For years, Nathan Fillion was hell-bent on doing his own stunts. The Rookie has driven that desire out of him. Just like the many painful experiences in his career.
Tom Cruise is tired of life. At least that’s how it looks from his action scenes: The star has been seen hanging from the hatches of airplanes taking off or climbing around the facades of skyscrapers. As a rule, he performs all his stunts himself. Nathan Fillion, on the other hand, no longer has any desire to do so. And The Rookie is the main reason
Tom Cruise is no role model for Nathan Fillion: The Rookie stunts are too dangerous
Fillion’s police series The Rookie regularly features action scenes, such as when the protagonists in uniform come under fire. For some genre fans, it’s good form for actors to do their own stunt work in such cases. Fillion sees it differently, as he explains to Stuff:
‘I don’t want to do the Tom Cruise stuff. I used to be all about doing my own stunts. But then you hurt your back or your knee and it all loses its appeal.
(Nathan Fillion in The Rookie)
Fillion was already seen decades ago in series like Firefly, which contain many action scenes. So he has obviously cultivated his restrained stunt philosophy through years of pain. But the physical consequences alone are not the only reason for his aversion:
I have to go to work tomorrow. I have to. If I sprain my ankle, it affects a lot of people’s employment. We can’t afford to wait six weeks for my recovery.
So The Rookie production is a well-oiled machine that Nathan Fillion doesn’t want to get in the way of. At the same time, he doesn’t want to hinder his co-stars in their stunt work: “We have a lot of talented people who are really keen to do them. And I say, ‘Let them do it’. “
