‘Firefly’ was the Career Turning Point for Nathan Fillion

Actor Nathan Fillion’s star power grew thanks to starring in shows like Castle and The Rookie. But before those two hit shows, he considered his sci-fi cult hit Firefly as the show that kick-started his career.

Nathan Fillion revealed that no one heard of him before ‘Firefly’

Fillion initially didn’t know he’d be able to make a living from acting. In an interview with Closer, he confided that he saw acting as more of a side gig when he went to school. But getting an actual acting job that paid decently changed Fillion’s trajectory.

“I was going to finish off schooling and four months before graduation I got a job on a soap and moved to New York City. I did three years there, moved to Los Angeles on the advice of Bob Woods, who played my uncle on the show. He said, ‘Get out there, kid,’ and I did exactly what he told me to do,” he said.

But things weren’t easy for Fillion, who had a rough time finding work after his move to California.

“I spent a lot of time unemployed — I paid my rent on credit two months in a row because I was waiting for a tax return so I could pay off my credit bill and then have enough money to move back to NYC and try to get back on the show. But I got a job at the last minute on a sitcom, and that carried me for two-and-a-half years,” he said.

Fillion’s next job was being a lead on the show Firefly, which he considered the true turning point in his career.

“Absolutely. Unequivocally. I had a lot of jobs before Firefly, and nobody ever heard of me, so what does that tell you? A) It put me on the map, B) it was my first lead role, C) first one hour drama, D) opened the door for me for my first lead in a feature film, E) it taught me so much just about acting — I mean, I did three years on a soap, the hardest work an actor can do, and after all that work, I thought, ‘Oh I’m pretty good at this.’ Then I got to Firefly and it’s one of those things where the more you learn the more you realize you don’t know, and it taught me a lot. Firefly put my life on an entirely different path — I would not be where I am were it not for Firefly.”

Nathan Fillion almost failed his audition for ‘Firefly’

Firefly wasn’t the first time Fillion met series creator Joss Whedon. He actually auditioned for Whedon’s previous show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, trying out for the character Angel. Fillion wouldn’t meet Whedon until a couple years later for Firefly, although Whedon had no recollection of their Buffy encounter.

“When Joss found out that I auditioned for Angel—he didn’t know—he felt bad. He said, ‘I don’t remember you.’ I told him not to worry, I never made the first cut,” Fillion once told Backstage.

Afterwards, the two had a meeting where they got to know each other for 45 minutes.

“We talked about the show, we talked about work ethic, we talked about family, we talked about goals. Then he said, ‘I’d love for you to come in and audition for this role,’ and then he brought me to the network and there we go,” he said.

But The Suicide Squad star nearly lost out on another Whedon project thanks to his initial Firefly audition. Executive Amy Pascal revisited Fillion’s screening for Firefly in her book Joss Wheedon: The Biography (via Geeky Tyrant). There, Pascal remembered that Fillion kept reading his lines the same way over and over again during the audition. After the Firefly team brought up Fillion’s redundancy, Fillion decided to try reading his lines a different way.

“These poor people are thinking, maybe I’m an idiot, I can’t take direction. I can only do the one thing; I’m a one-note guy. But here we go,” Fillion remembered.

But after a couple more takes, Fillion nailed the character, which led to his Firefly legacy.

“We did it differently and we had a great time. There was a bit of a breakdown in communication there, but I was tense. I’ll tell you that, I was tense,” he said.