The Suicide Squad has finally been released (keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming review!) and the film’s stars are having a ball. Although many of the actors had already achieved fame long before their participation in the movie, a few have even had an uptick in popularity. Nathan Fillion is one of those. Fillion was previously the main protagonist in the mystery drama Castle and more recently starred in the The Rookie. Now, the actor’s appeared in The Suicide Squad as T.D.K. and his hometown has, for the weekend, named an area of the town the “Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion”. How did this happen?
Civilian Pavilion?
The city of Edmonton in Canada recently reworked a series of parking lots into a green park, and this is Fillion’s hometown. Fans of the extremely loveable actor started an online petition asking the city to name the area after the actor, specifically, the petition requested the tongue twisting name of the park to be “Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion”. Normally, this sort of fan campaign doesn’t go very far, but this time a video was released online in support of the petition. More than a few notable names joined in, including some of Fillion’s The Suicide Squad co-stars and director James Gunn.
Over the weekend, the city of Edmonton released a surprise Tweet that shows the success of the fan campaign. Fillion himself then retweeted City of Edmonton’s post (below).
Holy Jebuz, @JamesGunn What have you done? https://t.co/MhxLGxaKGP
— Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) August 6, 2021
To celebrate their hometown hero and “to mark the premiere of (The Suicide Squad)“, the city of Edmonton put up a banner renaming their city hall “Nathan Fillion Civilian Pavilion”. The campaign’s success understandably shocked the actor, who then Tweeted at James Gunn, “What have you done?” I’m so glad that Fillion’s colleagues from The Suicide Squad recognize his talent, particularly since his character was original to the film (even though he’s a tribute to the Legion of Substitute Heroes’ character, Arm Fall Off Boy). Gunn and Fillion both worked hard to bring T.D.K. to life and it definitely paid off.
As a long time fan of Fillion’s work, this honor hardly surprises me. No slights meant to the city of Edmonton, but I can hardly imagine a better honoree than Nathan Fillion.
The Suicide Squad is available to watch in theaters and on HBO Max now
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