Nathan Fillion Once Revealed the Joss Whedon Movie That Gave Him ‘Night Terrors’

Actor Nathan Fillion was very close to Joss Whedon, who helped give him his big break with Firefly . Even though the sci-fi show didn’t last long, Fillion and Whedon would work together on a few other projects over the years. But one Whedon project was initially a nightmare for Fillion.

Nathan Fillion had a hard time filming this Joss Whedon movie

The 2013 feature Much Ado About Nothing differed greatly from Whedon’s and Fillion’s usual collaborations . Much Ado was based on the Shakespeare play of the same name, with Fillion playing the character Dogberry. The movie was a bit of a passion project for Whedon, who was genuinely interested in the original story.

“I love Much Ado, ” Whedon once told Collider . “It’s hilarious, and it’s accessible, but it’s also very dark. And it has a lot to say about love, not all of it good, and how we behave. It poses a lot of interesting questions. It doesn’t resolve all of them, even though it has a happy ending. It’s this open debate about the way we behave and the way we’re expected to. It’s fascinating to me.”

But Fillion didn’t share Whedon’s enthusiasm for his adaptation. So much so that it might’ve been the only Whedon film that he didn’t want to do.

“I tried to chicken out,” Fillion once admitted to Parade . “Reading Shakespeare is one thing; performing it is another. Joss Whedon talked me down, and I’m so glad he did.”

However, even after getting the role, it took Fillion a while to adjust to the language and dialogue in Much Ado .

“ I was trying to memorize my dialogue, and I was having night terrors because it was so difficult,” Fillion said in a resurfaced interview with Oregon Live .

But it didn’t take too long for Fillion to adapt. He simply had to return to the basics to truly prepare for the movie.

“I was afraid to do this project for much the same reason that I’m afraid to watch Shakespeare, which is that I will not understand it,” Fillion said. “That was stopping me from literally learning my lines. I didn’t understand what I was saying until I sat down and studied, like back in school, what was being said and what the pictures were that he was painting, and if I could comprehend what I was supposed to be doing. In much the same way as when I watch Shakespeare being done well — I got it. It was so easy.”

Nathan Fillion felt Joss Whedon helped him get into Shakespeare

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Fillion developed a stronger appreciation for Shakespeare in general thanks to his involvement in Much Ado . He initially felt that the stories from the famous playwright were too high-brow for people who shared Fillion’s sensibilities. But Whedon proved that Shakespeare really could be for everyone.

“In the right hands and deftly handled, Shakespeare can be understood by every man — and when I say ‘every man,’ I mean me,” Fillion said. “I always considered Shakespeare to be a little hoity-toity and snotty and requiring a higher education and really not my cup of tea. ‘Oo! Shakespeare! I’m a big fan!’ — I’m not that guy. But thank God that Joss Whedon is, and thank God that he included me in this project because now I get it. Now I get why people love Shakespeare. Now I get why the themes he’s talking about are so relatable.”

Fillion also felt that filming Much Ado was a testament to Whedon’s own infectious passion and work ethic. The director was filming Marvel’s Avengers when he decided to adapt the Shakespearean comedy, which seemed to impress Fillion.

“What does that tell you about a man’s love for what he does and his love for Shakespeare, when his idea of a vacation — a two-week vacation — is to shoot 12 days of a Shakespeare movie?” Fillion said.