By David Server

Hey fellow Browncoats! We've got a full-on rundown of the Serenity junket, and it's a long one, so sit your weary bones down and dig in for a long read! Here's the first volley of interviews, with stars Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, and Morena Baccarin!

Q: So what was it like going back? Was it deja vu?

Nathan: Vindicating. What was it like for you?

Gina: Yeah...yeah, it was deja vu. I think we all have different stories about going onto the ship, and it was the same but it was different. And it was bigger in some places and smaller in others, and it went up in other places, but it was definitely...redemption is a word that Adam Baldwin likes to use.

Morena: It felt like we hadn't left, too. It was a little different, it was a little like coming into your living room and your mom rearranged all the furniture and things aren't where they were, but you're still home. And it felt like we picked up right where we left off.

Gina: Absolutely. And just seeing each other was great, although we never really stopped seeing each other...

Nathan: We never really stopped seeing each other, but y'know what was actually was good, was seeing the characters again. Seeing you guys in your outfits again, that was a real...that was something for me. [laughs]

Q: How long of a lapse was there between the show and the movie?

Morena: About a year and a half?

Gina: Yeah, almost two.

Q: Was there ever a point where you guys kinda gave up and felt like you would never be back on Serenity?

Gina: The day that we were cancelled! [laughs]

Nathan: Joss had that plan of finding another home, we'll find another home. And I said, 'That sounds great! It's a wonderful thing to say! It's really dead, isn't it?' [laughs] I wasn't prepared to fall in love with Firefly the way it did, and I wasn't prepared for Firefly to dump me the way it did. So I was pretty depressed, I was pretty sad about the whole thing. So I wasn't prepared to have that hope and say 'maybe...', I didn't wanna set myself up for another depression, and gain twenty pounds sitting in my house not going out at all...

Gina: Not that that happened!

Nathan: ...Right! [Laughs]

Q: Did you guys have to practice or work out to get back into the characters or get back into the mindset?

Morena: Well, I had a lot of sex...[laughs] I had to say it, there's a whore thing, now it's done and over with!

Nathan: [Was it hard] to get back into character? No, no. Certainly the TV series was a process cause we had time to learn the characters...

Gina: We had seven months of just learning each other, and falling in love, and falling into these people and getting to know each other. By the time we got back, these relationships were already established, and I know for me it was just getting into those damn pants...

Q: Are you all signed for another movie, or two movies?

Morena: Two more.

Nathan: [mock surprise] You are?

Gina: Next question!

Q: How was working with the two new cast members and working them into your family?

Nathan: Chiwetel was wonderful.

Gina: Didn't get to work with him! I had no contact with any of the new cast members...

Nathan: Yeah, he's good. And David Krumholtz we had, we didn't really get to hang out with him either. I got to hang out with him a little bit.

Q: What about Summer Glau? Was she fun on set?

Gina: We really all just wanted to take care of Summer, y'know, in our own way...[eyes Nathan Fillion]...and some ways are kind of illegal...and that's ok, we don't talk about that much...[laughs]

Nathan: Not in this state...

Gina: She's adorable, and she's sweet, and she just wanted soooo much to do a great job. How do you not support that?

Q: What is it that resonates with your fans about the story that your fans tap into?

Nathan: I think the same reason that I'm drawn to it, it's the people. These characters. I am invested. I've spent time with them, I've learned about them, I've hung out with them, I've learned about them through their choices, the decisions they make, and I am invested in these people. I like them, they're flawed, they're not all perfect (Except for Malcolm Reynolds), and I think people are invested, that's Joss' gift.

Morena: You can relate to something in each of the characters. I've been watching them recently [to Nathan and Gina], you guys were great by the way, and I think that what was drawing me to it again and again is that the stories are stories that you want to be told, they're not just relative to that universe, they symbolize something. I think that the style of Joss' writing is so grand and stylized, and it's sort of Shakespearean, these people's plights are extremely accessible, and I think that's what draws me in as a human being.

Q: What is it that these plots are saying to people that they want to hear so much?

Morena: Well, each character has their own, it seems.

