Article: Experiments in Romance

Anyone who thinks that the dancing ends on ABC when Tom Bergeron signs off Monday nights should probably take a closer look at the tricky twostep that Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic engage in weekly on “Castle.As choreographed here at Raleigh Studios, the romancemeets- murder-mystery has Fillion’s novelist Richard Castle and Katic’s homicide detective Kate Beckett circling each other, drawing together and drifting apart, their rhythms dictated by the actors’ instincts and by people offscreen who know just how volatile on- screen chemistry can be.

Because, yeah, they’ve seen “Moonlighting.

“When you’re dealing with romantic drama, where you have that tension, you want to make sure you maintain that tension, because that’s part of the fun, but in any real relationship, there are always missed opportunities, there are always moments when you almost come together,” “Castle” creator Andrew W. Marlowe told me during one of several interviews conducted during breaks in filming.

“In doing this dance, we also understand our obligation to the audience, to keep it interesting for them, but not to frustrate them and not to have them feel like they’ve been jerked around,” he said.

So, if you’ve been waiting two seasons now for Castle and Beckett to really get together, read into that what you will, straight from the mouth of the man who may or may not be responsible for last fall’s New York best-seller “Heat Wave,” and its sequel, “Naked Heat,” published by Disney/ABC-owned Hyperion Books.

“The book was written by the ruggedly handsome mystery writer, Richard Castle. I do have to say I worked very closely with him to make sure we were protecting all the elements of the show,” is all Marlowe will say about authorship.

The truth is, tension, sexual or otherwise, wasn’t much in evidence on the day I visited “Castle,” where the cast was still basking in the glow of a visit to San Diego Comic-Con – an event where former “Firefly” star Fillion, in particular, is regarded as something of a rock star.

Fillion, whose work on producer Joss Whedon’s “Firefly,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the online musical “Dr. Horrible” makes him a prominent figure in the “Whedonverse,” doesn’t mind at all that his sci-fi fans seem to have followed him to a different genre.

“I call Joss Whedon fans … ‘gold-ticket audiences,’ because it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, they’re always there,” said the actor. “They’re always excited, they’re always supportive. They’re always loyal,” he said.

The first lead to be cast – executive producer Laurie Zaks said that the actor “read the script very early in our casting process and called us and said, ‘I love this part,’” and after meeting him, “we knew it was right” – Fillion said that he recognized something of himself in the Castle character.

“He’s living in his imagination every day,” Fillion said. “He’s creating from his mind, he’s writing, he’s researching, he’s very much about the book and the printed page. And now, all of the sudden, he’s on the forefront of murder investigations, so now every day is a field trip to this guy. And he loves life, he’s having a great time.

“That’s my real life. I wanted to be an actor and I was watching TV and movies and I never thought it’d be possible to be in the little box on the wall with the action and the guns and the spaceships and stuff.

“But now this is my real life, and I’m lucky. My worst day is a fantastic day. I’m living the dream. And I saw that in Castle. He’s having a ball and … I just love the way he wears his joy on his sleeve.

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