I'll have to admit: I wasn't a fan of Joss Whedon until I saw Serenity and Firefly- which, in my opinion is probably one of the best TV shows ever.

When Buffy: The Vampire Slayer hit local TV, I was way too much into work back then- way too much. Plus, there was a lot of crazy things going on in my life as well, and TV was really the last thing on my list of priorities.

But even without watching any of his work (at least without my knowing), there was an awareness of sorts. So by the time I saw Serenity- I was completely sold.

Plus, Firefly was a remarkable piece of work- I'm one of those guys who just wanted so much more show.

Notable Joss Whedon Projects

• He's the creator, as well as writer and director for three popular TV series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), Angel (1999-2004) and Firefly (2002-2003).
• He wrote 25 issues for Astonishing X-Men (which picks up from New X-Men), a comic book series which focuses the spotlight on Beast, Shadowcat, Colossus, Lockheed and Wolverine, with Emma Frost and Cyclops leading this incarnation of the X-Men.
• Wrote (and co-wrote) a number of films, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the 1992 film starring Kristy Swanson), Disney/Pixar's Toy Story (1995), Alien: Resurrection (1997) and Titan A.E. (2000).
• Wrote uncredited drafts or rewrites for Speed (1994), Waterworld (1995), Twister (1996) and X-Men (2000).
• More recently, he has teamed up with brothers Zack and Jed, together with Jed's fiancee Maurissa Tancharoen to produce the internet musical, "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog". Stars Nathan Fillion, Neil-Patrick Harris and Felicia Day.
• FOX will be airing his new TV series, Dollhouse, in January 2009, starring Eliza Dushku.
  

For a moment there, I thought it would be an impossible feat to completely break away from the old Doogie Howser, M.D. stereotype. But Neil Patrick Harris did manage to do so, and so much more.

In recent years, Neil Patrick Harris has come up with some very memorable characters. My personal favorites:

• As chronic womanizer, shady character, and metrosexual Barney Stinson, on the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother.
• As a parody of himself in Harold and Kumar Goes To White Castle (2004) and again in Harold and Kumar Escapes From Guantanamo Bay (2008).
• More recently as Dr. Horrible/Billy on the Joss Whedon internet musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog".

• While he might be an amateur magician, he's still a huge magic fan, and sits on the Board of Director's of Hollywood's Magic Castle. NPH has even performed magic tricks on Johnny Carson (The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson), Letterman (Late Show with David Letterman), Leno (The Tonight Show with Jay Leno) and Ellen (The Ellen DeGeneres Show).
• He and Freddie Prinze, Jr. attended the same high school.
• NPH is an accomplished theater actor. He's perfomed as Mark in Rent at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles to rave reviews, and made his Broadway debut in 2002 in Proof with Anne Heche. So, yes, he can really sing, as well as act.
• He's a huge fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, or MST3K.
• Neil Patrick Harris also does cartoon voiceovers: he's voiced The Flash in the direct-to-DVD DC animated project Justice League: The New Frontier (2008), and as Peter Parker/Spider-man in Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003).
  

For me, Nathan Fillion will forever be Captain Malcolm Reynolds, one-time Browncoat, and captain of the Firefly-class Serenity, on the unfortunately short-lived Joss Whedon-directed TV series, Firefly.

Later on, I discovered that Nathan (along with several of his Firefly co-stars) had done voiceover work for the animated series Justice League Unlimited- as the gun-totin' Vigilante.

A few years later, he goes on to do voicework for video games, more notably on the Xbox's Jade Empire (as Gao The Lesser), and then on Halo 3 (where he identifies himself as Sergeant Reynolds).

Now in post-production: Nathan Fillion is voicing the role of Steve Trevor in the latest DC direct-to-DVD animated feature, Wonder Woman, which is slated for release later this year. Can't wait to get my hands on that one.

Five Factoids About Nathan Fillion:

• ABC picked up a pilot for a comedy Nathan wrote. The project is called Repo Brothers, which should be out in several months. In the meantime, he is playing the title character of a new ABC crime drama called Castle, which we would be seeing in 2009.
• Remember the Spielberg movie Saving Private Ryan (1998)? Well, Nathan was the Minessotta Private Ryan- not the Ryan Captain Miller's team of rangers were looking for. I saw it again on HBO.
• According to IMDb.com, Fillion wanted to be a high school drama teacher. In college he majored in art, and minored in drama while pursuing an acting career on the side.
• Nathan claims to be descended from Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early. When told this, Joss Whedon created a bounty hunter by the name of Jubal Early for the Firefly episode "Objects in Space."
• You can check him out as the self-centered and slightly-cheesy Captain Hammer on the Joss Whedon online musical "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", with co-stars Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day.