Comedy festival Netflix Is A Joke has brought the world’s biggest comedians to Los Angeles for a series of live shows. Most of these shows are centered around Netflix programming, creating a pretty unique experience for fans, and such was the case when Nick Kroll brought the cast of the raunchy teen puberty cartoonBig Mouth to the Greek Theater stage. Kroll also surprised the crowd with some fabulous guest appearances, one of which was none other than Nathan Fillion, who regularly plays himself on Big Mouth in a recurring cameo. A cameo was the intention, anyway, but according to Fillion himself, many Big Mouth fans don’t know that he exists in real life.
The name “Nathan Fillion” is uttered on the show frequently enough that it could easily stick in the head of someone who has never seen Firefly, The Rookie, Castle, or any of Fillion’s other many TV and film credits. At Big Mouth Live, he explained that people recognize his name from the show frequently, but don’t know that he’s a “real guy.” Fillion said:
Clearly I’m reaching an audience I’ve never reached before. This has happened to me four times, so clearly it’s happening out there in the world. Where I get introduced to someone and they say, ‘This is Nathan Fillion.’ And the person says, ‘Oh, Nathan Fillion like on Big Mouth?’ And then there’s this very confusing conversation trying to explain to someone, ‘No, Nathan Fillion is a real guy!’
Allow me to provide some context. In Big Mouth, Nathan Fillion is the celebrity crush of adolescent girl Missy, who fantasizes about him in various geekily romantic circumstances. He’s frequently in his iconic Firefly garb, but he’s also appeared as a Kirk-esque space captain and, oddly enough, as a very handsome family dog. When Missy appears with him in said fantasies, she always says his name in full (to humorously push the whole “cameo” thing further on the nose). There has to be some irony in the idea that despite all of this, people would simply think that Nathan Fillion is a character invented for Big Mouth.
Of course Nathan Fillion is crushing it outside of Big Mouth, successfully holding onto that status of “celebrity crush.” He recently showed his gratitude for the announcement that his long-running show The Rookie would be entering Season 7, and to really double-down on his appeal to us geeks, he’ll be appearing as Green Lantern Guy Gardner in James Gunn’s Superman next year. Big Mouth only has one season to go, but hopefully we’ll see some humorous DC references in one of Missy’s fantasies before the show ends its run.
Netflix Is A Joke will be running through this weekend, and if the chatter surrounding Tom Brady’s Roast from last Sunday is any indication, you’re going to want to be a part of the conversation. You can check out their website for ticket information, and see what content from the festival they’ll be streaming by taking a gander at the 2024 Netflix release schedule.