Nathan Fillion DRIVE Interview

Q: "Drive” is really awesome.

NF: Thank you for that.

Q: How many episodes have you shot?

NF: We’ve shot six now.

Q: How many are in the first season?

NF: We’ve only shot six. We’re on a writer’s hiatus right now. We’ve got an order for thirteen. We’ll see how it goes.

Q: Do you know the end point to your character yet?

NF: No. It’s a little journey we’ll take together.

Q: Are you guys shooting green screen all the time? You look so intense. After seeing you in Waitress then seeing those Drive commercials, you are two different people.

NF: Isn’t it just? [Laughs] It’s like I’m an actor or something. No, but thank you very much for that. It’s a pleasure. Basically what I do is I go to work and I pretend. Everything I do is glorified pretending and it’s just how well can you do it. So I go to work and I pretend to be a nervous Nelly doctor. I call upon whatever I need to call upon in my experiences and then I go and I play it up. Or I imagine or call upon some experiences or imagine what it would be like to be this really intense ‘maybe he’s got a dark past’ kind of a driver who’s driven. Let’s use that metaphor. That’s a lot of fun as well. I mean I have a good time going in to work and pretending to be different people, but it’s always Nathan having fun.

Q: Have you gotten as attached to the "Drive” character as you were to Malcolm Reynolds?

NF: Well I haven’t had the time with Alex Tully that I’ve had with Malcolm Reynolds, but there are certainly things that I can appreciate about both of them. Alex Tully is a little more everyman than Malcolm Reynolds but not much more. Here’s another person who has made difficult decisions in his life, and maybe not always the right decisions in his life, but now he’s created a life that will make him happy. The life that he’s wanted he’s created, but now his wife has been kidnapped and now he’s forced to dip back into that old life. How far can you go back and can you return again?

Q: And we’re not going to find out what that is for a good while?

NF: Yeah, I think if we wrapped it up right away, it wouldn’t be very interesting for being a long term story.

 

ALEX TULLY (Nathan Fillion, “Firefly,” “Slither”) is thrust into The Race in an effort to find his missing wife. New mother WENDY PATRAKAS (Melanie Lynskey) is on the run from her husband and competing for the safety of her newborn baby – or possibly something much more extraordinary. JOHN TRIMBLE (Dylan Baker) is a buttoned-down scientist who embraces The Race as the last chance to show his rebellious 15-year-old daughter VIOLET (Emma Stone) that he can be spontaneous. WINSTON SALAZAR (Kevin Alejandro) views The Race as an opportunity to leave his criminal past behind and bond with SEAN (J.D. Pardo), the half-brother he has only just met. Hurricane Katrina survivors IVY CHITTY (Taryn Manning, “Hustle & Flow”), LEIGH BARNTHOUSE (Rochelle Aytes) and SUSAN CHAMBLEE (Michael Hyatt) are determined to start their lives over and help rebuild their fallen city with The Race’s winnings. ELLIE HOWE (Mircea Monroe) sees The Race as an opportunity to keep her boyfriend, military specialist ROB LAIRD (Riley Smith), from being sent back to Iraq. And CORINNA WILES (Kristin Lehman), who becomes an uneasy partner with Alex, is a gorgeous and mysterious stowaway who may well hold the key to the secrets of “The Race” and its mysterious benefactors.

Although MR. BRIGHT (Charles Martin Smith), The Race liaison, has informed them that there are other competitors, the group does not know exactly whom they’re racing against, or even where the finish line is. With each mile clocked, the drivers get closer – not only to the end of the road and a critical, life-changing victory, but to understanding the mystery behind The Race itself.

Created, executive-produced and written by Tim Minear and Ben Queen, DRIVE is a 20th Century Fox Television Production. Greg Yaitanes serves as an executive producer and director.