David Duchovny's and Téa Leoni's marriage is anything but
alienating
Pulling up to an L.A. yoga studio for an afternoon class, David Duchovny
is greeted by a very pleasant sight indeed: his wife, the impossibly lithe
Téa Leoni, whose sunny presence makes immediately clear what it was
that drew him to her. "First, it's her integrity," says the X-Files
star wryly. "Second, it's her legs." And what was it about him that snared
Leoni? "Easy," she banters back. "First, it's his integrity. And second,
it's his butt."
"Téa is a great match for David,"
a friend says of the couple (at the Golden Globes in January). "She's allowed
him to open himself up."
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Yes, it's tough to stay focused on inner beauty when you're half of one of
Hollywood's best-looking couples. But to hear this pair tell it -- they
celebrated their first anniversary on May 6 -- the honeymoon is still going
strong. While the likes of Bruce and Demi tread the Hollywood party circuit,
David, 37, and Téa, 32, are notoriously private. Happy to stay home
(in this case, a newly purchased $3 million, antique-filled four-bedroom
north of Malibu), they hike with the dog, play Scrabble by the pool and snuggle
on the sofa to watch Newlywed Game reruns. "We can't really agree
on some of the questions, though," says Duchovny. "When they asked, 'If you
were a superhero in the relationship, who would you be?' I answered, 'Fox
Mulder.' But that wasn't good enough for her."
Just kidding, Dave. "I didn't meet my ideal man," Leoni, formerly wed to
a director of TV commercials, told Vanity Fair. "I met better." For
Duchovny, who as one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors once dated Winona
Ryder, the feeling is mutual. "What's it like?" he says, musing on domestic
life. "Very sexy."
Not that their careers have suffered from all the amore. Though Leoni's
Naked Truth series was canceled in May, she's now starring in the
hit cataclysm flick Deep Impact. Duchovny, who makes $110,000 per
X-Files episode, lands in theaters on June 19 in the $60 million
feature-film spin-off. But it wasn't until Leoni that everything fell into
place, says his close friend actor Jason Beghe: "He's worked his butt off
to get to this place in his life. He's rooted, with a new family, his own
home." Simply put, says X-Files costar Mitch Pileggi, "he found something
that he'd been looking for for a long time."
"They were staying at Duchovny's townhouse
in Vancouver [where The X-Files was taped], and Téa seemed
really distracted," says Naked Truth executive producer Michael Saltzman
of the days preceding the event. "Within a couple of days, they were married."
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Even if he didn't first recognize it. The two met in '92 at a Tonight
Show guest audition where, Téa told London's Times, she
was so busy chatting up the producer, Duchovny didn't register: "It could
have been Nicole Kidman sitting there." Five years later their mutual agent,
Risa Shapiro, suggested a date. Duchovny had split with girlfriend Perrey
Reeves; Leoni and her beau, Naked Truth creator Chris Thompson, had
long since cooled. But after meeting No. 2 at Giorgio's, a cozy Malibu
restaurant, the relationship hit high gear. "After a month," says Duchovny,
"I knew she was the one."
The two had lots in common: New York City backgrounds (her father is a corporate
lawyer, her mother, a nutritionist; his father is a writer, his mother, a
school administrator); humor ("they love to howl together," says Beghe);
sports (golf and yoga); and academics (Téa, a Sarah Lawrence dropout,
planned to study anthropology; Duchovny, a Princeton grad, has a master's
from Yale). "I think their intelligence is a bond as much as anything else,"
says Deep Impact executive producer Joan Bradshaw. Says Naked Truth
costar Holland Taylor: "They've both been on a number of hysterical
whirlwinds. But this was right as rain."
Two months into the relationship, as Téa was putting shoes away at
her L.A. house one afternoon, "David suddenly said, `Will you marry me?'"
she told Vanity Fair, "and I said `yes' without even taking time to
come out of the closet." The couple, who never flaunted their affair ("They
didn't make a show of it, the way some TV couples do," says Naked Truth
director Rob Schiller), were equally secretive about the wedding, attended
only by family, in which they exchanged gold bands in New York's Grace Church
School courtyard. "They were staying at Duchovny's townhouse in Vancouver
[where The X-Files was taped], and Téa seemed really distracted,"
says Naked Truth executive producer Michael Saltzman of the days preceding
the event. "Within a couple of days, they were married."
"What's it like?" Duchovny says, musing
on domestic life. "Very sexy."
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Still, matrimony didn't ease the long-distance commute caused by Duchovny's
Vancouver workdays -- or the flak he took while asking for the show's relocation
to L.A. next season. "It was hard on him," says actor Nick Lea. "He was handed
the key to the city and ended with eggs being thrown at his house. People
just didn't see that he wanted to be with his wife."
Clearly, the hassle was worth it. "We just walk around the house saying,
'I can't believe it's finally happened,'" says Duchovny. "It's great to be
here." Now they're fielding relentless questions about the prospect of their
own little alien (not just yet) and hashing out a few remaining differences.
"She's a smoker and a red-meat eater, and I'm not," says the mostly vegetarian
Duchovny. But there is one sign they've found common ground: These days,
there's always a salt shaker on Téa's night table, says their friend
Beghe, "because they like to eat in bed."
Schindehette, Susan, Craig Tomashoff and Deanna Kizis. July
15, 1998. "X-treme Chemistry." People Magazine.
