THE ROOKIE: Actor Nathan Fillion gives the scoop on Season 6

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 27th, 2024 / 02:19 AM

On “The Hammer,” the second episode of THE ROOKIE’s sixth season, airing on ABC Tuesday, February 27, the series celebrates its hundredth episode. It is directed by series creator Alexi Hawley.

Nathan Fillion’s character, LAPD Officer John Nolan, started THE ROOKIE as the oldest newcomer on the force. He’s now a training officer with a rookie of his own – Celina Suarez (Lisseth Chavez) – and a big group of LAPD colleagues who have become dear friends. In “The Hammer,” is supposed to marry firefighter Bailey Nune (Jenna Dewan). This being THE ROOKIE, and there actually being a cop superstition about such things, there are many unforeseen complications on the way to “I do.”

Most shows don’t make it to one hundred episodes, but Fillion’s previous series, the romantic mystery dramedy CASTLE, ran for eight seasons, 2009-2016, with one hundred and seventy-three episodes (Hawley was co-showrunner for the last several seasons). Fillion was also the lead in the science-fiction Western FIREFLY, which was on air for only one season, but has a fandom that has lasted for twenty years.

Fillion participates in a Q&A panel with Hawley and many THE ROOKIE costars during ABC’s portion of the Winter 2024 Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour. He then makes himself available for some one-on-one follow-up discussion.

Asked why he thinks shows he stars in have such long-running popularity, Fillion seems genuinely flustered for a moment. “Oh, wow. Were it up to me, they would all last a very, very long time. It’s not always up to me. I always feel like I’m a passenger on a train, that I am not in control. I’m not in the locomotive, but I’m doing everything I can from one of the cars in the back to make sure it keeps going. That’s all I got.”

Hawley offers his opinion on the subject. “Here’s what I would say about Nathan and why I think he resonates so much with people is, he is a very rare leading man who’s willing to fall down, to be seen to fail, to be seen to be the butt of a joke, to basically be human. I think so many leading men on television feel like they need to be perfect or infallible, and I think there’s such humanity to Nathan, whether he’s the captain of a starship, or whether he’s a mystery writer, or whether he’s the oldest rookie in the LAPD. And I think that’s why people want to watch him, is because they see that you can fall down and still get back up again.”

Fillion likes this answer. “Wow. I’m stealing that.”

Nathan Fillion in THE ROOKIE | ©2024 ABC/Nino Muñoz

With THE ROOKIE specifically, Fillion believes, “People like the show because of the characters, because of the relationships, because of the interactions. These are things that we can all relate to. The fact that it’s a procedural, I think, is just the form that our show takes. I’ve never been on a show where I’ve cared so much about parts I’m not in.”

Fillion is often reminded by random interactions of public enthusiasm for THE ROOKIE. “I was fortunate enough to fly out of town for a different job, and I got a ride from my house to the airport, and when I got to Atlanta, the driver took me to my house, and then the house to the work. All of the drivers I had said, ‘I got to tell you, I really love THE ROOKIE. I watch it with my kids. We keep arguing about who’s the best cop.’ They are involved.

“You can forget that the world is watching sometimes, especially if you’re having a great time at work and you’re enjoying yourself. The day is very different. We’re not watching forty-four minutes of it. We’re attending twelve hours a day, eight days per episode. So, it’s a little bit of a different experience for us, but … what we’re doing reaches people out there. And it’s a lovely reminder when someone stops to say, ‘You’re doing great. We’re really enjoying it.’ It’s replaced applause for me. I used to be a stage guy.”

The big transition from stage to camera work came with Fillion’s role as Joey Buchanan on the ABC daytime drama ONE LIFE TO LIVE. “It was 1994 in New York City. I was incredibly fortunate to be on a show, working beside people who had been doing the job for fifteen, twenty-five, thirty-five years who, any time I turned to them and said, ‘I have no idea what he just said, what it means, and what I’m supposed to do, they took me under their wing and said, ‘Let me walk you through this. This is the back story. This is the shortcut. This is how I do it. Come to your own way.’

“Everyone there, still friends of mine, helped me become the technically proficient actor I am today, how I comport myself on set, and also gave me the great gift of what face do you make at the end of a take when there’s no lines. It’s actually three faces. The first is, ‘Did I leave the stove on?’ The second is, ‘I did leave the stove on.’ And the third is, ‘No, I turned the stove off.’ And it works for any scene.”

Amid the laughter that follows, Richard T. Jones, who plays Sgt. Wade Grey, pretends to be offended. “Yo! Six seasons and he just now told us this.”

Nathan Fillion in THE ROOKIE - Season 6 - "Strike Back" | ©2024 Disney/Raymond Liu

One of Fillion’s favorite sequences in the entirety of THE ROOKIE comes in the one-hundredth episode, he relates. “There is an incredible shot at a wedding. That started as a beautiful shot, and then someone’s idea to move one person through that turned it into a different thing. That shot turned into an entire story, and it all happened in the moment, with everybody in the cast understanding what was happening in the moment, and participating in what made it a very heartfelt moment that shows you that these people are, outside of their job, truly friends, truly a big family. It came together so very, very well. It couldn’t have come together without these people being in the team already. So, it really just moved me, the way shooting a simple scene evolved into something so incredibly heartfelt and wonderful in the moment. And everybody got it. That’s something that’s going to stick with me.”

What would Fillion most like people to know about THE ROOKIE Season 6? “What I’d like people to know most is that we are back. I think all entertainment has been gone for so long due to the strike, the last time something like this happened to me, people thought my show was canceled before it actually was. So, don’t think that. THE ROOKIE is back. We are back, we hit the ground running, we didn’t miss a step, we’re very excited to be back to work, and we’re very excited to be entertaining people again.”

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