He's TV's Mr. Nice Guy, but Nathan Fillion's 'unlikeable' superhero could be his greatest hit

Nathan Fillion is best known for playing friendly, likeable characters on TV. But in the new HBO Max series Lanterns, he takes on a very different kind of superhero. He plays Guy Gardner, a version of Green Lantern who is cranky, rough around the edges, and hard to get along with. The show starts streaming on August 17, and fans are already excited to see if Fillion can pull it off.

Guy Gardner has one of the most unusual origin stories in comics. His childhood was tough — he grew up with an alcoholic father and always felt overshadowed by his more popular older brother. A football injury ended his sports career before it really began. He was first created in comic books in the late 1960s as an aggressive, hot-headed character, which makes him very different from heroes like Superman or Batman.

Fillion talked about why audiences connect with flawed characters. 'You can't like a perfect character,' he said. 'Perfect characters don't exist. You like people because they're flawed like you and me.' He believes that when a character makes mistakes or struggles, viewers feel like they understand them better. That connection is what makes a character feel real.

Fillion has played beloved characters on TV for a long time. He spent eight years as Richard Castle on Castle and another eight-plus years as John Nolan on The Rookie. Both characters were outsiders who used fresh perspectives to solve problems. Castle was a mystery novelist who followed police officers around, while Nolan was an older rookie cop starting a brand-new career.

In those two shows, Fillion starred in a combined 317 episodes. But as Guy Gardner, his screen time has so far been much shorter — just a few minutes in the 2025 Superman film and a brief appearance in the spin-off series Peacemaker. The eight-episode Lanterns series will give the character much more room to grow. He will also appear in the 2027 Superman film Man of Tomorrow.

In Lanterns, Gardner teams up with two other members of the Green Lantern Corps. Hal Jordan is played by Kyle Chandler, and John Stewart is played by Aaron Pierre. The Green Lantern Corps is basically a space police force. The series will also bring in the villain Thaal Sinestro, played by Ulrich Thomsen, who is one of the biggest enemies in Green Lantern comic book history.

Fillion said it was important that his character feel the same across both the Superman film and the Lanterns series, even though the two projects have very different tones. 'I thought it would be important that these two worlds exist, but this character exists as well,' he said. Keeping Gardner consistent helps audiences feel like they really know him as they follow his journey. Fillion believes that spending time with a character and watching them grow is one of the most satisfying things about watching TV.

Guy Gardner was actually a character Fillion knew from childhood — but did not like. His parents were high school English teachers who encouraged him to read anything he wanted, so he chose comic books. He bought them second-hand from a shop in Edmonton, Alberta, and read all kinds of stories. Still, Gardner never impressed him back then.

One of the most iconic parts of being a Green Lantern is the power ring. The ring can do almost anything: create force fields, build weapons or vehicles out of energy, translate languages, and allow the wearer to fly. Green Lanterns recharge their rings by reciting a famous oath: 'In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power... Green Lantern's light.'

Fillion compared the ring to other legendary props from pop culture, like a lightsaber from Star Wars or the sonic screwdriver from Doctor Who. He said using the ring on set required real imagination and physical effort. He even joked that if the ring were real, he would be so worried about losing it that he would charge it every other hour and panic every time he took it off. Lanterns begins streaming on HBO Max on August 17.