Deep deep down, you know he is one actor who has found some serenity.

Setting a course for his newfound movie appearance as Wash, pilot of the Firefly-class ship Serenity, Alan Tudyk spoke recently to Sci-Fi Wire about the upcoming space western.

It's now common knowledge as to how much time and effort series creator Joss Whedon put into reviving the series, and Tudyk said he had to agree.

"I think it's a testament to his tenacity that he got Fox to sell the rights and that he got another studio and no little studio, but Universal to buy the rights and then to make this multi-million dollar movie based on a show that was cancelled," Tudyk said. "Yesterday, I was shooting with everybody. And there's a very big déjà vu going on right now."

"Firefly," a sci-fi western based 500 years in the future, follows the lives of nine renegades on the run from the government. The series was cancelled by Fox after only a handful of episodes in 2002. Only the immense loyalty of the fans kept it alive, leading first to a DVD release, including the unaired episodes. The high sales of the DVDs soon led to Universal giving the greenlight to a big screen feature film, budgeted at $40 million.

"Every day we did Fireflywe were thankful," Tudyk said. "And then, when we got cancelled, even though we knew we had all these fans -- because they were taking out ads in Variety and things like that -- it seemed like it was over ... It had kind of been coming, and we'd been mistreated by Fox for a while, to the point where we were like, 'This is going to be over.' And then when it was, it wasn't too big of a surprise. It was disappointing, but not a big surprise.

But then Joss, at the closing party, said, 'Look, I'm not giving up.' It was inspiring, but you kind of questioned, 'What do you mean you're not giving up? Didn't we just get cancelled?'"

"Serenity" currently is in production, with all nine of the series regulars back in the fold with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" series creator Whedon on board as writer and director. The movie is slated for an April 22 release.

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