MONDO EXTRAS

TWoP: Were there any shows or movies you looked to for inspiration going into Castle? A lot of people are comparing it to Murder, She Wrote, but the premise reminds me of that movie The Hard Way.
NF: I remember that movie! Yeah! I'm the one who often makes the Murder, She Wrote reference, and ABC hates that, they don't want me to do that. And I say that having never actually watched Murder, She Wrote. I think people have been trying to compare it to crime shows that are on right now, and all I can do is listen. I don't watch a lot of TV.

TWoP: Is there anything you do watch?
NF: I watch The Office. I watch 30 Rock. I watch Dirty Jobs. Those are three of my favorite shows ever. And I watch a lot of movies.

TWoP: You play a crime novelist on the show, and in the first episode you play poker with some of your real-life contemporaries, Stephen J. Cannell and James Patterson. Did you pick their brains at all about the life of a writer?
NF: You know what, I was a little nervous meeting those guys! They had a lot of stories, and I was just sitting there and chatting with them and talking about stuff that they've done. Steve made most of the television that I grew up with. That's really quite something. So he would tell me little side notes about how certain shows would run, and how different actors were, and how he came into different ideas, and that was kind of cool. But we didn't really speak specifically about books and writing. That would have been a really good idea to do that, in retrospect.

TWoP: Now, do you film in New York?
NF: We filmed the pilot in New York, and right now we're filming the series here in L.A. It's actually quite interesting. There's a lot of places in downtown Los Angeles that we use for New York City. I lived in New York City for three years, I know what New York is like, and I'm going to downtown L.A, and I'm looking around and going, [high-pitched] "I didn't know this was here! I didn't know you could live in a loft this size! Look at this whole street, this whole street looks just like-- !" I'm really surprised -- listen to how high my voice is going -- but I was very surprised how "New York" sections of downtown L.A. actually do look. I was very surprised.