Gina: I think unlike The Matrix and the Star Wars trilogies, where you had a very heightened reality and black and white is very clear, and the lines are very definitively drawn, you fall into it because you want to aspire to the grandness of these heroes that are put in front of you. We're just regular people in extraordinary circumstances. And that, in turn, can be more inspiring because you think, 'well, if these people as jacked up as they are in these circumstances with all their issues and unpreparedness, can meet these tasks, and actually survive them and learn something from them and get past it and live another day, then I can too'. And as Morena said, each character goes about it differently. And so there's always an opportunity for you to see yourself in whoever you see yourself in, and how they come to these tasks and get past them.

Morena: And they're each also discovering things about themselves that they didn't know were there. And that's what's interesting to watch. In some of the episodes with Summer, you're discovering Malcolm Reynolds has a vulnerable side, he has things he cares about.

Nathan: Yeah, and you're right, these are nobodies. I don't have much in common with Jedi Knights, but I have a great deal in common with nobodies.

Q: Nathan, with all these conventions, and meeting the fans and everything, could you see yourself in twenty years doing a spoof on that?

Nathan: Absolutely. Y'know what though, I watched that documentary, Trekkies, and there are people that are out there, people who are fanatical, and I refer to them by the entire term rather than just 'fan', they're fanatics. I find Serenity fans to be thoughtful and pretty intelligent people. They're really wonderful. My experiences have been really, really positive. And I can say this much about the fans, that we have one thing in common: we're all in love with the same damn show. They think they're fans, man, they've got nothing in me. I'm a fan.

Q: How much of your own personalities do you find in your characters?

Gina: I think it would be much more interesting if we answered for each other! [laughs] I think what Malcolm and Nathan have in common is that ultimately, they do wanna do the right thing. No matter what they put you through on the way to the right thing...[laughs] I think they both do have a great moral streak that runs through them, and it's endearing and it's wonderful.

Nathan: I'll say, [to Morena and Gina] both of you, very classy, very sexy. Morena, you're a little more on the demure side, whereas Gina, I know you are NOT to be crossed. You're a force to be reckoned with, aren't ya? You don't lose your cool.

Morena: She likes to play like she's not gonna do anything, like she's shy about it, but yeah, it's true. But y'know what, Gina is a lot more feminine then your character.

Q: How did the added money you got for the film that you didn't have on the show affect things? And was there anything you didn't have to do for the show that you had to do with the movie.

Morena: It's bigger and better! And yeah, I had to do archery. It was very cool. I really took to it, actually. I remember, when we were shooting, that scene came where I have to shoot one of the Reavers with an arrow, and everyone was like, 'OK, let's clear the set! Only people that need to be here have to be here!' Everybody had goggles, the camera guys had these hardhats on, and they gave me an X to hit. Every time I hit that X. They were like, 'Oh...ok!' [laughs]

Q: Anyone else have to do anything new?

Gina: No, I was pretty straightforward from series to movie. She still has her gun, she's still right by this guy's side...it was fun.

Nathan: Malcolm got to be a little darker than the series allowed him to be. In the series we experienced a little pressure to make him 'more likable! Nicer! Let's make him funnier!' And in the film, Mary Parent who's with Universal, she had the faith in Joss' vision to say, 'do it how you want it to be done.' So we were allowed to make Malcolm a little darker than he was. And it made a lot of sense; in the time that passed since the series until the movie, events have happened that have made him a little more bitter. And with Malcolm, there's one thing that he finds easy to express, it's bitterness and anger. He's comfortable with that.

Q: Morena and Nathan, there was an expectation that your two characters would hook up in this movie, but you didn't.

Nathan: You mean behind the scenes? Remember Moonlighting? As soon as they hooked up? It was over.

Morena: Yeah, who knows where this relationship is going...

Fillion: If I had my druthers, if we ever hook up, I hope it's on my deathbed.

Morena: You don't wanna kiss me, do you?

Fillion: I do, but not the sake of the show.

Morena: Good answer.

Continuing with the interview-y goodness, here's Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, and Sean Maher!

Q: Summer, did you ballet and dance training help at all with the fight choreography?

Summer: It did help me, because I was used to training everyday, going to the gym and working out all day, and doing lots of different types of training. But really it's completely different muscle memory, I had to completely retrain my body, it took months, three months, everyday.

Adam: And it worked!

Q: What was the biggest difference between the TV show and the movie?

