If you’re a Castle fan, you can’t wait to find out if Rick and Kate will get back together. Richard Castle, the sometimes cocksure, yet surprisingly vulnerable mystery writer has entertained us with his wit and clue sniffing talents for two seasons. Those who follow his career also know Fillion as Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the TV series Firefly. But most agree that the character of Castle fits Fillion like a 9 mm in a cop’s shoulder holster.
So your relationship with Kate….where’s it going?
Nathan Fillion: So, first season, obviously, Castle blew it. Something’s wrong with him…he’s got his own sense of logic. He kinda lacks a filter. He doesn’t need for much. He leads a life that doesn’t have a lot of repercussions. So when he thinks he’s doing the right thing and he’s going to be the hero, he’s completely off base. Second season, same thing, except Beckett blew it. So what we have in the third season is two people who should be together, who we want to be together, but they’re in other relationships. Rather than chained together, they’re chained apart.
Have you opened yourself to a bigger audience with Castle?
NF: I’ve been plugging away at acting for 15 years now. If you look at my resume, you’ll see a long list of failures that people loved. I’ve never met anyone who saw Firefly in its entirety and said, “not bad.” No one ever said that to me. They either saw it and hated it or loved it. I’ve been very fortunate to be involved in many incredible projects that I’ve loved and I’m very proud of. It’s a very different experience being on a TV show that the masses are actually watching.
What attracted you to the role of Rick Castle?
NF: Someone was telling me about the script and kind of saying that there was nothing really great about it. But one night, I had seven scripts to read and it was the last one. I started reading it while I was sitting next to my girlfriend and I was about 15 pages in when said to her, “I’m going to read you this script like a radio play and you tell me if you don’t think this is great.” After 15 pages, I knew this was going to be a lot of fun. I knew exactly what to do, exactly how to play this guy. I knew this part would be an audition scene and I knew what every other actor’s would do, but I knew what I was going to do—and it would be different. And when I met the producers, I said, “stop looking, I’m this guy. This is me, inside and out.”
Basically, you have a writer whose been living in a fantasy world, creating in mind, these incredible stories; now he has a chance to finally live out these fantasies. Every day is a field day for Castle. He’s in his element, he’s wearing his joy on his sleeve. He’s a child at heart, and he’s having the best time.
I was watching movies and TV, thinking, man I want nothing more than to be on TV and shoot a gun, ride a horse, get shot by a gun, and have something explode—all of which, by the way, happened in Firefly by the very first episode. So I said to myself, this is my life, I’m living my dream.
Do you look forward to becoming more of a detective and less of a writer on the show?
NF: No, because I think there’s enough detectives on our show and on TV. What I like about our show is that these detectives aren’t dark and brooding. We met a lot of NYPD detectives while we were shooting the pilot, and we hung out with them on the set. It’s a little bit better than hanging out with a comedian, because you’re laughing just as much, but everything they’re talking about is real. These guys are incredibly funny, wonderful people. They have the most amazing stories that are incredibly entertaining.
The only thing is that all the stories start with—”so this guy gets killed.” Our show is closer to real life in that our detectives are real people who love their jobs and they like the people they work with. They’re actually having a good time. Yeah, they have worries, but they’re not brooding with the “stain of the city” and the “stink on their clothes.” And Castle is a different kind of guy altogether. He’s not an investigator. He’s a writer. He doesn’t care about the facts, he loves the story.
How do you create an epic hero?
NF: The secret to creating an epic hero is allowing the hero to fail. The age of the hero that says, “I know just who to call, the best man that ever lived.” That era of hero is over—the Rambo hero that can’t fail, the super invulnerable guy who can throw a knife at 100 yards. Indiana Jones is my first experience with that. There’s a guy who got punched, beat up, abused and cut, and then wins in the end. That’s the guy I like.