Nathan Fillion
Nathan Christopher Fillion is a Canadian and American actor. He played the leading roles of Captain Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds on Firefly and its film continuation Serenity, and Richard Castle on Castle., he stars as Officer John Nolan on The Rookie and is an executive producer on the show, as well as its spin-off series, The Rookie: Feds during its run, as well as being a producer on an upcoming spin-off, The Rookie: North.
Fillion has acted in traditionally distributed films such as Slither and Trucker, Internet-distributed films including Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, television soap operas, sitcoms, and theatre. His voice is featured in animation and video games, such as the Bungie games Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo: Reach, Destiny, and Destiny 2, along with the 343 Industries game Halo 5: Guardians and the television series M.O.D.O.K..
Fillion first gained recognition for his work on One Life to Live in the contract role of Joey Buchanan, for which he was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series, as well as for his supporting role as Johnny Donnelly in the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl.
Fillion received an honorary doctor of laws degree on May 30, 2025, from Concordia University of Edmonton.
Early life
Fillion was born on March 27, 1971, in Edmonton, the younger of two sons of Robert "Bob" Fillion and June "Cookie" Early, both retired English teachers. Both sides of his father's family were part of the Quebec diaspora in Fall River, Massachusetts, and his mother had a Norwegian maternal grandfather and a Finnish maternal grandmother.Fillion was raised in Edmonton's Mill Woods neighborhood and completed his secondary education in Edmonton, attending Holy Trinity Catholic High School. He attended Concordia University College of Alberta, then transferred to the University of Alberta, where he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Society, but did not graduate. He has been a U.S. citizen since 1997.
Career
1994–2008
After working in several theatre, television, and film productions, including Theatresports with Rapid Fire Theatre and the improvised soap opera Die-Nasty, Fillion moved to New York City in 1994, where he acted in the soap opera One Life to Live as Joey Buchanan, for which he was nominated in 1996 for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actor in a Drama Series. In 1997, he left the series to pursue other projects.After moving to Los Angeles, he played a supporting role in the sitcom Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, and was cast as James Frederick "the Minnesota" Ryan in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
In 2002, Fillion starred as Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the Joss Whedon science-fiction television series Firefly, for which he won the Cinescape Genre Face of the FutureMale award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA. Fillion also won the Syfy Genre Awards in 2006 for Best Actor/Television and was runner-up for Best Actor/Movie. Fillion called his time on Firefly the best acting job he ever had, and compares every job he has had to it. After Firefly
In 2003, Fillion had a recurring role as Caleb in the final five episodes of Joss Whedon's series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Fillion lent his voice to the animated series King of the Hill in 2001, the video game Jade Empire, and the animated series Justice League Unlimited in 2005–06. He portrayed Green Lantern/Hal Jordan in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Justice League: Doom, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, and The Death of Superman. Fillion starred in James Gunn's 2006 horror film Slither. For his starring role as Bill Pardy, he garnered a 2006 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards nomination in the category of Dude You Don't Wanna Mess With.
Fillion starred in the romantic comedy film Waitress, written and directed by Adrienne Shelly, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2007, and opened in theatres on May 2, 2007. Fillion starred in White Noise 2: The Light. He made one appearance in the 2006–2007 season of the television show Lost, as Kevin, Kate's ex-husband.
In October 2006, Fillion signed a talent-holding contract with the Fox Broadcasting Company, and in December 2006, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Fillion was cast as Alex Tully in the series Drive, which debuted on Fox in the spring of 2007. Drive was created by Tim Minear. Ivan Sergei played Alex Tully in the original pilot episode of Drive. The first two Drive episodes premiered on April 13, 2007, in Canada. The show did not deliver the ratings Fox desired, though, so on April 25, 2007, the network announced that the series was cancelled.
The final two produced episodes were supposed to air back-to-back on Fox in July 2007, but did not actually become available until July 15, when they were posted on the Drive MySpace page.
Fillion reprised his 1990s role as One Life to Live Joey for the series' 9,999th and 10,000th episodes, aired August 16 and 17, 2007.
Fillion joined the cast of ABC's Desperate Housewives at the beginning of the fall 2007 season, portraying Dr. Adam Mayfair. His first appearance was in the episode "Now You Know", which aired on September 30, 2007. His final appearance was the final episode of that season in 2008.
