Joss Whedon: The Biography (49 page)

Joss was also able to streamline the story by cutting back the involvement of several of the characters. Universal had wanted all nine main actors to sign multi-film contracts, but Alan Tudyk (Wash) and Ron Glass (Book) could not commit to sequels. So Joss needed to find a sensible way to take them out of the story while honoring the relationship that fans had with the characters. Joss moved Book off the ship and gave him a storyline previously assigned to a side character, adding weight to a big moment that motivates Mal to take action against the Operative.

On June 14, Nathan Fillion took to the official
Firefly
forum to announce that Joss and Kai had taken the cast out to dinner to celebrate the news that the movie was a go. Joss also enlisted Jack Green, who was also the cinematographer on the Clint Eastwood western
Unforgiven
, and editor Lisa Lassek, who had worked on all three of the Whedonverse series.

Joss had very specific intentions when casting the new characters in the ’verse. For the determined Operative, he chose British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, because “he brings such depth and soulfulness and regret to everything.” In the small but essential role of Dr. Mathias, the pompous Alliance researcher working on River’s case, he cast comedic actor Michael Hitchcock. Mirroring his approach for
Buffy
writers, Joss picked “comedians, because they have the chops that I will need.”

Another essential character, the ship itself, needed to be rebuilt from scratch. “I’ll always remember the walk-through of the new
Firefly/
Serenity
set on a gigantic stage at Universal,” Adam Baldwin recalls. “Just to see Joss’s face and how happy he was that it was reborn, sort of a resurrection—he was just like a kid in a candy store. I was so happy for him. This was his baby and … his baby got killed, but he gave it his Midas touch and brought it back. He was so happy again, and he had that little dance in his step, and a smile on his face, this little sheepish grin that he has, like, ‘We did it! We did it, guys!’ And it’s like, ‘No, Joss,
you
did it. Thanks for bringing us along.’”

The vibe on set was a combination of the joy of being back together, getting to play in a world that they all knew and loved, and the relief at not having to deal with the threat of cancellation that had hung over their heads when they last shot together. “We didn’t have to worry about losing our jobs or not being able to pay our mortgages,” Jewel Staite says. “We had this beautiful piece of unfinished business to attend to, and for six glorious months, we got to play it out in just the fashion we wanted to. It was total bliss.”

Though the principal actors wore their characters like a second skin, Joss’s direction gave them new facets to explore. “There was a scene where I had a very infamous line about using a vibrator [‘Goin’ on a year now I ain’t had nothin’ twixt my nethers weren’t run on batteries!’],” Staite recalls. “Initially I played it in sort of a whisper. Joss asked, ‘Why are you whispering? Kaylee isn’t inhibited! She’d shout that as loud as she could to get her point across, no matter who was listening!’ And I was like, ‘Oh yeah. Of course she would.’”

Early in the film, Mal and his crew land on a planet to undertake a heist and end up in an intense chase sequence with a vicious band of Reavers. One of the Reavers harpoons Jayne’s leg as he clings to the side of the crew’s small hovercraft, and Mal must shoot the rope off the harpoon to set him free. Nathan Fillion gave a lot of thought to how he would play that moment. “I thought I was going to crick my neck and take my time to do a really slow aim,” he remembers. “Joss said, ‘Or, after this blade comes whipping past your face, it’s like, “You almost hit me with that blade,”
bam
, he shoots. It’s like the angrier Malcolm Reynolds gets, the better he shoots.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s so much better.’ I was going for this overly dramatic, ridiculous, stereotypical, unrealistic moment. And his moment was just so much better. And I get the credit! Until just now.”

It was in this same scene that Joss loosened the reins on being the supreme overlord of his dialogue. He was busy with all things directing,
so with the Reavers roaring up on them, Joss told Fillion to “say something that Mal would say.” Fillion then ad-libbed a now-classic Whedonverse line: “Faster, faster, faster would be better!”

As director, Joss had some learning of his own to do. He’d honed his producing skills over eight years and three television series, continuing the informal schooling that he started in the
Buffy
writers’ room. “You’re basically teaching people how to write your show and how to make your show and how to act it and how to direct it and everything else,” he said. Directing a feature film forced him back to square one; he went from seasoned teacher to floundering student.

Fortunately, he found another mentor in Mary Parent. Joss credits the Universal executive, who was also a producer on the film, with teaching him more about making movies than anyone since Jeanine Basinger at Wesleyan. “That was very humbling and very difficult, and sometimes very frustrating, but ultimately the best thing in the world.”

On September 17, 2004, Joss announced that
Serenity
had finished shooting. But that didn’t mean that he was taking a break. In the fall of 2004, with an intense American presidential election nearing its November crescendo, Joss felt that he needed to get involved.

The incumbent president, Republican George W. Bush, was locked in a close race with his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. Joss believed that Bush’s administration had made America less safe, that under his guidance the country was “regarded with more contempt by other countries than it had ever been,” and that “nothing in this country [was] going right, and the president [was] acting as if none of that matters.” Joss was concerned that so many people seemed apathetic toward the election and saw little difference between the candidates. “If you’re for Bush I doubt I can sway you,” he said. “But if you’re one of those people grumbling about politicians all being the same I’m begging you to look hard at the facts and at the smirking face of the man who is doing more damage to this country than any president in my lifetime. We cannot let apathy decide our fate.”