Jewel: I think it was the time factor. We had so much more time on the movie than we did on the series. We could do a three page scene all day long if we wanted to, which was nice. Y'know, when you're doing series work, you have 12 hours and then that's it, and in that 12 hours you have about 8 or 9 pages to shoot, and on the movie I just felt like we had all this rehearsal time, we could stop, we could talk about the characters, we could talk about the vibe of the scene, what we were going for.

Adam: We had two weeks of rehearsal before we started filming, and I think we focused a lot on the main dialogue scenes early on, but we also focused on that mule chase scene. Because we had two weeks of exterior work that we had on location that we had to get in those two weeks, to stay on budget and on time. And he weather cooperated and we were able to get all that stuff in, and once we got to the studio, the controlled atmosphere on the soundstages, we were home free. I felt like we were right back workshopping out little TV show on these gigantic Universal soundstages. It was just great.

Sean: I agree. I think time was a big thing. We had obviously a lot more time to tell a story then when we were shooting in the series. But to me it just felt so similar to the show, everything just felt a little more spectacular, it felt a little grander. There was a wonderful feeling of redemption to come back with these people. It was a great reunion, so it was a wonderful energy.

Jewel: And a sense of closure, too. When we got cancelled, it all happened very quickly. I'm from Vancouver, so I packed up and went home and felt like there was no closure whatsoever. When we were greenlit to do the movie and saw each other again and were able to play these characters one more time, it was gratifying.

Adam: I think an important aspect of that is that we felt - and I think the fanbase felt - that were were kinda under the gun from the get go. Our ratings were low, and everyone know our ratings were low, and we needed to figure out some way to push 'em up, we never did, and we got cancelled. But the cancellation happens really quick, it'a like 'ok, you're done, go home'. But Joss immediately asked for the rights to Firefly to make it somewhere else. He tried to sell it to other TV networks and they didn't bite, and over time he was able to ultimately get Universal and Mary Parent's attention and they agreed to make the film. But Joss never gave up. Joss never, quote unquote, stopped "fighting for the future". So while it was very hard for us and devastating emotionally, I don't know about you guys but I never felt Joss gave up. I always kinda felt this was where we would end up. While we miss our show, we have closure, whatever happens to our movie. We can movie forward if we're a hit and make two more, or come what may - I'm not even going to spell out what the other alternative is!

Q: What was the one thing you wish your characters could still do?

Adam: Needlepoint: No, seriously, little girlie things.

Jewel: You know what really bugs me? Mal and Inara. Their tension gets to me. I want them to kiss and get together and get it over with. It drives me crazy. Those characters are so incredibly stubborn that, no matter what, they can't admit how they feel about the other person. That's the story arc that U would like to see come to some sort of conclusion. Just because it bugs me.

Adam: And what would you like your character to do in the future?

Jewel: I think Kaylee should have a baby.

Sean: Yeah! I agree.

Q: Shouldn't Jayne come out of the closet and admit his love for Mal?

Adam: Joss'll disagree with this, but my subtext was that Jayne had a crush on Inara, and that was sort of his driving energy through there. But Joss was always like, "No! Wrong, Adam! He does not!" And I would think, "Yes he does!" But what would I like to see happen? I'd like to see Kaylee have a baby.

Sean: I think there needs to be a baby on that ship.

Jewel: We always talk about what new character could come on the ship...God willing the story continues, someone should join the crew.

Adam: I think we should meet Jayne's parents. That would be fun.

Q: Sean, were you happy that Simon finally got involved in some of the action?

Sean: Yes yes yes! That was great. What I would like, specifically in Simon, is to go further in that. It was very gratifying to see him get a little rougher around the edges. But not to lose his incredible gift for medicine. He was figuring all that out in the movie, so I would like to see that go further.

Q: How much weapons training did you have?

Sean: Quite a bit.

Jewel: They made me shoot everything. This one gun was so incredibly heavy...I liked like the biggest geek in the world. I was leaning back, it was so heavy. I thought I would look cute that day, and wore shorts and a tank top, and everytime I would shoot the gun, it would ricochet and I would get little burns all over my legs. It wasn't super-fun. It was crazy.

Sean: I thought it was fun. It was scary how fun it can be.

Adam: I've been comfortable with guns for years!

Sean: I think that our training, they weren't sure who would be shooting what or what would be used, so they had us get familiar with everything that could possibly find its way into the script. There was a lot of firing to be done.

