In this Sunday’s issue of PARADE, Castle’s Nathan Fillion, 41, reveals his favorite reads and confeses why he’s hooked on books in PARADE’s summer reading issue.
In the extras below, the actor opens up about his summer plans, bringing Firefly back, and the power of Twitter.
“Grammar was a big deal. We could not use a double negative or end our sentences with prepositions. We couldn’t split infinitives. And we weren’t allowed to say ‘eh’ — you know, Canadians are fond of that stereotype of saying ‘eh’ at the end of their sentences. Now I catch my parents saying it!” [Read the rest here]
As the son of two high school English teachers, Nathan Fillion learned early on that books possess magical qualities. For one thing, they can stop a clock. “Whatever our bedtime was as kids, we could stay up an extra half hour if we were reading. My parents didn’t care as long as I was under the spell of a Stephen King or a Douglas Adams,” recalls Fillion, who now plays a writer himself—mystery novelist–turned–crime solver Richard Castle—on ABC’s comedy-drama Castle. Those late nights growing up in Edmonton, Canada, got Fillion addicted. “Now I read in bed. I read at work. I read standing in line,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Hello, my name is Nathan and I am a reader.’”
To maintain his habit, the 41-year-old actor keeps digital books on his smartphone and tablet, and the old-fashioned kind everywhere else. “I still buy actual books,” he says, holding up a worn paperback of Jaws and bringing it to his face with a deep inhale. “The smell, having it in your hands—there’s really no substitute.”
What’s remarkable is that Fillion finds time to read anything other than scripts. Castle wrapped its fourth season with a steamy cliff-hanger in which his character finally hooked up with Kate Beckett (played by Stana Katic), the detective he’s flirted with for years. Fillion’s not sure what romance will do for the couple’s chemistry next season. “I imagine there’s going to be a honeymoon phase, and then a honeymoon’s-over phase, where it’s like, ‘Can you pass me the remote?’?” He laughs. “And then they’ll be fighting: ‘You watch too much TV.’ ‘You’re always cleaning your gun.’ Typical relationship stuff.” [Read the rest here]
Nathan Fillion has offered more details about Joss Whedon’s upcoming adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing.
The idea for the updated big-screen version came out of Whedon’s monthly brunch ritual, wherein he invites actors and regular collaborators – including Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof and Fillion’s Firefly co-star Sean Maher – over to his house for recitals of Shakespeare plays.
“I had never done Shakespeare before,” Fillion told Collider. “I actually tried to chicken out of it… I had to work a lot of late nights for Castle and there was just so much dialogue, too much to memorise.”
Fillion went on to explain that he even asked whether Whedon could find a replacement for him, at which point the director told him to “relax”.
“It’s just a lark, no big deal,” Fillion recalled Whedon saying. “Don’t worry about it. Take Saturday off, we’ll work around your schedule… And I don’t have a replacement.”
Asked who out of the film’s cast – which includes Acker, Denisof, Maher and The Cabin in the Woods actors Fran Kranz and Reed Diamond – is the best Shakesparean actor, he responded: “Alexis Denisof. The guy will make you cry.”
Fillion first worked with Whedon on the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and later starred in Firefly, Serenity and Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog.
Much Ado About Nothing was completed last October, and is expected to be released later this year.
The first footage from the film was released online earlier this month. [Source]