X-Files fans might be hanging out for the movie but star David Duchovny
is
sick to death of playing Agent Mulder. He spoke to John Beveridge.
It is a warm and sunny day in Los Angeles without a cloud in the sky, but
none of it brightens David Duchovny's mood. One of the best-known actors
in the world, whose every performance on The X-Files is awaited by millions
of fans, is truthfully not nearly as keen about the adventures of Agent Fox
Mulder as they are. After four years of acting in the spooky series, Duchovny,
37, is characteristically blunt, admitting that he is jaded with his character
no matter how much money he is being paid to keep going. His reaction is
even more understandable when you consider that most other hard-working
television actors are taking a well-earned summer break or, at the very least,
working on a different and exciting role in a movie.
"I wouldn't mind being Agent Mulder (in
a movie) every four or five years..."
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Duchovny - recently married to television comic and The Naked Truth star
Téa Leoni - has been spending his summer in a frigid sound stage at
the Twentieth Century Fox studios in Los Angeles, surrounded by ice and playing
Agent Mulder for an X-Files movie that will be the climax of the show's fifth
season. As soon as he finishes the movie, it will be back up to frosty Vancouver
for 10 months of filming the fifth season of the television series while
his new wife stays in Los Angeles to film her sitcom.
Duchovny says he agreed to do the as-yet-unnamed X-Files movie out of loyalty
to the writer and creator of the series, Chris Carter, even though he had
other movie offers he was keen to pursue. "It was very important for Chris
for this to be the culmination of the fifth year, and at the time I felt
that the fifth year would be the last year of the show," Duchovny says. [so
did a lot of us] "I saw it as a good chance to go out with a bang, to give
Chris what he wanted, and also to be done with the show completely...but
it doesn't seem like that's going to be the case. So I was misled and screwed,
basically. Paid well for it but misled and screwed nonetheless." Although
the words are spoken with an ironic smile, there can be no doubting the depth
of the feeling behind them. Now that there are plans for another couple of
X-Files movies and a sixth - and even seventh - season of the series, Duchovny
will not be trapped in the same way again unless it is on his terms.
Not that he has no appreciation for the X-Files phenomenon or is shutting
the door on further involvement, it is just that he would like some time
to spend with his new bride and expand his acting horizons. "I wouldn't mind
being Agent Mulder (in a movie) every four or five years," Duchovny states.
"I would mind being Agent Mulder like once every two years because a movie
is a four, five-month project. It becomes a matter of creative stimulation.
I think you know when you're done with it."
"This is not a character-driven piece,
which is one of the disappointing things about acting in it - although I
don't think it should be any other way."
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Duchovny is also dreading the separation from Leoni, 31. His parents divorced
when he was 11, and this is the second marriage for Leoni. They are determined
that their marriage will work but, like most people, they feel separations
keenly. Both have tried hard to have their shows moved so they can be together
more than weekends but it seems that love will play second fiddle to economics.
"I'd rather be with my wife," Duchovny says. "Even if I was working a hard
schedule it'd be nice to have her in bed when I get home or me in bed for
her when she gets home."
Another factor making Duchovny's job a hard slog is the fact that the X-Files
movie is a thriller with a lot of computer-generated effects and a plot that
is being guarded more tightly than the gold in Fort Knox. Apart from Duchovny,
co-star Gillian Anderson and other TV series regulars, other movie cast members
include Martin Landau, Glenne Headly, Armin Mueller-Stahl (Shine and The
Music Box) and Lucas Black (Sling Blade). Most of the special effects in
the movie will be completed using computer-generated images, making it a
highly technical shoot in front of many green screens, showing horror or
shock towards a blank space that will become as alien or other nasty.
"Doing the same character and doing a big movie in terms of actions and special
effects and all that stuff is a very tedious process," Duchovny says. "We're
doing the same job, Gillian and I, and we know how to do that. We know how
to do it fast and do it well. Everything else takes a lot of time because
that's what makes this a movie rather than a TV show. This is not a
character-driven piece, which is one of the disappointing things about acting
in it - although I don't think it should be any other way. It's a thriller
movie; it's an action movie."
"You can't spend too much time with the
characters - you have to spend time with the story. I think it will be a
really fun, engaging movie."
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Insiders say there will definitely be an extraterrestrial feel to the movie,
and it will not be a surprise if some residents of another planet make an
appearance. Duchovny is still intensely proud of his involvement in The X-Files.
Indeed, the pride he takes in the series is perhaps why he is so worried
that he may be getting stale in his role. For instance, he is very happy
with the way he and Chris Carter developed what he calls the "mythology"
behind Agent Mulder's character in the second and third series - background
that simply wasn't there to start with and had to be filled in as the number
of episodes required of the unexpected hit show suddenly increased. "I was
very happy to be involved in all of the creation of this character's mythology.
Once I had done that, I had less interest in creating it,". he says.
Duchovny says shooting a movie to screen after a television series that has
not yet been shot is difficult enough, but shooting a movie that will appeal
both to people who had never seen The X-Files and to obsessive fans who have
seen every episode at least five times is even harder. "It has to stand on
its own as a movie," he says. "You can't spend too much time with the characters
- you have to spend time with the story. I think it will be a really fun,
engaging movie."
"We want to be entertained and entertainment
comes on a very simple level."
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But another factor that has contributed to Duchovny's disenchantment is his
surprising apathy towards the supernatural . He admits that most X-philes
(as the most obsessive fans of the series are known) would know much more
about past episodes of The X-Files than he does. "It's whatever floats your
boat. If you like that kind of stuff, you like it. I don't think it's because
of me, I don't think it's because of the show, I don't think it's because
of Chris or Gillian or anything like that. I think it's this kind of thing
that's gotten away from all of us."
In fact Duchovny says some of the subject matter covered by The X-Files can
only be described as "stupid" - a description that reminds you that this
guy earned a BA in english literature at Princeton and an MA at Yale, and
was close to a doctorate when he started acting. "You can make a good show
about a stupid thing - I think that's what we've done," he says. "We've managed
to create some interesting drama, family drama, in those mythology episodes.
We've managed to make interesting, scary movies, but of lot of entertainment
is stupid - and that's not to belittle it. We want to be entertained and
entertainment comes on a very simple level."
With those thoughts Duchovny takes one last envious look around at the perfect
summer day in Los Angeles before reluctantly tramping back into the freezing
studio. He squares his shoulders and walks through the door, determined to
make his performance in the X-Files movie and the series as good as he can
make it. However, this is one actor who won't be a pushover when it comes
to his next contract negotiations.
Beveridge, John. September, 1997. "Under the heading: Closing
The X-Files." The Sun.
