Interview with the villain Caleb

Nathan Fillion doesn’t have much history on Buffy. He only appears in the final five episodes as the henchman to The First, the evil Caleb who beats on young girls. Hopefully, by the end, Buffy will teach him a lesson. Fillion has a history with Joss Whedon.

He was the lead on Whedon’s short-lived Fox series Firefly. With that show canceled, Whedon was happy to give him a shot on Buffy.

Of all the unstoppable monsters Buffy has faced, what makes Caleb unique and threatening? His accent. Never trust a southerner. No, I’m kidding. They’re wonderful. I would say his kindness, but the mayor already had that kind of a quality. You know what? He’s an unlikely and unsuspecting villain. I think his uniform, being a cleric’s robe, you want to look at him and believe that he’s nice and apple pie. You want to believe in his niceness and his charm, but he’s an evil kind of crazy man who’s righteous. Fear the righteous.

What was the finale like? Awesome. It was very good.

Is there pressure of being the last big bad of the show? No, no extra pressure. It was just fun to be able to play a villain, to have a good time playing a villain.

What’s so fun about being a villain? Being able to be evil. You can’t do the evil things that you want to do in real life. You certainly can’t because it’s against the law and society says all that they have to say about being evil. You want to be bad everyday. You want to do the bad evil things that you can’t get away with and now I’m able to be bad and super strong. It’s a fantasy.

How is your relationship with Joss Whedon now? I’ll tell you this. No one has ever shown the kind of faith in me that Joss Whedon has shown, in both giving me a lead on his sci-fi show Firefly and in letting me play a villain for the very first time. No one’s ever let me play a villain before. So, I would say that. I think he’s done great things for my career and certainly my confidence in general.

Was it fun to get your ass kicked by Buffy? I didn’t really. I think if anyone got their ass kicked there it was Buffy. In all honesty. But in the end, I guess, I can’t even tell you about the end, can I?

How do you feel about how Firefly ended? I wish I knew what went wrong there. I’m still crossing my fingers for the movie. I still hope we make a movie. I’ll do it. If someone will let me, I’ll do it.

Theatrical movie or TV movie? Oh, movie movie. Big old silver screen.