In the wake of his incredible performance on LOST last night, Nathan has finally gotten off his ass and off the junk and made hisself a MySpace page.

Pardy harder.

Befriend Captain Tightpants here:  www.myspace.com/nathanfillion (copy and paste - people are having problems by just clicking - believe me, it's there).

He's also appearing in my Top Friends section soon.  This is the real Nathan Fillion: Browncoats and Fillionaires rejoice!

So for all of you who have been writing me about this guy:  http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=21321215 or others like him, wondering if he's the real Bill Pardy, the answer is a resounding NO.  This guy's been lurking around MySpace forever pretending to be Nathan, even though I and many others have told him to fuck off.  At one point he even had pictures of Nathan's ex-girlfriend up there.  Why don't you send him a little message now and let you know what you think of him?  Let's see what happens.

Jenna and I have had to deal with the fake Jennas in the past, and it's a real pain. 

While I'm at it, here are some of –

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Ok, so, when the baby is in its crib and Grant Grant looks down at it. Why is it holding a tomato? Was there any significance to that? – William

Originally in the script, Brenda told Grant that she gave her son tomatoes to play with because they were cheaper than toys and he made them "more tenderer" before cooking with them.  Although I removed the dialogue before we ever shot, I still liked the baby playing with a tomato.  It's creepy and funny and mysterious and works smoothly with Jack MacCready's biblical speech playing in voiceover during the scene.

When you cut scenes do you end up leaving out a lot of your original script? – Tara

Absolutely.  However, it's important when you write a screenplay to be filmed that you over-explain things a bit.  You never know when an audience is going to be confused by a plot point, so it helps to film dialogue and scenes that are just a little too obvious.  Then, in editing, you whittle these scenes down to only what the audience needs and no more.  Oftentimes, an actor's reactions in a scene can say more than a couple paragraphs of dialogue.  As a filmmaker, you can hope for that, but expecting it is a mistake.  Especially if you're working with a crappy actor, like, say, Perry King.

I just wanted to know, why the lower case "i" in SLiTHER? Does it have any significance or do I just spend too much time looking to meaning to things? - Melissa

No, it means nothing.  I just thought it looked good graphically and stuck it on the cover of my first draft.  It stuck with the crew, who used it all the time for parking passes, etc, on the set.  In the theatrical posters put out by Universal, it's actually a capital "I".  I had been struggling for a lot of other things with the poster, so the lowercase "i" wasn't something worth fighting for.  In the film itself, however, the title treatment has the small "i".

I have a silly question. Which kid was Jenna and which one was Emily? The little one was really quite scary! But in the extras she seemed really sweet.

Also, I was wondering if they decided to not let the little girl see how she looked in makeup. I've heard of some films deciding to put disgusting effects make up on kids without letting them see it as it might disturb or upset them. Her make up wasn't extreme but it's still disturbing. Did they do this or was she okay knowing what she looked like? Or did she just sneak a peak in the car mirror?

I wondered if it's true that you named those kids as a gift for Jenna? Is Emily her real sister's name? – Stevie

Before they got git.

I am jealous of your red hat, Fucko, give it to me now or else.

Jenna is the older sister (Amber is the actress's real name), and Emily is the younger sister (Matreya).  Yes, they are named after my wife and her sister, Emily.  Emily is a grade school teacher in St. Louis.

And, yes, I let the little girls see themselves in makeup.  I think Amber was 11 and Matreya was 8.  Neither one of them had any problems with it.  Amber loved being a zombie – it was her idea to climb on the car windshield like she did. 

What was a little more difficult was getting them to do looping after the film was finished.  (Looping is where the actors come in and record lines that can't be understood, or add new lines, etc, during post-production).  Both of them were a little freaked-out by their final scenes.  Matreya in particular scared herself.  What was goofy on set was pretty frightening to them when completed with effects, etc. 

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ONE MORE THING...

Since I posted the advice blog on Tuesday, I've received more than a hundred requests from people asking me if I can watch their short films and comment on them, or read their scripts, etc.  Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to do that.  I'm also getting a little overwhelmed with other advice questions.  In the future, I will try to save them and answer them here since I generally get asked the same questions many times.

Sorry about this.  Keep plugging.  Keep filming.

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COUPLE MORE NEW THINGS...

1) Watch Jenna tonight on DAVID LETTERMAN.

2) For those of you who think Nathan is going to kill me for posting this, OF COURSE I would never do this without his consent.  He needs all the friends he can get.  Besides Ablazin' Devil Head.  And the Bill Cosby Abortion Extravaganza.  Those two guys are only for seasoned MySpacers.  If you read their shit as a first-timer, your scrotum will fall off.  Even if you're a woman, which is the fucked-up part.