For more than 20 years, Firefly fans have mourned the show that got away. Now, Nathan Fillion has revealed that another one slipped past him right after it, and this time he was the one who said no.
The Rookie star shared the story on the latest episode of Once We Were Spacemen, the podcast he hosts with his Firefly co-star Alan Tudyk, after Tudyk asked about embarrassing career moments. “This is probably 2002, 2003. This is just after Firefly,” Fillion said. “I am now being considered for lead roles. Up to this point in my career, I had not been.”
The offer was unusual. A network drama about five episodes into its run wanted to change direction, and its producers took him to lunch with a plan. “What they wanted to do was have me come on as a new character, tell their main character, he’s blowing this case,” he recalled. “And then that character gets killed and then I take over the show.”
He admitted the pitch flattered him, even if it came at someone else’s expense. “That would be really sad for that other fella,” he said. “But, you know, I was at a point in my career where I wasn’t thinking about other fellas so much as I was thinking about me.”
Related: Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk Give a Blunt Firefly Revival Update
Then he watched the episodes. The show was mostly people in business attire pacing office hallways, which felt like a step down from the Western in space he had just finished. “I was in spaceships. I was riding horses. I had a duster,” Fillion said. “I had it in my head I was something special maybe.”
He passed, telling his agents he did not want to do that kind of show. He did not expect them to relay his reasons word for word. “My agents called these people and told them what I said,” he said. “And their response was, ‘Well, he doesn’t have to wear ties and we won’t make him walk and talk at the same time.’”
More than two decades later, Fillion sees it differently. “I don’t know where my head was,” he said. “I should have done it. I should have done it.” He could not name the series, recalling only “some sort of FBI case,” and noted it did not last. “But I don’t know that I could have rocketed it to success or anything,” he said, before joking, “with me not being able to walk and talk.”
The detour hardly slowed him down. Firefly ended after 14 episodes, and its 2005 film continuation, Serenity, kept the story alive. Fillion went on to lead Castle for eight seasons and now stars in The Rookie, which recently reached its 150th episode. In March, he and his former crewmates announced an animated Firefly series now in development, with the original cast expected to return.
Fillion continues fans to boost the signal on social media to help it find a home. Fan organizations are mobilizing to get it done, and we’ll be following the progress in the coming months.
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