Emma Stone’s First Major TV Role Was On A Failed Nathan Fillion Series

The 2007 action drama “Drive” wiped out on Fox before it could give Nathan Fillion a hit, but it did provide Emma Stone with her first big TV role. 

Stone and Fillion respectively played Violet Trimble and Alex Tully, two of the contestants in an underground cross-country road race that promised the winner a $32 million prize if they outlasted their rivals. 

“[Violet’s] kind of the disaffected teenager of the cast,” Stone told IGN in 2007. “She’s the youngest involved in the race, and I think she’s the only character that’s not aware that she’s going to be in a race when she starts. … She was kind of the poor soul who got pulled into the whole mess against her will.”

Dylan Baker played Violet’s father, John Trimble, the man who brought her into the race somewhat unintentionally. John was diagnosed with an untreatable illness that gave him a year left to live. While taking drugs to mitigate his symptoms, John entered the race to provide for his daughter and ended up relying on her help to stay in the competition.

“Drive” co-creator Tim Minear likened the show to “Cannonball Run,” “The Game,” “North By Northwest,” and even “‘Magnolia’-on-wheels.” When recalling the series in 2018, Fillion told AVClub, “It was a lot of fun and it was very short lived. Sometimes I forget I was in it.”

Despite a big promotional push, viewers simply didn’t show up and “Drive” was canceled by Fox after only four episodes due to low ratings. Two additional episodes had been filmed, but they were only made available online.

Because “Drive” didn’t get a chance to wrap up its story in the six episodes that were filmed, Tim Minear shared a few details about the fate of the characters. Although nothing was said about Violet herself, Minear revealed that her father, John, had been tricked into joining the race.

“We would have learned that John Trimble was not really sick,” Minear told DriveFans. “The meds were making him sick. Part of the game of the race. His believing he was a doomed man changed him and made him capable of things he normally would not be capable of. Once he realized that he was not going to die, he’d be instantly hit by a bus, ’cause, funny.”

Violet surely would have a response to her father’s death, but it’s unclear if she would have returned for Season 2. According to Minear, only “some of the first season characters would take on new roles in the competition.”

Just about four months after the show came to an end, “Superbad” arrived in theaters and put Emma Stone on a path towards greater stardom. By then, “Drive” was just a distant object in her rearview mirror.

“Drive” is available for purchase on Prime Video.