MONDO EXTRAS

TWoP: How is this show different from working on a show like Desperate Housewives or Drive?
NF: Desperate Housewives is an ensemble cast, where I played a tertiary character. I made a lot of great friends, but that show didn't keep me very busy. I worked a few days a week, right here, close to my house. Castle is every day of the week, about 14 hours a day, and sometimes we work Saturdays, which is tough. We just heard that something happened with one of our reels that we sent in; some of the scenes we shot spent too long in the "soup," where they pull it through at the lab, when they're developing it, and it ruined it, so we've got to go back and re-shoot some stuff. Now we're trying to squeeze it all into our regular schedule. Nobody wanted to come in on a Saturday again. It's an intense schedule. I really don't have time for much of anything else, save for weekends.

TWoP: So if Joss Whedon called you and asked you to do a guest stint on Dollhouse, you'd have to say no?
NF: I would have to say no. I mean, unless he wants to shoot weekends.

TWoP: Are you interested in revisiting the Firefly or Dr. Horrible universes?
NF: I tell you, Firefly? Best job I ever had. Heartbroken when it was canceled, but had it not been canceled, I never would have gotten Serenity. I think Serenity is the most incredible thing I've ever been able to actually get my hands on and do. I can't even tell you how much love I have for that project. If anybody ever said, "There's gonna be another Serenity," I'd be the first guy to sign up. I'd be in.

TWoP: Has there been any more talk about that?
NF: Certainly, we throw around the idea, but no one with the money to actually do it.

TWoP: How about Dr. Horrible? Would it take another strike to make that one happen?
NF: Boy, you know, I sure can see the benefit to producing programs for the Internet. Any time art meets finance, you have these artists who want to tell a story a particular way, they're storytellers, and then you have these people with finance and the distribution, who say, "Well, you know, this is our network, and if you're gonna put a show on our network, we wanna make sure that 'X' plus 'Z' equals 'dollar sign.' So why don't we put in more 'X,' and instead of 'Z,' why don't we make it a 'G'?" It's their money, and they're gonna have a say as to how it goes, and there's really no purer way to tell the story than just to leave the storyteller alone. And you're not gonna get that with a lot of finance guys. A lot of finance guys are not gonna say, "Hey, go nuts! Do whatever you like! I'm putting it all in your hands!" They have responsibilities. That's their job. You can't really fault them for that. But when you look at the Internet, the Internet is your distribution. "You want to see my program? Push this button." And it's done.