Q: Summer, how much of the last scene with your fight sequence is you and how much is a stunt person?

Summer: It's all me. There were two dangerous stunts that they wouldn't let me do. One falling down the stairs, that was just too risky. And one other flip...where my stunt double ended up getting hurt! I felt terrible! But all the swords, all the blade work I did myself. All the guns I did myself. The daggers. Joss wanted it to look real. And I felt it - every punch and kick!

Q: The script is filled with gallows humor...

Adam: I kept going back to Jayne as a practical guy. What do you do in the face of mortal danger? You either crap your pants and cry or you make a joke and try to survive. If Jayne can't run anymore, turn and fight. It's a great device for that character, the false bravado.

Q: Joss is well known as a writer who is very specific about his dialogue. Were you allowed to make suggestions on set?

Jewel: He's pretty specific...

Summer. It's like poetry.

Adam: He's open to any good suggestion, but his standards are very high. To get there, you have to come up with a very good idea or alteration. He was not completely inflexible, but he's got it so completely formed on the page for you, and in his mind and his vision. Again, we had two weeks of rehearsal to suss out all the problems. By the time we were actually shooting, it was all go, go, go. It was great. There were no stumbling blocks.

Sean: I think specifically with Firefly and Serenity, I don't know how it was with Buffy and Angel, there was such a specific way that these characters speak...

Adam: A rhythm.

Sean: Yeah, it's a very clear rhythm.

Q: Was the Chinese hard to get?

Adam: I hated it! I hated it.

Sean: I got none! It was a piece of cake.

Summer: It's hard for me to make it emotional, the Chinese. I had this one really emotional scene where I had to do Chinese and I felt ridiculous.

Adam: It damaged my calm.

Sean: I think the hardest thing about the Chinese is that it's these phrases. It's not just yes or no, it's these chunks of phrases that the other actors had to stumble over.

Adam: But it's great that he would figure out these phrases like, "the explosive diarrhea of an elephant" and translate it into Chinese. And then you get to go and say that!

Q: Have you guys had a lot of encounters with the fans?

Jewel: We've been doing these science fiction conventions. That's been really interesting, yeah.

Adam: We've had a lot of interaction with the fans. They've been the most supportive from the get go. Again, I think it goes back to this sort of underdog story of us struggling to get back in the air. The people who are going along for the ride have been very helpful in keeping us there. I know the DVD sales were very important to Universal's decision. I don't know if it was the ultimate decision making reason, but it was very important. We very much appreciate how much the fans have helped with our return to the screen.

Jewel: I'm not even sure we'd be here if we didn't have such a dedicated, amazing following.

Adam: They make us shirts and they make us trinkets.

Jewel: They dress up like us.

Summer: They sing our songs!

Jewel: They quote our lines. I don't even remember my lines. They all know the dialogue.

Sean: This past summer, there were a bunch of secret screenings with fans that we all attended. Watching the movie with fans is just an experience unto itself. There's really nothing like it. They're incredibly loyal and it's flattering.

Jewel: It's exciting. They're smart, too.

Adam: They're smart, and you get this huge cross section of demographics. You get young and old, men and women, left and right. Everyone loves the writing, they love the characters, it's amazing.

Q: What was the strangest experience you've ever had at a convention?

Jewel: I had a fan come up to me, he was so sweet, and I guess he was quite nervous, and he farted! It was audible!

Adam: Memorable!

Jewel: I felt so bad, and I know he felt really bad, and we both pretended like nothing happened. We took a picture with each other and he walked away.

Adam: We have gotten a lot of useful gifts, though. Like t-shirts...I can't remember exactly the line Joss gave in Edinburgh, but it was a brilliant line, and it was about how his struggle, his journey, to get this movie made utilized the fuel of love and not the fuel of anger, since that fuel doesn't keep you going. Anger isn't an efficient fuel, but love is. That's true. The love we get for the characters and the show and Joss' writing, a lot of that you see in the energy when you watch the show. I love the show. I love the movie!

And last but not least, the man with the plan, writer-director Joss Whedon!

Q: So how nervous are you about this movie opening?

