SciFi Interview with the Cast
POSTED BY: Sniper
UPDATED: Monday, September 26, 2005 18:40
VIEWED: 2041
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Found this at SciFi.com:
The cast and creator of the canceled TV series Firefly manage to find Serenity on the big screen
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By Patrick Lee
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hen last we saw the ragtag crew of the transport ship Serenity, they were on the run from the sinister Alliance, trying to avoid the cannibalistic Reavers and hugging the outer rim just trying to eke out a living in the wake of the galactic civil war. That's when everything went horribly wrong: Fox pulled the plug on Joss Whedon's SF western show Firefly in 2002, after it aired only 11 of 14 produced episodes.
But then something wonderful happened. Firefly debuted on DVD, and the show's rabid if cultish fans, called the "Browncoats," snapped them up like flapjacks. This caught the attention of Universal Pictures, which commissioned Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to write and direct a movie version, his feature-film directorial debut. In Serenity, Whedon brings back the entire original cast: Nathan Fillion (as Capt. Mal Reynolds), Sean Maher (as ship's doctor Simon Tam), Adam Baldwin (as the mercenary Jayne), Gina Torres (as Reynolds' kick-ass second-in-command, Zoe), Alan Tudyk (as Zoe's pilot husband, Wash), Jewel Staite (as lovable ship's mechanic Kaylee), Morena Baccarin (as the sophisticated courtesan Inara), Summer Glau (as the mysterious River Tam) and Ron Glass (as the monkish Shepherd Book). The film also introduces the Operative, an assassin, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.
With Serenity about to fly again, Science Fiction Weekly took a moment to speak with Whedon and the cast about their unusual journey. Serenity opens Sept. 30. (Universal is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns Science Fiction Weekly.)
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Joss Whedon, how nervous are you about this movie opening?
Whedon: Oh, wow. Starting with the hard stuff. ... I'm actually pretty calm. I am being medicated right now steadily to keep me that way. I got really nervous when I realized ultimately I have absolutely no idea how this movie is going to do. I believe that if people see it they will like it, and that is sort of my first job, and I feel like that was more or less accomplished. But I have no idea if they actually will see it, and if they don't see it, how can they like it? ... So I panicked and I freaked out. Publicly. Proud of that. ... Then I sort of realized, it's out of my hands. I will do everything in my power to try and get people to see it, but there's only so much that's in my power. And if that they don't [see it], ... or if they—how can I put this?—hate it, then that's just what's going to happen. There's nothing I really can do about it. I believe in the film. I loved making it. I love what we came up with. I love everyone. I'm really proud of all my actors. So that's going to have to sustain me. You know, that's me now. Talk to me on the morning of the 30th, when I'm hiding in the bathtub with a hat on.
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You have a great cast of characters for a TV show. In a feature film, in two hours or less, what were the challenges for you?
Whedon: The challenge was to get everybody in there. Yeah, you know, obviously the TV show you need a bunch of peeps if you want to create internal conflict, and it's not just a sort of problem-of-the-week kind of show. And then, you know, when I was given the opportunity to make a movie of this, yes, then all of a sudden I had nine characters, and that's a lot of people to put in a movie. But ultimately what it gave me was the chance to have a ... kind of a platoon feeling. Sort of the band as this great big group of people that you can focus on who you want to. Obviously, on a show you're going to give everybody equal time to an extent, and you're going to make sure that everybody is serviced. In a film you ha
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