“I still can’t believe we got another shot at it,” Jewel Staite marvels. The actress, a native of British Columbia, Canada, is no stranger to roles ending. She made her acting debut at the age of nine in the 1991 telefilm Posing and has worked continuously in films and television since then, including series regular gigs on Wonderfalls, Higher Ground and Da Vinci’s Inquest and guest spots on science fiction favourites The X-Files and Stargate: Atlantis. However, Staite says many aspects of Serenity have been unique, starting with her audition for the role of big-hearted ship’s mechanic Kaylee in the film’s parent TV series Firefly.
    “I was asked to audition on tape, up here in Canada, and usually you never get a part by putting yourself on tape.” Staite laughs. “They said that Kaylee was a little chubby. She seemed a little bit older in the script excerpts that I had, so I wondered if I was even right for it. I was 19 at the time and I thought the role of River would be perfect, but I thought ‘Okay, whatever, I’ll put myself on tape for it.’ About a week later, I got this call saying that Joss wanted to have lunch with me and discuss the character. So they fly me down to Los Angeles that night and I met with Joss the next day and he said, ‘I just want you to be you – a typical 19-year-old, happy-go-lucky kind of girl.’
    “Everything about Kaylee was described as ’round.’” Staite continues, “her heart and her personality and her appearance. And I said, ‘What do you mean by that?’ Joss said, ‘I just want her to be incredibly warm and incredibly receptive to everybody else’s feelings around her. And I want her to look like she really enjoys life.’ So he asked me to put on the weight. And I was like, ‘All right, why not?’”
    Many aspects of Kaylee’s personality appealed to Staite as a performer. “She’s extremely flirtatious with everyone, right from the very beginning. So I think she used her feminine wiles, so to speak, to get her way a lot of the time. I think Kaylee is the only character who doesn’t have a hidden agenda. I think she’s the only one who truly cares for everyone on board. Every other character has a problem with somebody or doesn’t trust somebody. No one really trusts Jayne. But I think Kaylee finds something in Jayne that is trustworthy and they almost have a brother/sister relationship. And I just really liked the fact that she finds something in everybody to love and care about.”
    Staite tried to be philosophical when Firefly was cancelled after only 14 episodes had been filmed. “Early cancellation happens to all actors at least once in their career and it’s hard, because when you become a part of a project that you truly love and you love the people that you’re working with, it gets dangerous, because you grow attached – and you should never become attached to anything in this business. That’s the golden rule. Because you have to say goodbye. We all sort of had this weird little love affair with Firefly. So when cancellation did happen, it was especially hard for us.”
    The outpouring of love and support from fans was unexpected. “I remember when we did get cancelled,’ Staite recalls. “There was a full-page ad taken out in Variety Magazine that the fans had paid for. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe that somebody cared that much to say how much they loved this show and really believed in it and really wanted to find a new home for it. So that was my first inkling that something was happening. And then I started going to these science-fiction conventions as a guest speaker and they were just mind-blowing.”
    Even so, Staite wasn’t prepared for the wholesale resurrection of the Serenity universe as a feature film. “Joss said on our very last day of filming the series, “This isn’t it – I’m definitely going to find a home for it.’ And a long time went by, but when Joss said there was interest in a movie, I got really excited. And then we he called me to say that he wrote the script and somebody at Universal loved it, it was just, ‘Is this actually going to happen, or am I going to get all excited about this and then get really, really sad when it doesn’t happen?’ So I sort of kept it all at arm’s length and went, ‘Okay, Joss, if it goes, it goes, but I don’t want to think about it until it’s a done deal.’ When it was, it was incredible.”
    The cast members were individually sworn to secrecy about the good news, but Staite says it wound up being discussed between them: “We’re a very close cast and we don’t really hide secrets very well from each other, so we were talking about it, obviously. We were so excited. How could we not be? We all loved the characters so much and really, really, really wanted to give it another shot and have fun. We were all like, ‘Okay, so I think this is a go. I think we can safely say this is actually going to happen.’ But, yeah, it was a crazy month there.”
    One of Kaylee’s most important relationships is with the reserved young Doctor Simon Tam, played by Sean Maher, which is further explored in Serenity. “I think one of Simon’s biggest downfalls is his love and his dedication to his sister – and it’s also one of his best qualities,” Staite muses. “To show that he had feelings for anybody else on board besides his sister and something else is keeping him there – I think that helped round out his character. And for Kaylee, I think she’s the kind of character who’d go crazy if she was out in the middle of space with nobody to romance with. So I loved the romance aspect of it.
    “I like that Simon is the opposite of Kaylee in a lot of ways. And I like that she was attracted to somebody that was very serious and such a determined person. There’s something about Simon and that’s very heroic, and I think that really appeals to Kaylee. It’s sort of the same reason why she loves and respects Mal – because he’s such a hero in her eyes.”
    One of Staite’s favourite sequences in Serenity involves Kaylee and Simon: “There’s a very small, short scene near the beginning where River and Simon are thinking of leaving us and I’m basically saying goodbye. It’s very quick, but it was one of my most difficult scenes to shoot, because I didn’t know how far Joss wanted me to go with it and how he wanted me to be reacting and I really like how it turned out.”
    It would make Staite very happy, she says, if the Serenity saga continues. “With these characters, there a million stories to tell. In my eyes, it could go on and on and on. There’s so much history and so much back-story with everybody and it’s great that some things are resolved in the movie and some things are explored further, but it’s also nice because there’s a couple of other mysteries that are left open-ended. So if we do get to do a sequel, it would be fun to see what Joss comes up with.”
    Staite is doing her part to see that this happens, she reports: “I keep saying every time I bump into a fan or every time I go to a convention, ‘Just see the movie 10 times. If you really, really want to see us again.’ This whole project just meant a lot to all of us. Just to know that fans care as much as we do, or some of them even more than we do,” she laughs. “It’s amazing. The whole movie is just something to be really proud of. As an actor, I love working on things that I truly care about and this is definitely something that is inspiring all the way through.”