Joss: Wow...starting with the hard stuff, huh? Yeah, the interweb is just a fad...How nervous am I? I'm actually pretty calm. I am being medicated right now. I got really nervous. When I realized that ultimately, I have absolutely no idea how this movie is gonna do. I believe that if people see it they will like it, and that is sort of my first job, and I feel like that was more or less accomplished. But I have no idea if they actually will see it. And if they don't see it how can they like it? So I panicked, and I freaked out, publicly. Proud of that. And then I sort of realized that it's out of my hands. I will do everything in my power to try and get people to see it, but there's only so much that's in my power. And if they don't, or if they...dear, how can I put this...HATE IT, then that's just what's gonna happen and there's nothing I can really do about it. I believe in the film, I loved making it, I love what we came up with, I'm really proud of all my actors, so that's gonna have to sustain me. Y'know, that's me now. Talk to me on the morning of the 30th, y'know, hiding in the bathtub.

Q: The writing is key to this series. Could you share some of your dialogue writing tips? What makes the Serenity dialogue snap like it does?

Joss: Well, part of it was just getting to invent the language, which came from a lot of different influences. Cause the movie has that sort of genre feeling, and era mix, and once I had, it reads like poetry to me, makes it very easy to write, kinda rolls off the tongue in a way that nothing I've ever written before does. But in terms of advice? Or my dark secrets? The most important thing to me is finding everybody's voice very specifically. And I build shows and movies on what I refer to as the 'Golden Girls model', which is very simply that everybody's gotta come from a different place. Everybody's reaction to something is different, equally valid, and equally fun. And never having anybody say anything that isn't the next thing they'd say, that isn't their point of view, that isn't their perspective, that's where the humor comes from. Jayne's perspective on the situation could be very different from everybody else's, and when he speaks, that makes it funny. But at the same time that's what makes it valid. If a line is just a set-up for somebody else to be funny, it's disingenuous to the character, and to the actor portraying them. That's the biggest thing for me, that everybody (and that includes 'Second Thug from left) has perspective that they bring with them to the piece, and they don't all have to be eloquent about it in a sort of obnoxious proto-Tarantino way of everybody speaks volumes kinda thing, I think he's done that very well but I've seen the bad version, but just respecting everybody and knowing that the whole point of the thing, that the whole point of any dialogue is that it's two people with completely different points of view trying to find a space in the middle. That's where the conflict comes from, that's where the humor comes from, that's where the humanity comes from. And I think it's also what makes people respond to it, that all the characters, they're all very present all the time.

Q: You've got a big cast of characters, which is great for TV but harder for film. What were the challenges for you in terms of budgeting time for everyone in the movie?

Joss: The challenge was to get everybody in there! [laughs] Yeah, obviously you need a bunch of peeps if you want to create eternal conflict and it's not just a problem-of-the-week kind of show, and then when I was given the opportunity to make a movie of this, all of a sudden I had 9 characters, and that's a lot of people to put in a movie, but ultimately, what it gave me was the chance to have a platoon feeling, the band as this great big group of feeling, and you can focus on who you want to. On a show, you're gonna give everybody equal time, and you're gonna make sure everybody's really serviced. In a film, you have to say, well Mal is really the hero, he's the guy we have to be watching, we come to him through River, she's kind of his proxy, and it's kind of about how she affects him and how they help each other. That doesn't mean however that anybody is expendable, you make sure that everybody's perspective brings something different to the movie. And everybody's physicality and their actions and what they're useful for...y'know, a lot of movies center around a character, and then maybe there's two others that are defined, and then everybody else kinda fades into the distance, and for some film's that's very useful, but because I wanted a sort of chaotic everything's-happening-at-once feeling of being on that ship, and being in this world, having a large cast is useful because they all bring so much texture to it, hopefully it isn't confusing, but it makes it feel very lively and very lived in.

Q: Do you have ideas for the sequels if they happen?

Joss: Oh, it's very sweet to mention the word 'sequel'...Obviously, that's the way my brain works, I have written sequels in my head for movies that other people made all the time (I had a great idea for The Fly II, before they made The Fly II, which I never told anybody about, but it's really cool), so it's inevitable with me that I would do that, and of course I love this universe and I love these people and I would jump at the chance to do it again, but I couldn't think about that while I was making it, because ultimately...everyone kept saying, 'so you're making a trilogy?' 'No, it's a film...' 'So a trilogy?' I'm like, 'Just the one!' It's a trilogy if you make two that are so good that there's a third! I had to not think about where it came from (the series) and not think about where it may go (a franchise), just make this one thing an experience worth having. And the rest will either fall into place or it won't, but if you focus on that, you're a dead man. Now that I've finished it, I've started to market it, I think about it all the time. But I don't tell anybody that. Except just now.

