Nathan Fillion: Joss Whedon is ‘funny, self-deprecating, incredibly talented’

Last year, things came to a head with Joss Whedon. What had long been rumored came out into the open. It started with the way Whedon treated Ray Fisher on Justice League. Then the women of Whedon’s world began telling their stories – Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg, various female writers and women who worked on the set of Whedon’s productions, all with variations on the same theme. Whedon is a toxic a–hole, an emotionally manipulative POS, a bully and someone who thinks nothing of threatening and demeaning women in professional settings. Earlier this year, Whedon sat down for a narcissistic New York Magazine profile where he blamed everything on loving women too much and Gal Gadot’s bad English. The profile was pathetic and it reaffirmed that everything we heard last year was accurate.

Enter Nathan Fillion. Fillion has worked with Whedon several times, including on the cult favorite Firefly. Fillion barely said anything for or against Whedon last year, when Fillion’s female coworkers were speaking out. And now this. Fillion chatted with the Inside of You podcast and he spoke about Whedon, starting out with Whedon’s awful New York profile:

Wheden was the subject of New York Magazine profile that was published in January and detailed the many allegations against him. The writer-director denied insulting Gal Gadot while making “Justice League,” saying, “I don’t threaten people. Who does that? English is not her first language, and I tend to be annoyingly flowery in my speech.”

“I read that article, and nowhere in there at any point in time did he mention ‘Firefly.’ I had an entirely – that was not my experience with that man,” Fillion said on the podcast, where he described Whedon as “funny, self-deprecating, incredibly talented” and “maybe a little haunted.”

Fillion added, “I mean, listen by his own admission that guy’s a work in progress and I appreciate that…I would work with Joss again in a second. I would work with him again in a second.”

The actor went on to say that he has spoken in loose terms with Whedon about continuing “Firefly,” the cult space Western drama that ran for one season on Fox in 2002 and was then revived for the 2005 feature film “Serenity.” Fillion said, “We talk, we joke, we fantasize.” As for continuing “Firefly” without Whedon because of the allegations, the actor said, “It would be heartbreak. How can you?”

[From Variety]

Fillion absolutely didn’t care enough about A) his coworkers or B) women enough to actually listen to what people were saying about Whedon and how horrible he is. Fillion basically skimmed the Whedon profile and came to the conclusion that Whedon is totally fine, all of those bitches were complaining for no reason! How tone-deaf and, frankly, unprofessional. It’s not required for Fillion to suddenly become an anti-Whedon activist, but to show so little concern for your coworkers within the industry? To be so tunnel-visioned? It’s disgusting and really bad form. Fillion is one of those “it didn’t happen to me therefore it never happened” guys. Incidentally, this makes me believe that Stana Katic was right to hate Fillion for years. There were many rumors about how badly he treated her on Castle.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.