How do you describe your character in White Noise 2?
“He’s a designer. He’s like a Web designer, advertising. The deal is he witnesses the murder of his wife and son, and then the murder turns the gun on himself and kills himself. He’s left with nothing. He’s extremely sad to such an extent that he actually commits suicide and is brought back. So he has this near-death experience after which he has the ability to tell - in a crowd of people - who is going to die. Then the movie kind of becomes what would you do with that kind of power and that kind of responsibility.”
How different is this character from others that you’ve played?
“He’s not a strong, strong guy. He’s not a prepared man. Malcolm Reynolds [Serenity] experienced loss and it hardened him and he became a rock. Bill Pardy [Slither] was unprepared but he did the best to take care of business. Abraham Dale - his first option was to opt out and clock out. He’s a different kind of guy. His dealing with loss is a little different.”
Fillion said his doesn't hide his emotions. “There’s a lot of brooding, a lot of moping. There’s a lot of confusion, frustration, dawning. Lots of dawning. This is something I learned in soap operas. We use to do this all the time. In a soap opera you’ll have a scene going on between two characters and at the end of the scene is a slow close-up on one of the characters, right? What are they going to say next? It’s almost like a long drawn out close and the scene never seems to end, and you’re left there kind of acting. So what we use to do was we called it three phases of a soap take and it works in any scene, any show, whatever you’re doing. These are the three phases: the first phase is did I leave the stove on? Next phase - I did leave the stove on. Third phase – no, I turned the stove off.”
What’s the most challenging aspect of working on White Noise 2?
“Okay, here’s a challenge: filming at Riverview. Riverview is an abandoned and absolutely haunted mental asylum. That place gives me the creeps. Mental illness to mental wellness says the sign. No if, ands, or buts about it. That place is haunted. It gives me the creeps. That was weird. Just kinda like walking in and, ‘I gotta go to the bathroom. I’ll see you guys in a minute.’ You’ve gotta go down the hall down the stairs. Down the hall down the stairs and then down the hall again. And you know what? By this time it’s dark. It’s quiet. You hear a noise and you don’t know what that is or who it was. Was that somebody in pajamas? Ghost of a patient or things are going on? It was pretty creepy.”
Are you a believer in the paranormal?
“I never had a paranormal experience. I don’t want to have a paranormal experience. I think it would shake the very foundations of my belief systems. I don’t want to have to be faced with the reality of ‘there is something else’. There’s people I love and trust who tell me stories that it’s happened to them. I love ghost stories. I love them. I’m not looking to see any ghosts. Please God, no ghosts. You know if I was standing outside the building and I saw something inside a window I’d go, ‘AHHH!’ But I don’t want to be in there on the 4th floor going to the bathroom and find one because in that place…you get lost in there.”
Did you do research for this role?
“No, nothing. Zero. You know what? I looked up online something about the Riverview Hospital but I didn’t find much. I’m actually going to do some investigation into haunted places in Vancouver because everywhere we go… There’s like a haunted house right up near the end of this park. There’s a haunted house right down this street, right over here. Everything’s haunted around here. Everything is haunted.”
This movie is so somber. Does it give you any outlet for your sense of humor?
“There was a really funny bit - really quick. They did an homage to Captain Reynolds. If you blink, you’ll miss it. I thought, ‘This is really funny,’ but they didn’t throw anything in for an alternate. So unless the entire scene is cut from the movie, which I don’t think it will be, it’s in the movie. I thought that was kind of cool and that was kind of funny. Otherwise, what else is funny in this? You know, we do all our funny amongst ourselves and between takes.”
