{"id":49964,"date":"2025-07-08T23:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T23:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49964\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T23:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T23:46:10","slug":"edmontons-favourite-son-nathan-fillion-is-in-a-justice-league-of-his-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/49964\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton\u2019s favourite son Nathan Fillion is in a Justice League of his own"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

From left: Nathan Fillion stars as Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced is Hawkgirl and Edi Gathegi plays Mr. Terrific in the newest Superman movie, which opens in theatres on Friday.Warner Bros. Pictures\/Supplied<\/p>\n

You know those revolving metal comic book racks you see in magazine and drug stores? Nathan Fillion had one in his childhood bedroom in Edmonton<\/a>. He slid his comic books into plastic envelopes with cardboard backing. He displayed them on the rack in sequential order. He stored them in files. His parents, both English teachers, didn\u2019t care what Nathan and his older brother read, as long as they read something, and Nathan \u201cread them like crazy,\u201d he said in a recent phone interview. <\/p>\n

Cut to July, 2024. Fillion, a successful 53-year-old actor (Castle, The Rookie), is flying in a harness over Cleveland, dressed in a Green Lantern superhero uniform and sporting a super-specific hairstyle: Guy Gardner\u2019s signature bowl cut. As Fillion glides in for a landing, David Corenswet, in a <\/b>Superman cape and unitard, crawls out from under a heap of movie debris; Isabela Merced (Hawkgirl) and Edi Gathegi (Mr. Terrific) float down from the sky to join them. \u201cI thought, \u2018This is the life I always wanted as a kid,\u2019\u201d Fillion recalls. \u201cThere\u2019s no possible way life can turn out the way you plan it, but mine is turning out the way I dreamed it.\u201d <\/p>\n

There have been numerous iterations of The Man of Steel, but when the newest, Superman, written and directed by James Gunn, touches down in theatres on July 11, Fillion will become the first-ever live-action Guy Gardner. A quick primer for anyone who didn\u2019t have a revolving rack in their childhood bedroom: In the DC Comic Universe, there are many Green Lanterns. They wear emerald-coloured rings that give them the power to create weapons from their bodies. The two most famous Lanterns are Hal Jordan and John Stewart. Ryan Reynolds played Jordan in the unsuccessful 2011 film Green Lantern<\/a>; Kyle Chandler and Aaron Pierre will play Jordan and Stewart in Lanterns, a new Max series due in early 2026. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

David Corenswet plays Superman in the live-action film written and directed by James Gunn.Jessica Miglio\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Gardner was less popular. He\u2019s egotistical, petty, a bit dim and the haircut does him no favours. Yet he\u2019s fearless, and that\u2019s enough for Lanternhood. I\u2019ll stop here, because perhaps by now your head is revolving, but FYI, Fillion-as-Gardner will also recur on Lanterns. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you need a Green Lantern, you have a really big problem,\u201d Fillion says. \u201cBut if you called for a Green Lantern and you got Guy Gardner, you\u2019d be disappointed. \u2018Aww man, we got this guy?\u2019 He\u2019s a jerk. He\u2019s strong-willed, chauvinistic. He had a tough time growing up. He\u2019s got a chip on his shoulder about being passed over a couple of times.\u201d (Fillion\u2019s parents should be proud of his childhood reading retention.)<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the bowl cut is canon,\u201d he continues. \u201cIt says a lot about who Guy Gardner is, because he really does not care what people think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film is a lot of fun, Fillion has a blast being obnoxious, and his hair is a running joke \u2013 at one point, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) snaps at Gardner, \u201cThat haircut should be against your vows.\u201d<\/p>\n

2025 summer movie preview: Superman, and a dozen other big-screen heroes, to the rescue<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat what should be what?\u201d he hollers after her like a bratty schoolboy.<\/p>\n

When Fillion was a newbie actor, he wanted his characters \u2013 and by extension himself \u2013 to be likeable. \u201cThat\u2019s a trap,\u201d he says now. \u201cIt\u2019s a rookie mistake. It\u2019s far better for your character to have flaws. People can relate to that, and they can also stand in judgment. Both are fun. Guy is 98-per-cent flaws. That\u2019s a gold mine.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fillion is uncompromising about one detail: how a film superhero flies. That obsession began in preschool, when Fillion\u2019s teacher would turn on the black and white Superman TV series starring George Reeves while her students ate lunch. Every time Reeves flew, the teacher would say, \u201cI could sure use a cape like that.\u201d To this day, Fillion judges every superhero movie he sees \u2013 and he sees them all \u2013 by whether the flying looks legitimate. \u201cI can tell when they\u2019re in a harness, when their legs are too far apart, when they get the angle of the landing wrong.\u201d <\/p>\n

Filming his own flight scenes wasn\u2019t easy: He\u2019s scared of heights. The harnesses were so tight he had trouble breathing. But his obsession got him through it. \u201cEverything I daydreamed about that got me into trouble when I was a kid, is everything that\u2019s serving my career now,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Fillion\u2019s career did not zoom upward in a straight line. He moved to New York in 1996 and landed a soap opera, One Life to Live. In 1998 he co-starred in a sitcom (Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place) and a Spielberg movie (Saving Private Ryan). He was in two Joss Whedon series, Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Castle (2009) made him a smart-woman\u2019s TV crush. But his most fruitful professional relationship is with Gunn, who first cast him in Slither (2006), and then kept hiring him: Super, Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Fillion, 53, grew up in Edmonton and moved to New York in 1996. He is known for his roles in Castle and The Rookie.Jordan Strauss\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

\u201cJames\u2019s <\/b>storytelling style and sense of humour really suit me,\u201d Fillion says. \u201cHe loves his job, and I know whenever I work with him I\u2019m going to laugh. Only your very best friends can roast you really hard. With James I look forward to it: \u2018How hard is he going to roast me today?\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

In a promotional featurette, Fillion sits in the production\u2019s hair and makeup trailer; he dons a shaggy blond wig, which a hairdresser snips away until the bowl emerges. Gunn tells the hairdresser, \u201cI think we should bleach just Nathan\u2019s sideburns, so when he\u2019s not wearing the wig, he has to walk around with bleached sideburns.\u201d <\/p>\n

Finally a superhero, Cobie Smulders joins Crave\u2019s Super Team Canada<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know I can hear you,\u201d Fillion faux-pouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames tells me I\u2019m the absolute worst,\u201d Fillion says now. \u201cHe\u2019ll say, \u2018I hired you because Guy is such a jerk, and I know you, so I thought maybe, just maybe you could do this believably.\u2019\u201d Fillion pretends to be hurt, or to accept that Gunn is right. The two never tire of it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat James does that\u2019s so satisfying \u2013 if you want something to be funny it has to be true,\u201d Fillion says. \u201cBeing snarky and clever is great, but it\u2019s not as rewarding as when someone says something true about themselves. A confession that\u2019s embarrassing but true is funny to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of his career, Fillion has thought numerous times, \u201c\u2018Okay, now I\u2019ve made it.\u2019 That moment for me continually repeats. But being in a Superman movie? It\u2019s the thrill of my life.\u201d <\/p>\n

So if Fillion could have a superpower of his own? \u201cThe ability to find anything,\u201d he replies. \u201cTreasure. A missing person. My keys. Oh, it would be great. \u2018The cure for cancer? Found it!\u2019\u201d And with that, the kid with his own comic-book store heads off to his Hollywood premiere. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: From left: Nathan Fillion stars as Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced is Hawkgirl and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":47219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,19617,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-49964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-noastack","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114820283815264521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}