Now when you decide to take on a horror film, what kinds of reservations do you have before you decide to say yes to something like this?
Excellent question. Now I had none, going into it. But in retrospect, I will never read a script the same way again. Now when I read a script and it says, exterior/night/woods, that translates to weeks and months outside at night…
In the cold.
…in the woods. Yeah, exactly right. So I never put those two together honestly; I never put the two together – now I know.
Are you a horror fan in general?
Yes.
Is there a fantasy element for an actor to say yes to a horror film?
Definitely. I mean to be a fan of a genre; to be a fan of a particular kind of movie; I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve been able to participate in the movies that I love to watch – you know what I mean? It’s like a fan’s dream to not only be a spectator but a participant.
What are the particular challenges of acting in a horror film and trying to play a character on the one hand that… one that is in the midst of this completely ridiculous scenario.
My opinion is that it’s a completely intellectual exercise. You simply think to yourself, how would someone honestly react to that. You wouldn’t be calm about it. You certainly wouldn’t be cool. easy and okay about it. It’s causing him a great deal of stress; he’s not prepared for that kind of thing. He’s never seen anything like that, he’s confused, he’s a little upset –and how does that come out Well, tension between the people that… I mean, when your life is falling apart, you know, you don’t lash out at your enemies, you lash out at the people closest to you. You know, you kind of get it into your head… People in this movie are panicked, they’re at each others’ throats because they don’t understand what’s going on around them. I think that’s very honest and very, very real.
What do you think sets apart this film from other kind of zombie type movies? I mean what is it that makes it different? And how does a film like this stand out from the crowd, because it’s a very crowded place for this genre?
Good question, Paul. And I listened to James answer it like three times this morning and now I’m forgetting what I said. How is it different? It’s not really… it’s not poking fun at the genre, it’s embracing the genre – it really is – in a realistic way. Like I said, it’s how people would really react. How would you think they would really react. You know what, I think this is almost a dietary. It’s extremely real. there’s these extreme circumstances that certainly would never happen, but should they happen this is I’m certain how people would react.
Yeah, you’re an actor and when you’re on a set like this and you’re dealing with slithery alien creatures and over bloated characters, do you ever say to yourself ‘this is what I do for a living’?
Constantly. Constantly. And like I said earlier about the difference between spectating and participating – while participating I’m watching the movie. While I’m doing the scene with Elizabeth Banks I’m watching a movie that Elizabeth Banks is in. I just happen to be in it with her. While we’re making it I’m watching it and I’m excited. I’m a fan. It’s really quite exciting. I can’t believe that people pay me to act. People pay me to pretend. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. We all have. I’m just the lucky bastard who gets to keep doing it.
Why do you think horror has become such a respectable genre for actors? It used to be that B-grade actors used to do them…
I’ll say because, people love to be scared. People want to go to a movie to feel something. They go to be affected in some way emotionally. You go to a comedy so that you will LAUGH. You go to a drama so that you will cry. You go to a horror movie so that you will feel afraid. If it makes you jump you’ve felt something and the job is done.Why is it respected? Because it’s making money. Art meets finance in the film industry. Finance understands money. When you say I’m going to create something, I’m going to create on an artistic level something that will affect a mass amount of people – this will make them laugh, it will make them jump, it will scare them and then they’ll walk out feeling like they’ve gone through something. The financiers understand and it’ll make ‘X’ amount of dollars. That’s why it’s become respectable because it makes money.
How grateful are you to Josh Whedon for your current level of success?
Joss Whedon has been extremely kind to me. It’s tough to get a job in L.A. doing anything that you’ve never done before. No one wants to give you that first – ‘we think Nathan’s great, we don’t think he can handle the lead because he’s never done one’. If no one’s going to give you the opportunity you’re… there you are. You stagnate – not because you don’t have the talent but because people don’t have the vision or the faith. Josh Whedon had the faith and he had the vision. He said this is the guy, and he let me be the lead in a show. He let me be a lead in Firefly. And after that I would get auditions for leads.
Were you surprised that Firefly kind of ended up the way it did as a television show?
Absolutely. we were getting kicked around. If you recall, they didn’t air a pilot first, they aired a pilot last. we got pre-empted a lot for baseball – the World Series, which is understandable – a couple of times for Happy Gilmore, The Brady’s Go to Washington. Our show never ran for more than two weeks consecutively. We were kind of labelled by the network publicly as a problem show, which I don’t think we deserved. Ah…
How cynical does that make you as an actor?
It didn’t make me cynical. I simply said, you guys, don’t worry, it’s obvious we’re making a good show. There are people out there who see exactly what we’re doing and they understand exactly what we’re doing. We’re making a good show, we’re fighting the good fight. We will not be cancelled because we’re doing the right thing. Next day – cancelled. [Laughter]. And the parallel between my experience with Firefly and Malcolm Reynolds’ experience in Firefly only too beautiful not to mention. You know, fighting a losing battle.
This is a case, though, of fans really coming to the show’s aid in a way. and it’s probably the first experience you’ve had being a part of a kind of fan base. How surreal was that?
Extremely. It was extremely surreal. When I got into acting I loved the applause. I love the immediate, reaction you’d get. It was… the feeling it gave me. I can remember perfectly, and I still get it when I go up in front of a crowd of people and have nothing to say but I have to be there. Ah… the internet is the applause for film and television because there’s no one there to clap when you do a good job. There’s no audience until a year later…