Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Stars Reflect on Their Time Making Buffy and Angel (Exclusive)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is finally hitting theaters on Friday, and it's expected to be the last movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be directed by James Gunn. Gunn is known for working with some of the same actors, including his brother Sean Gunn, who plays Kraglin as well as the on-set Rocket in the Guardians films. Another Gunn staple is Nathan Fillion, who played an inmate in the first Guardians of the Galaxy and is back in the threequel as a new character, Master Orgosentry Karja. In addition to often working with James Gunn, Sean Gunn and Fillion have another thing in common: the Buffyverse. Fillion appeared as the villainous Caleb in the seventh and final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gunn played two different roles in the first season of its spinoff series, Angel. This week, ComicBook.com had the chance to talk with both actors about the MCU as well as their time in the Buffyverse.

"Yeah, absolutely," Fillion said when we asked if he'd be interested in playing someone as evil as Caleb again. "That was my first time playing a villain. And Joss Whedon taught me a lot about playing villains. The first thing being, the villain doesn't think he's the villain. That was very informative to me. He's not in the corner of wrenching his hands going, 'I'm the bad guy and I'm going to do something nasty.' He's justified and he is righteous, which I think makes... I'm really scared of righteous people because once they're righteous, they can't be wrong anymore. Whatever they want, they feel righteous. You can't stop them. It's the worst. So yeah, that scares me too." 

While speaking with Gunn, we asked how he ended up playing two different roles only a few episodes apart during the first season of Angel. First, he played a demon named Lucas in the episode "Hero" and then played Mars in the episode "She." 

"What happened there honestly is that I was up for one of the lead roles on Angel at the very beginning. So when that show was getting made, I had auditioned for one of the regular characters. Didn't get it. That's fine. That happens. But I think Joss was always kind of like, 'Let's try to find something for that guy.' And then I came on and I played the demon and it was like, 'Oh, that was cool, that was great. But maybe there's still something else.'"

Gunn continued, "And so then they just asked me again, which was such a cool thing. But that's kind of how that went down. I don't think any of it was planned. And it was certainly at a time when, nowadays the entire season of television is written all in one shot. But then it wasn't really, it was less like that. It was kind of episode-to-episode. So it was kind of like, they're going to maybe find a place for me." 

You can watch Fillion and Gunn in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in theaters on May 5th.