Joss decided to host a fund-raiser for Senator Kerry in conjunction with the website Ain’t It Cool News. The popular and highly trafficked site had gained attention for posting insider news and reviews about film and television projects before they were released—much to the irritation and sometimes anger of the production studios. The initial plan was for fans and supporters to participate in a conference call with Joss in exchange for a thirty-five-dollar donation to the Kerry campaign. Joss promised to talk about politics, his series, and anything his fans wanted to discuss.

To get the word out, Joss officially joined the fan site
Whedonesque.com
, creating a profile that read:

A svelte and mysterious Jewel Thief, Joss Whedon has appeared as Batman’s nemesis in several embarrassing fantasies. He also goes by the names “El Hombre,” “The Shadow-guy,” and “Hoppy Hoppy Bunny.” He likes long walks on the beach if they’re brief and nowhere near water. He prefers blondes, brunettes, redheads, bald people or people with big hats so you’re not even sure. Turn offs: insensitive men, people who smoke and then burst suddenly and horribly into flame. He is often very dizzy. Location: I’m inside your house.

As with his “Bootleg the puppy” battle cry of 1999, the troops were ready to be rallied. Interest soared, and plans quickly changed. The conference call evolved into a party, attended not only by Joss but by several Whedonverse cast members as well, with tickets selling for a fifty-dollar donation to the campaign. Joss would also answer questions on a conference call with forty-two fan parties across the country.

On October 24, Hollywood’s Cinespace nightclub hosted High Stakes 2004. More than two hundred fans attended in person, donating to the Democratic ticket for the chance to hang out with Joss, Alyson Hannigan, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Nicholas Brendon, Amber Benson, Danny Strong, Amy Acker, and J. August Richards. On the conference call, Joss fielded questions about subjects ranging from
Buffy
storylines to the upcoming
Firefly
movie to Joss’s involvement in the third X-Men film, though he made a concerted effort to bring all of his answers back around to the impending election:

Q: You mentioned in [an interview] that the invasion of Iraq caused some changes in the story arc of
Buffy
’s season six. What was the original storyline, and [how did it change?]

Joss: The fact is, there wasn’t a huge change in the story for
Buffy
, but when we were writing the story, we decided that we were going to shake up the paradigm of the show by having her fight evil at its source, attack evil instead of waiting for it to attack her. And then we started hearing a lot of rhetoric from the president that sounded very similar. We as a writing staff got very nervous and very upset, and we were worried that some of those rhetorics might overla
p. We’d like to remind the president that he is not a high school girl who kills vampires. Ultimately, what happened was when Buffy crossed the line and she became an ineffective leader who endangered the persons around her, they kicked her out of the house….

Q: You said that the
Angel
finale was not a cliffhanger. If the last episode of
Angel
had [the characters] literally hanging from a cliff, would you consider that a cliffhanger? …

Joss: If they were all hanging from a cliff, I would probably call it a cliffhanger—unless, of course, I had started the show with all of them hanging from a cliff. The fact of the matter is, the reason I always maintained that the end of
Angel
was not a cliffhanger, even though we don’t ultimately know the fates of the people involved, is that the message of that show was very simply, you have to keep fighting.

And once again, there is no more relevant message for what we are here for today than that. You have to keep fighting. One thing about this country, you never get to sit back and just let things happen. When you do that, well, we all see what you get. You have to keep fighting every single day to make things better if you want to call yourself a moral, decent, responsible person. It’s extremely hard, and that is the story that I was telling.

It was not lost on Joss that he was now enlisting in a political campaign the same people who had often campaigned on his behalf. The spirit of his fans inspired him, and he felt that his fan base had “always been motivated by altruism and by the desire to make things better and by a willingness to get out there and do what’s right.” And he and his fans continued to be optimistic: “Sometimes you work on a campaign that cannot win, and ultimately that’s the only way to win the ones that can be won, so when you work on campaigns, sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t … but to our fans, it never seems to matter. This is one campaign that we can, and will, and must win.”

The day after the event, 20th Century Fox Television announced that, at Joss’s request, it was suspending his overall deal with the studio. Under
the agreement, Joss couldn’t work on television projects for any other studio, and if he returned to TV, Fox would get first look at the project. It was the first time since 1997 that he was no longer under contract with the studio. Mutant Enemy closed its office. The production company was not dissolved, however, and although Chris Buchanan left his position as company president, he continued producing and promoting
Serenity
.

Joss’s decision to leave television came as a surprise to many, considering he was just a year removed from a five-year run with
Angel
and he had only a year left on his contract. But with no new series ideas, he wanted out of the television game for a while. “I spent a lot of time trying to think what my next series would be,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything. When that happens, it generally means something is just not working. I didn’t feel like I could come up with anything that the networks would want.” With a “bitter taste” left by the burgeoning reality TV market, plus his frustration and devastation over
Firefly
’s cancellation, his choice seemed more like a declaration of freedom than a white flag of defeat.