<p id=”par-1_58″><a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/tag/actors/”>Actor</a> Nathan Fillion wasn’t opposed to playing bad guys, so much so that he would’ve liked to <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/nathan-fillion-felt-missed-shot-playing-spider-man-villain.html/”>play a Spider-Man villain</a> one day. But for the most part, Fillion has been tapped to portray good guys in both movies and television shows. This has left some wondering if The Rookie star had ever gotten tired of being heroic.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-nathan-fillion-once-shared-what-he-thought-about-the-heroes-he-played”>Nathan Fillion once shared what he thought about the heroes he played</h2>
<figure class=”wp-block-image size-full” id=”emb-1″><img decoding=”async” src=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Heroes-Nathan-Fillion.webp?strip=all&quality=80″ alt=”Nathan Fillion posing at the 36th Annual American Cinematheque Award Ceremony honoring Ryan Reynolds.” class=”wp-image-3772321″><figcaption class=”wp-element-caption”>Nathan Fillion | Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage</figcaption></figure>
<p id=”par-2_65″>Fillion has portrayed a few villains in his career. Projects like <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> and <em>Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog</em> showed how capable of a bad guy he could be. Fans also thought Fillion was going to <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/suicide-squad-2-fans-think-nathan-fillion-is-dcs-newest-villain.html/”>play DC’s newest villain</a> in James Gunn’s <em>The Suicide Squad</em>. Although he did play a villain in the flick, he wasn’t the character who some predicted he’d be.</p>
<p id=”par-3_87″>However, the vast majority of his career has seen him play good guys who ultimately try to do what’s right. However, the heroes Fillion played weren’t one-dimensional perfect characters. Instead, they all had their own quirks and flaws unique to their personalities. His <em>Rookie </em>showrunner considered Fillion <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/the-rookie-nathan-fillion-very-rare-leading-man.html/”>a very rare leading man</a> somewhat because he could pull off playing unique good guys. So in the end, Fillion didn’t mind being typecast as those kinds of heroes, since they still offered him plenty of variety to work with.</p>
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<p id=”par-4_53″><em>“</em>If anything, I’m typecast as a guy who’s maybe not so nice. He’s the hero who’s the anti-hero, or you think he’s a nice guy, but he’s an adulterer. I’ve played so many roles, like a man who is married who cheats on his wife,” Fillion once told <em>IFC</em> (via <a href=”http://allthingsuncharted.com/2009/10/nathan-fillion-talks-typecasting-channels-anti-hero/”>All Things Uncharted</a>).</p>
<p id=”par-5_36″>To Fillion, heroes with flaws who experienced real losses were more epic than heroes who could do anything. They weren’t just roles he enjoyed playing, but characters he liked seeing on the big screen as well.</p>
<p id=”par-6_100″>“I think that the age of the hero that’s, ‘I know just who to call, he’s the best man that ever lived,’ that era of hero is over. The Rambo that cannot fail. The super, invulnerable, who can throw a knife 100 yds, we need a hero who’s a real man that can actually fail. Indiana Jones is my first experience with that. There’s a guy who got punched and beat up and abused and bruised and cut and slapped and then wins in the end. That’s the guy I like,” he once told <a href=”https://www.tvfortherestofus.com/nathan-fillion-interview/”>TV for the Rest of Us</a>.</p>
<h2 class=”wp-block-heading” id=”h-nathan-fillion-once-shared-how-joss-whedon-and-firefly-taught-him-how-to-be-a-hero”>Nathan Fillion once shared how Joss Whedon and ‘Firefly’ taught him how to be a hero</h2>
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<p id=”par-7_67″>Perhaps no other protagonist embodied everything Fillion wanted to see in a hero more than Malcolm Reynolds. Fillion was cast as the spaceship captain in <em>Firefly</em>, a series he considered <a href=”https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/nathan-fillion-named-firefly-turning-point-career.html/”>a turning point in his career</a>. Although Reynolds found himself in extraordinary situations, Fillion felt his feats of heroism were very grounded. So much so that Fillion believed his heroics weren’t unlike what regular people did everyday.</p>
<p id=”par-8_102″>“He is heroic in a way, but in the same way as single parents are heroic,” Fillion once told <a href=”https://www.gamesradar.com/nathan-fillion-interview-exclusive/”>Games Radar</a>. “Single parents – parents in general – are heroes! You take a single parent, they’re doing it by themselves, they’ve got no help, it’s just them, with their family, holding it together, so there’s Malcolm Reynolds. ‘What, they got stolen? Somebody kidnapped them? Not my family!’ He goes and he gets them. That’s what a parent does, that’s what people do – they keep their family together. There’s nothing heroic about them. He’s just doing what he knows to be right.”</p>
<p id=”par-9_15″>Fillion credited Joss Whedon, who created Firefly, for showing him what a real hero was.</p>
<p id=”par-10_147″>“We need to change our conception of heroism,” Fillion confided in a 2009 interview with <a href=”https://www.avclub.com/nathan-fillion-1798215916″>AV Club</a>. “You can watch TV and watch the movies and—I mean, in real life, we don’t really have any Superman. We don’t have a guy who’s ultimately powerful, who can solve problems with his fists or a gun, and he’s always fantastic. That’s not reality. I’ve found a real comfort in the idea of a hero that has flaws, a hero that is real, an actual person. Not everybody is good all the time, that’s reality. Sometimes as a hero, or as the hero of the story, you have to make hard decisions. Firefly taught me that. Joss Whedon taught me a great deal about the hero that’s not quite a hero. He taught me about bad guys—bad guys don’t think that they’re bad guys, bad guys think that they’re heroes.”</p>