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Tagged under:2012, Interview
Posted by on 14 July 2012

via Huffington Post:

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the cult sci-fi drama “Firefly,” the Science Channel is shooting a one-hour special chronicling the show’s cast reunion at Comic-Con this weekend (the special will air on Sunday, Nov. 11th, along with an all-day marathon of “Firefly” episodes).

And, in honor of the cast reunion at Comic-Con, we called up actress Morena Baccarin, who played the popular character Inara Serra on the hit Joss Whedon drama. The Brazilian actress, who is now starring on the hit Showtime drama “Homeland,” spoke to The Huffington Post about what it was like to star in the sci-fi drama, why she thinks the show was ahead of its time, and why she can’t believe it has been ten years since the show first premeired on FOX.

Morena also told us why she’s bummed that she can’t make it to Comic-Con this year, and reveals the crazy thing her co-star Nathan Fillion did on set…

Happy 10-year anniversary!

A lot of your “Firefly” cast-mates are in San Diego this weekend for Comic-Con. Are you bummed you can’t be there with them to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of “Firefly?”
Oh yeah! Of course. I wish I could go. I’m very jealous of everybody who’s going. I’m going to try to do a little video that they can play there.

Oh, fun!
Yeah!

The Science Channel is shooting a new one-hour special chronicling the “Firefly” reunion at Comic-Con this weekend. Does that mean you won’t be a part of that reunion special?
I’m not sure. I haven’t been approached about that. I’m pretty far away in Charlotte shooting “Homeland” right now, so that would be a little tough, I think.

Can you believe it has been 10 years since “Firefly” premiered?
No, I can’t. It flew by! But in some ways, it feels like yesterday… In other ways it feels like a different lifetime.

What do you think was so great about “Firefly” that people still talk about it ’till this day?
If you haven’t seen it, you have to go get it! I think it was ahead of its time… I think it was network television at a time where there really wasn’t much sci-fi on network TV and I think the show was very rooted in reality. It wasn’t about monsters and goblins and aliens—it was about people trying to make it in the new frontier. The relationships were great and the writing was SO funny and in that Joss Whedon style. I thought the stories were captivating and it was really sort of a character-driven, quirky drama with some great dialogue.

Why do you think people fell in love with your character, Inara Serra?
Well, she’s sort of a timeless character. That sort of classic beauty and classic beauty and classic…the character who’s seen in a wrong way by Mal (Nathan Fillion), the one man she probably deep down actually loves. They have this contentious relationship that’s really rooted int he fact that they are so into each other that they can’t admit it to themselves. It’s a great role. It’s romantic and intriguing and I think it’s rooted in some real gritty-ness and reality.

Do you know who wrote/came up with the character, Inara Serra?
Well I know joss (Whedon) did. But I think that his wife Kai was the one who said, ‘you should have a prostitute whose profession is legal. You should have this woman be sort of the voice of reason on this ship, even though we see it as an illegal profession, in that time, it can be a legal thing. And she’s the one person who makes an honest living on this ship full of thieves.’ And I thought that was really brilliant…

Wow, that’s interesting!
I think she came up with the idea and he fleshed out the character. And, I think that Joss’ greatest suit is writing for women—he does a phenomenal job writing female characters… they’re girly and they’re deep, and they’re also kickass. He’s got that niche down perfectly.

Why do you think so many of the show’s male fans fell in love with Inara?
{Laughs}. I attribute that to Joss {Whedon}. I think he wrote such an incredible female, who is nurturing and at the same time, sexy, and at the same time intelligent and skillful and powerful and demure, and you know, I think deeply sad. I think it’s an intriguing role.

How would you describe your experience working on “Firefly”?
It was a blast! It was my first TV job. It was a special experience all-around. Everybody was incredible and sweet and fun. It was a real family. And, I didn’t know how good I had it, because it was my first time out of the gate and I didn’t really realize until I had other experiences how rare that is. It was just a real family.

Who is your favorite “Firefly” character?
I’d have to go with Kaylee {Jewel Staite}. She was so cute and so smart and a little firecracker. I loved it when she was all greased up—when her face was all greased up with engine grease—and she goes into all of this like, engine talk and technical jargon and then, “ooh a strawberry!” It was such a great juxtaposition, of who she was.

What is your favorite memory from working on the show?
Oh man, that is SO hard! There were so many good times we had… Let’s see. When we were shooting the movie, “Serenity,” Nathan Fillion… we were doing this super hard, really grimm scene and everybody’s dead. They’ve killed everybody and he’s got this long monologue where he’s sort of walking through all of the craziness and telling all of us what to do and how we’re going to beat this. It’s really sort of a tough moment. We did a few takes and we got it and he’s like “I need one more.” And, he did it again and he just went off!—and said the most absurd things {Laughs}. We were all laughing so hard and trying to keep a straight face as he went through the whole nonsensical orders. It was pretty great. It was pretty fun.

He’s a funny dude, right?
He is. He’s kind of a prankster. {Laughs}.

Do you stay in touch with any of your “Firefly” co-stars?
I do! Quite a bit. Pretty much everybody. We all see each other every once in a while or whenever we can, or try to chat as often as we can.

One of the things we love about the show is that it had diversity! You’re Brazilian, Gina Torres is Cuban, etc. Is that something you were aware of when the show was on?
It’s set 500 years in the future, and I think the reason why everybody was so diverse, is also because the statement he was making is that, it’s a time when that doesn’t matter—if you’re human, you’re of the same race. And, I thought, it was, probably on purpose. But it wasn’t something I was so aware of and was like “go Latinas…” I think that everybody had their niche because of who they were. I don’t think we were trying to do a Latino show. I think it was just…we all look different, and that’s sort of the statement I think he was making… that it doesn’t matter.