Nathan Fillion certainly made some good use of his fame, even if it was in a totally unexpected way.
The actor, 55, joined his castmates from The Rookie for the show’s panel on Monday, July 27 at San Diego Comic-Con, per People, where they opened up about the coming ninth season and on and off-set anecdotes.
One of those tied back to Nathan himself, who plays Officer John Nolan on the long-running ABC police procedural, and ended up coming face to face with law enforcement himself.
“I got pulled over once,” he recalled, adding that he didn’t have his ID to show to the police officer. But was instead met with: “I recognize you’re an actor.” Nathan quipped in response: “I said, ‘Yes… actually, I’m pretty good.'”
Having earned notices for several beloved projects like Firefly and Serenity, Castle, One Life to Live, Two Guys and a Girl, the DC Cinematic Universe, and more, it’s clear that some of the name caché the TV cop held was about to come in handy.
Especially when the officer said to him: “‘If you give my wife an autograph, I’ll let you off with a warning.’ I said, ‘Great!’ He handed me his phone. I asked, ‘What’s your wife’s name?’ He said, ‘Lily.’ So I wrote, ‘To Lily…'”
And that’s when things took a hilarious turn. “Then I heard him say, ‘Hey honey, I’m getting you an autograph, it’s Jason Bateman.'” Of course, Nathan met the moment where it was at. “And I signed it… ‘all my love, Jason Bateman.'”
© Getty ImagesAlso during the panel, the Castle star spoke about avoiding doing his own stunts on The Rookie as well, tracing things back to his recurring stint playing the priest Caleb on Buffy the Vampire Slayer two decades prior.
“I wanna do my own stunts like Tom Cruise,” he remarked. “32-year-old Nathan got kicked in the knee on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s never been the same. Ever since, a more mature and reasonable Nathan says, ‘I can’t wait to see how my stunt double does this stunt.'”
© Getty ImagesIt ties back to the plot of the show itself, in which John Nolan, a man in his 40s, decides he wants to switch things around with his career, and ends up becoming the oldest rookie in the Los Angeles Police Department.
It was the very concept of the show that convinced Nathan to sign up in the first place. “It was the pitch. You want a character you feel you can serve — you can serve the character, serve the story,” he told The Hollywood Reporter when first signing on for The Rookie, which he also executive produces.
© Getty Images“Being in the business as long as I have, I’ve broadened my scope. And the core idea of the show, it has to be something strong enough to carry it a number of years. You want the potential for more. You don’t want to hit a roadblock where you’ve run out of stories because our engine isn’t built that way.”
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