Q: Could you talk a bit about Chiwetel Ejiofor's performance as The Operative, the film's villain?

Joss: Chiwetel is extraordinary, and I gave him a really tough job, because The Operative is self-proclaimed and very specifically undefined, because he refuses to let himself be defined. He doesn't consider himself a person, he considers himself less than that. And I wanted to create a villain who was more of an antagonist than just a villain. Again, if you don't believe the perspective of the person, then they become just a plot device. And the idea of having somebody completely idealistic and dedicated to decency and nobility as my villain and somebody's who's self involved and cut-off and a criminal as my hero is kind of basically what the film is about. Only our messy, repulsive humanity can save us from the deadly notion of perfection. Chiwetel came in, and the reason particularly that I hired him was them big ole' eyes, he's just so soulful. He brings such a sense of decent disappointment at how things work out in the world and the things around him. And he doesn't play anything arch at all, he understood completely who this guy was, and that he was a decent man who was actually a serial killer, and doesn't really understand himself that well, and there were times when we had to shoot him more than one way, because we don't know how much we want to telegraph the aggression that's actually in this guy that actually allows him to be so good at killing people, and how much we want to let him subsume himself, and be quiet and decent and when is the moment when he's gonna take over...That's something that we played with a lot, so he didn't come off as having no energy, but at the same time he didn't come off as a mustache twirler. I could never have written that, and Chiwetel is so incredibly sympathetic that he...well, he could play it, he has, he can play anything, but he definitely is the right person to play somebody who's full of belief.

Q: Can you talk about some of the other challenges in opening this up from series to film and also how you make it accessible for the people who haven't seen the show?

Whedon: Well, ultimately, you know, that's certainly the hardest job I've ever had. It's a question of opening it up, and it's a question of closing it down...Opening it up, in the sense of we need a giant, epic story that is not the kind of thing these people usually get involved in in a TV series, which is more mundane. You need a reason for this to be a movie, and to be a, well, big-for-me-anyways budget movie, and a Universal film, y'know, like an action movie that has to work on a certain scale...At the same time, that's the opening, the closing comes in making sure that it is accessible to everybody, that you explain everybody as much as you need to, that you explain the world as much as you need to. That you begin and you end, that you have an arc for the character, as well as a plot that has a question, and then an answer. I've actually said once or twice that the difference between TV and movies is that TV shows are a question, and movies are an answer. And so in this, we had to have a definitive statement about freedom and humanity and what we need and what we should be allowed to have as people, which is all our flaws. And then I answer that,. I make a definitive statement. I put a period or, hopefully, an exclamation point on that, as opposed to just sort of pursuing the question for years, which is what a TV show would do.

Q: Do you prefer this universe as a television series, a film, or do they both have their strengths as mediums?

Joss: They definitely all have their different strengths. Y'know, Firefly and Serenity are really two different animals, and that's very deliberate on my part, because if they weren't, I'd be making a glorified episode of television and I have no business wasting Universal's money. I spent the bulk of the writing and the bulk of the editing just trying to make it work for people who don't know the series. But the movies give you a chance to do something extraordinary, and you can realize whatever insane vision you have, and to turn a ballerina into a martial arts star, which is always a good thing to do with your free time if you can. TV gives you an opportunity to explore things on a smaller level, which was very gratifying. It's a different thing. I miss it, I miss Firefly, because Serenity is not Firefly, which was deliberate. But the great thing was the TV show is deliberately small in the scope of the people within it, and the movie is still really an epic filled with small people. And that's the kind of story I like to tell, the story of when people who have no business being in an epic get caught up in one, how do they react: do they fold, or do they fight?

Q: In the movie, you answer certain questions that the show raised, involving the Reavers and River. Were those the answers we would have gotten from the show if it hadn't been cancelled?

