yes, then it was my idea. (Laughs)

IGNFF: I saw you and Joss together at the after party last night. Have you guys spoken much about the future of Firefly/Serenity?

FILLION: I constantly write and call him about that and I think he simply pretends not to get my messages. If there were to be a sequel, there’s not been any talk about it yet, not to me anyway, I mean I’m in and I’m certain everyone else is too. Regardless of box office performance or DVD sales, what I wanted, Firefly was the best job I ever had and a role that I still love. I mean, romantically and sexually, I love the role of Malcolm Reynolds, I love it, I’m married to him, I just dig it and I’m glad that I got that. I have that piece, forever that will be mine. When Firefly got cancelled, I was depressed, I was terribly sad. I wanted another shot, I wanted one more crack at it. I wanted it back. I got my opportunity. I got exactly what I wanted. When we did Serenity, I wanted it to be a good movie. I got exactly what I wanted. Had I had the forethought, I should have said, ’I want this to be a $200 million dollar box office smash.’ I probably would have gotten what I wanted, but what I wanted was simple. I wanted another shot at Malcolm Reynolds and I wanted it be a good movie and I think that that was mission accomplished.

IGNFF: In the meantime, have you asked Joss about putting you in Wonder Woman?

FILLION: Have I asked him? Listen, I’m at his house every weekend spinning in his yard saying, ’Check this out, check this out, I’ve got this new spin. It’s a little different this time. Last time was a little faster...[and] it’s a ballerina terms, you won’t understand, but watch.’ I’m all about that. Really fast costume changes, throwing tiaras.

IGNFF: (Laughs) You’re clearly perfect for the part.

FILLION: Thank you.