Why Did Nathan Fillion Call For His Rookie Co-Star To Be Fired?

Throughout his TV history, The Rookie star, Nathan Fillion has played a sweet and funny character. However, it might have come as a shock to some fans to hear that he threatened to have his co-star, Eric Winter to be fired. While on the show, their characters as Officers Nolan and Bradford do butt heads, they are actually great friends in real life. So how did this story get started?

Nathan Fillion calls for co-star Eric Winter to be fired from The Rookie

Actor Nathan Fillion stars in The Rookie as John Nolan, a 45-year-old newly divorced man from Pennsylvania. After helping police officers in a bank robbery in his hometown, Nolan moves to Los Angeles to take up a career as a police officer in the LAPD. Meanwhile, his co-star, Eric Winter, stars as Tim Bradford, an LAPD training officer. Moreover, Fillion is known for writing in his little notebook while playing his character.

Recently, ABC’s Instagram page for The Rookie posted a video clip of Fillion. In the clip, the actor says:

So some of you are wondering when you see me writing in my notepad as John Nolan in the rookie room, where we are right now, what am I writing? Well, that’s an excellent question. Let’s take a look right now.

Fillion then shows his notepad, which had “John Nolan” and the words “Police Notepad” on the cover.

He started to turn the pages, clearly showing them to the camera, saying, “Here we are. Sometimes notes. Sometimes just scribbles. Sometimes little doodles. You can actually see, sometimes I’m writing my lines just to remember a line or two.”

Nathan went on to explain that it is mostly scribbles and that you can tell what episode they were on by what he was actually scribbling.

However, when Fillion arrives at the last page of the notepad, he revealed a note, reading, “HAVE ERIC WINTER FIRED FOR MAKING THAT JOKE ABOUT MY HAIR.”

He then turned the camera back onto his deadpan face, saying, “Maybe don’t tell Eric that you saw that.”

Meanwhile, in the caption for the Instagram video, The Rookie wrote, “@nathanfillion sees a notepad, we see piping hot tea. All jokes aside, we love you @ebwinter!”

Fans react to the video

So far, Winter has not responded to the video, but fans of The Rookie were quick to comment on Fillion’s joke. One fan noted the strange writing throughout the notepad, commenting, “HELP HALF OF THOSE SCRIBBLES ON ONE PAGE LOOKED LIKE HE WAS WRITING CHINESE OR JAPANESE OR SMTH.” Meanwhile, another wrote, “looked like Korean ngl.”

Another fan wrote, “Eric, spill the tea now, we need to know!” However, another commented, writing, “The way I love to see the shenanigans of the cast, they make me laugh! So much fun on the set, real family❤.”

For those who have yet to watch The Rookie, the series is available for streaming on Hulu.