photos and story by Morgen Schuler

Yes, the main reason Imaginary Morgen slogged her way to downtown Seattle last weekend was for the highly anticipated Firefly panel. There were few times in her comicon-goer experiences that were literally unforgettable. When Leonard Nemoy spoke about his time as Spock and his new creative endeavors including an incredibly book of photography, when David Tenant and Billie Piper visited to chat about Dr. Who and act completely adorable together (coincidentally a couple Firefly cast members visited that year too) and… this year’s panel with five of the eight original cast of Firefly and Serenity (including Nathan Fillion/Mal, Gina Torres/Zoë, Alan Tudyk/Wash, Summer Glau/River, and Sean Maher/Simon). Morgen wasn’t alone in her undying love for this crew, it’s the only panel all weekend that was standing room only, deservedly so. It was like we had a insiders view of the family bond this cast still maintains and they welcomed us like a family friend.

Admittedly, Morgen was so starstruck (yes, it happens occasionally) she didn’t keep as thorough notes of the Q&As as he’d hoped, but she did her best and some of the stories are below. Let us know if we missed anything, happy to add it; or just tell us your favorite moment!

Question: “You all are obviously still able to play your characters, but IF you couldn’t, who would you want to play you in a reboot/new movie?”
Alan: “Alan Alda”
Nathan: “Pedro Pascal” (perfection)
Sean: “Not Zac Effron”
Summer: “Timothée Chalamet”

Question: “If you hadn’t become an actor, what would you be doing instead?”
Gina: “Investigative reporting and journalism”. She went on to speak about the importance, now more than ever, of truth in reporting and in the face of such corruption.
Alan: “Hotel restaurant management”
Summer: “Probably a dancer, but I would have ended up a mom like I am now.”
Nathan: “Art and drama teacher.” Both of his parents are retired English teachers, so it seemed natural.
Sean: “I grew up in a funeral home, so I’d probably be working there”. Alan was flabbergasted by this info, he’d never known about this and it triggered a discussion about an embalming kit he used to have in his house.

Storytime (Nathan & Alan): When they were talking about what they’d be doing for a living aside from acting (see above) and the embalming kit in Alan’s house came up, it reminded them of a story. Nathan was in NYC (where Alan was living at the time) to represent the cast at the network to find out whether the series was going to be picked up or not. After the meeting he and his girlfriend went to visit Alan at his home and while they were chatting and getting the tour, they noticed Alan had an embalming kit (he mentioned it was specifically for humans thinking that would make it less creepy… it didn’t). Pretty quickly after that reveal, Nathan’s girlfriend whispered that she was ready to leave. Now, that could have been Nathan’s sense of humor/penchant for the dramatic… but I’m betting it was on the truthful side of things!

Question: How big was the set for the ship (Morgen can’t remember if this was specifically the cockpit or the cargo bay or the whole ship)?
Alan: He gets up and stands on stage left stretching his arms wide. “It wasn’t very big, maybe the size of this stage, definitely not as deep”. He then walked to the other side of the stage and started climbing on things to imitate how they had a bunch of props and boxes filling up the space (see image above on the left).

Question: Are you up to anything new lately? Can you tell us about projects you’re working on?
Gina: “Season five of Lone Star just ended” (lots of applause) “and that series has come to an end.” Morgen was so enthralled with what she was saying, she didn’t get it down but she seems to remember that Gina wasn’t hurting for projects.
Summer: “I’m just enjoying being a stay at home mom.” Summer spoke of being a mom a couple times during the Q&A and gave off the sense (all subtext, she didn’t say it outright) that others had judged her for not continuing to work in the entertainment industry. Kind of like beating folks to the punch by speaking of it using the phrase “just a mom”. I hope she knows that while we love her as the character River (among many many other roles), that if she’s happy in the incredibly difficult role of being a mom, then that’s nothing to look down on or judge; it’s something to be celebrated.
Nathan: “Rookie seasons seven is airing right now” Cheers from the audience and a little chatter amongst them about how Nathan has worked with all of them on either “Castle”, “The Rookie” or both at one point or another (Sean even forgot that he’d been on “Castle”). “Well Alan has too many to mention. We were talking one day and I was so annoyed, he never even told me was going to be in this little film ‘Superman’!” A bit of banter back and forth between Alan and Nathan with the latter being dramatic as usual. Then they took that opportunity to reveal something fun.
Alan: “Can we reveal it? Should we? Well, Nathan and I are going to be starting a podcast called ‘Once We Were Spacemen’ that will be about our time working as the crew of the Serenity.” As you can imagine, the crowd went absolutely bonkers.

What an incredible panel to end 2025’s ECCC on. To say these actors and their characters are beloved is to downplay not only the role of the series on Science Fiction television/film, but every one of the actors who have had varied and prolific careers and lives ever since. Morgen was wondering how ECCC was going to top the “Lord of the Rings”, “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, “Adventure Time” and “Addams Family” panels from last year (holy wow, was that con stacked), but damned if they didn’t do it with just this one panel (or at least gave last year a good run for its money).

Be sure to check out our other 2025 ECCC coverage on the site and over on TIG Insta!