Fillion voiced the role of an ODST gunnery sergeant in the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, alongside fellow Firefly stars Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin. At one point early in the first mission, he identifies himself as " Reynolds" over the radio, referring to his character's name from the TV series Firefly. All three actors are given personalities in the game that match those of their characters from Firefly. He provides the voice, portrayed likeness, and motion-capture performance for Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck in Halo 3: ODST, Halo 5: Guardians, and a brief appearance in Halo: Reach.
2009–2018
In March 2009, the first episode of the ABC television series Castle aired, in which Fillion starred as the titular character Richard Castle, a mystery novelist who helps the NYPD solve murders. In 2009, Fillion was nominated for Satellite Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama for his performance in Castle. The show was cancelled by ABC in 2016, with the final episode airing on May 16 of that year.BuddyTV ranked him number10 on its list of "TV's 100 Sexiest Men of 2009", No. 19 in 2010, No. 20 in 2011 and No. 39 in 2012; No. 7 on its list of "The 15 Best Drama Lead Actors of the 2011–2012 TV Season"; named his character's relationship with the other main character as No. 18 on its list "Love Is All Around: Best TV Relationships of 2010", No. 13 on its list of "The Best Relationships of 2011", No. 15 on its list of "The Special Relationships: TV's Top 50 Love Stories of the Past Decade", No. 1 on its list "Love... Or Not: The Top 12 Will-They-or-Won't-They Couples of 2012" and No. 2 on its list "Lip Smacking Good: The Best Kisses of 2012"; named Castle as number six on its list of "The 11 Best Returning TV Shows of 2011", number 11 on "The 15 Best Dramas of the 2011–2012 TV Season" and number 12 on "The 12 Best Dramas of 2012".
Fillion was featured in a spoof-porn web video on Spike called "Nailing Your Wife", part of James Gunn's PG Porn series. Fillion made a brief cameo appearance in the season 5 episode "Revolving Doors" of the web series The Guild. In late September 2011, Fillion guest starred as the Action Sports 1 anchor in the web series Husbands. He played Dogberry in the independent film Much Ado About Nothing, based on the Shakespeare play of the same name, written, directed and produced by Joss Whedon.
Since 2011, Fillion has appeared as the recurring Space Western character Cactoid Jim in performances of the podcast live show The Thrilling Adventure Hour, a stage show premised on the idea that actors are performing as characters in a radio show. The character of Cactoid Jim first appeared as part of the recurring segment "Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars", but was soon given his own segment, called "Cactoid Jim: King of the Martian Frontier". Fillion has advertised his participation as a guest star on The Thrilling Adventure Hour by means of including filmed elements of the live show on the DVD set for season four of Castle.
In 2012, he appeared in the episode "The Daly Superheroes" of the web series The Daly Show. On February 17, 2013, Fillion hosted the 2013 WGA West Coast Awards.
In 2014, he appeared in the video game Destiny as the character Cayde-6. Over the next few years, his role became larger with expansions to the game. Fillion returned to the role in the 2017 sequel Destiny 2 and featured prominently in the game until the release of Forsaken, where the character was instead voiced by Nolan North until the character's death. On May 24, 2023, he was announced to be returning to voice Cayde-6 for The Final Shape.
In 2015 and 2016, Fillion worked with Alan Tudyk on a web series called Con Man, loosely based on their experiences on the convention circuit after Firefly.
In 2017, Fillion was cast in the recurring role of Gary West on the Netflix horror-comedy series Santa Clarita Diet. In the same year, Fillion was cast in the recurring role of Jacques Snicket on the second season of the Netflix comedy drama series A Series of Unfortunate Events.
In February 2018, Fillion was cast to star as John Nolan in the new ABC TV series The Rookie, which was created by former Castle executive producer Alexi Hawley.
On July 16, 2018, Fillion and director Allan Ungar released a live-action short film based on the Naughty Dog franchise Uncharted. The short immediately went viral and was praised for its witty humor, action, and ability to stay true to the source material. Fans and critics took to social media and began campaigning for Netflix to turn it into a series while referring to it as one of the best adaptations of a video game.