TruckerMovie.net were grateful for the opportunity to catch up with Nathan Fillion today at the Hub Productions Firefly/Serenity convention and chat with him briefly about “Trucker”.
TruckerMovie.net: When you were approached to work on Trucker as the character Runner, was there something about the character that immediately appealed to you?
Nathan Fillion: I love stories about people that aren’t something special, you know there’s the homicide detective, cop on the edge, there’s those big big roles that are a lot of fun but I like the non-adventures roles, I like the regular average Joe roles. What I liked about Runner was his relationship with this 9 year old boy that his own mother didn’t know how to connect with him, yet Runner had a very very easy way about him that connected with this kid. The two of them just found it very very easy to be honest. Even in my own life, I love kids, I just hate it when I see people talk down to kids or talk in a high voice… I hate that it just drives me nuts so the that..the fact that he’s just a real guy I liked.
How did you find working with Jimmy Bennett?
NF: I have worked with a lot of kids and they’re a piece of cake and I think for that reason you get a kid into a role, he or she’s already passed the screening tests, that tells you they’ve got the talent. They’ve got what it takes at least to be at this spot. If you talk to people like they’re normal regular human beings they’ll surprise you and be regular normal human beings, you know. Jimmy by the way, he’s a fantastic actor. He’s a fantastic actor. You can change the entire scene right before the scene and he can handle it, he’s right on top of it. You can mess it up, you can drop a line and actually say your next line and he can flow with it, he’s listening to you every step of the way. I love that.
“Trucker” writer James Mottern says he had to wear his “heart on his sleeve” to make this film, do you think that that kind of investment on his part had an effect on the end result?
NF: James is a particular kind of guy, and he was telling a very emotional story and it’s something you can easily tell he was involved, he was invested in, not just because of his energy, emotionally, he was emotionally involved. When he was happy about a scene you could tell he was happy from his heart. It was great. I really enjoyed working with him. There’s a guy who had a great idea, a vision as to how he wants it to go and at the same time will let something evolve and get a life of its own and find its own way and he’s also very good at helping you find that life in a scene. He’s also good at that.
Michelle Monaghan learned to drive a truck for this film, what did you do?
NF: I drank a lot and some dancing lessons, I took a lot of dancing lessons, six months of dancing.
What’s the craziest or most difficult thing you’ve had to do to prepare for a role?
NF: That would be fight camp. We had to do fight camp for Serenity that was weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of just getting it down and it truly helped it truly helped. We had some great stunt guys that were helping us along the way. And Summer, I can’t say how much I worked when we talk about how much Summer worked, she really really worked hard but I think that’s the craziest thing. Fight camp. We’re not supposed to talk about fight camp … kinda like “fight club”, but I do anyway.
In general you seem to genuinely like your fans and are known to be kind to them but does it ever scare you how “enthusiastic” they can get?
NF: You know what? I’m just a regular human being. If someone were to walk down the street and say something off color or off-putting to a compete stranger I’m going to react the same way the complete stranger is. I talked about this yesterday, I’ve done a couple of nude scenes, in context they’re great… but when someone gets all “ooh, you did that nude thing” and they get all funky and weird, it’s like “thanks, thanks for making me super comfortable and obviously you’re a big fan of my work, you’re really there for me”. You know what? I’m just, I’m not… I’m in it for the work, I’m in it to tell great stories and I think it cheapens it, I think people get excited, people get excited and they don’t know what to say so they’ll say something silly because they’re over anxious or over excited and maybe just a little unprepared but I try to relax and I try to, you know, I try to just let it roll off my back and not bug me and realise that maybe they’re just in a heightened state maybe a little anxious.
And… the inevitable….
We know that there’s nothing on the horizon right now but it seems to be becoming a trend for Serenity actors visiting Australia (Alan Tudyk & Jewel Staite) to tell fans that it’s not yet time to give up on another movie, but with most of the cast being very busy in your careers right now, in your opinion, is there still any reason for fans to hope or do you think that time has passed?
NF: Firefly was an incredible lesson for me. I really fell in love with that show and the people I was working with and the story we were telling and the character I was playing. I fell in love and when it was taken away my hopes were dashed, I was crushed entirely. I was disillusioned. I was angry, I was so angry and then the fans, the fans came through and then Joss made this thing happen and then this perfect storm of positivity that the wonderful people over at Universal, taking it upon themselves to say “Yeah, there’s a story to be told here and lets do it” so I’ll never give up hope. When people say “Is there gonna be another Serenity?”, not so far as I know, I mean when there will be, you’ll know. People come to me when I’m signing their autograph “Is there going to be another Serenity”, this isn’t where you’re going to find out, this isn’t going to be the arena. But I’ll never say never, I can say :Not right now”, “Not that I know of”, “Nobody’s said anything to me”, I could tell you that. That’s the truth, not right now, nothing right now, that’s the fact, but never say never, I’ve learned that because there’s Serenity of course.
Is there anything you can share with us at this point about the Doctor Horrible series?
NF: It’s gonna rock. It’s gonna rock. For something that looked…I mean kinda felt… I mean, Joss called me up and said “Hey, me and my brothers and one of my brothers’ fiancé, we wrote this thing, a musical, we’re going to put it on do you want to do it?” Sure! Six days of filming, this incredible music that we were singing, these incredible lyrics, these wonderful songs, it’s just… it sounds kinda hokey but in six days all these people pulling together… I saw a rough cut of this thing and it’s frickin’ great. It’s changed my opinion as to how things are going to work in the future as far as taking the producers out of the equation and the internet is now your distribution. I think everything’s going to change and I think this is certainly my first experience in the direction things are going.
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May 12th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Great interview. Lucky you to get to spend quality time with a great actor and great guy.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:27 am
I Saw Trucker at Tribeca and Nathan was AMAZING in this movie! There were a few moments when I heard the ladies kind of swooning during a couple of scenes in particular. People are talking a lot about Michelle Monaghan’s performance and she did great, but I would watch this movie again and again for Nathan’ incredible scenes. So hot, just so hot.