nathan fillion

Bio

nathan fillion was born on 27 march 1971 in edmonton, alberta, canada. he is the son of cookie (early) and bob fillion, both retired english teachers, and has an older brother, jeff. his father is of french-canadian descent, and his mother is of english, german, finnish, and norwegian ancestry. in canada, he attended holy trinity catholic high school, concordia university college of alberta and university of alberta. before moving to new york city in 1994, he participated in improv theatre, including theatresports with rapid fire theatre and improvised soap opera die-nasty. he also appeared in a tv movie ordeal in the arctic (1993) starring richard chamberlain and in strange and rich (1994). fillion's first regular role was on a daytime soap opera, one life to live (1968), as joey buchanan, for which role he was nominated in 1996 for a daytime emmy award. he left the series after three years in 1997. during the late 1990's, he appeared in small roles in the films saving private ryan (1998) and blast from the past (1999). fillion also guest starred on das bootie, mama's got a brand new bag (1998) and starcrossed (1999). his biggest break by then happened in 1998, when he was cast as johnny donnelly on the 2nd season of two guys, a girl and a pizza place (1998) opposite traylor howard, ryan reynolds, richard ruccolo and suzanne cryer. he starred on the show for 60 episodes. after two guys ended in 2001, fillion gained critical acclaim and a large cult of fans when he starred as captain malcolm reynolds on the joss whedon's firefly (2002). unfortunately the show was prematurely canceled in late 2002. he also guest starred on several episodes of two short lived tv shows, pasadena (2001), as rev. glenn collins and miss match (2003), as adam logan. in 2003, whedon gave fillion another chance to display his range when he cast fillion as the twisted preacher caleb, a villain, in the final season of buffy the vampire slayer (1997). before and after firefly, fillion appeared in many movies, dracula 2001 (2000), alligator point (2003), water's edge (2003), outing riley (2004) and hollywood division (2004). whedon vowed to resurrect firefly in some way, and fillion played captain reynolds again in the feature-film serenity (2005).