Whedon: Very little has changed for the movie. Obviously, things were dropped, and most importantly, things were distilled into a fine two-hour liqueur instead of a more watered-down longer version. Yes, that was where I was going with the idea of River and her secret, and the Reavers and theirs, and how it all connected. I had planned to get there in a couple of years, instead of a couple of hours. But apart from not being able to service all the subplots with all those different people, that is exactly where I was going with it. That was the easy part of structuring it and pitching it. This is where this series was building to, and I think if you took this as a separate story, it is an epic story and it has a great deal of meaning for today.

Q: This series is so driven by fans...have you ever taken any suggestions from fans in terms of character arcs?

Joss: Legally speaking? No. Y'know, they seldom will actually pitch things at me. I use them as a barometer for what it is they respond to, who it is they respond to, 'oh they're not responding to this character, let's find out what's inside this character that makes them tick and really open them up so that they do...', stuff like that generally speaking. Also because the series is not ongoing, 'well, you can do this, you can do that...'. There's the movie...if they haven't seen it, they're not gonna tell me what to do, and if they have seen it, some of them may criticize some of the things I did, but generally they're just saying...'that was fun.'

Q: What perspective on religion and faith, if any, do you feel Serenity provides? And how does it differ from those from other sci-fi epics like Star Wars or The Matrix?

Joss: I think that we all have different takes on it, and we all have different things to say about spirituality, I think their films use more deliberate religious iconography because they're coming from that mythic place, in a way that I would say Buffy did, but Firefly and Serenity don't. Again, to come back to the idea of the question and the answer, in Firefly, there was a conflict between Mal and the Shepherd that was deliberate, which was that Mal is an atheist and he's beyond that, kind of faithless. He doesn't trust people. He doesn't really think of anything as a greater good. Even though he has a moral code himself, he really can't admit or understand it. Shepherd Book is very clear on his faith, and there was a conflict between the two of them that was supposed to be ongoing throughout the series. Obviously, the movie being more about answers, I had one definitive statement to make, which was simply the power of belief, the power of something greater than yourself, does not necessarily have to mean religion. Shepherd Book himself says that. He doesn't say, 'find God.' He says, 'find your way.' Shepherd Book obviously believes in God. He believes that God is a part of what's going on. Mal doesn't, but the Shepherd doesn't judge him for that. He says, 'the point is not whether or not you believe what I believe. The point is that you don't believe in anything. And it's killing you. And it's tearing your crew apart. And it's making you do stupid things.' The word 'belief' comes into the film a lot for that reason. It's a simple act of subsuming yourself to the idea of something that is great. Believing that there is something worth structuring your life around that will direct your moral decisions, and sometimes make you make harder decisions...That is important. What that belief is...is not.

Q: Is your leadership style Mal's leadership style?

Joss: Yes and no. To an extent, my interest in Mal as a leader was built partially in my years of running shows and seeing that dynamic from a different point of view. You could also look at the seventh season of Buffy was similar to that respect. It had a lot to do with the pitfalls of being a leader. What's interesting to me about that concept is the 'removed' sort of monstrosity who doesn't accept the responsibility of being a leader. Because ultimately, when you are in the service of something greater, or even just when you're in the position of having to make the decisions for everybody, you are removed from them. It's interesting to me because it requires a toughness that is almost dehumanizing, and when he does take up the mantle, that's when he starts to become really dangerous. To an extent, the Operative embodies that too. Belief is dangerous, and a leader has to have that very strongly. Even if the only thing he's trying to do is keep his people alive, their welfare, even if it's paramount to him, he's going to do things are either horrific or even incomprehensible to them. I do find that kind of fascinating. For some reason my leadership style is a little more abrasive, and for some reason a little less handsome...

Q: How's your progress on the Wonder Woman film?

Joss: Briefly, I'm just writing it. I'm having the time of my life. And no, it's not cast.

Q: In a fight between River and Buffy, who wins?

Whedon: Wow. Nobody's ever asked me that, and I'm shocked. And ultimately...I can't say, I'm going to have to watch...Because Buffy's got the super strength, but River's got all kinds of crazy training. She's not a superhero in the same way, but she's very focused. Its tough. It's a smackdown. Be there.

Q: Would a sequel affect Wonder Woman's production, or no?

Whedon: That should be a question I have to answer! [laughs]

And there you have it! Hope you've enjoyed our Serenity coverage! Keep it here at CountingDown.com for all the latest movie news and rumors!