KATIE: On the popular TV series, "The X-Files," FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder’s really confused. He just can’t figure out if we’re being invaded by aliens or if it’s all a government plot. In the movie "The X-Files." he’s wondering just what the truth is about himself.

(Clip of MULDER in the bar.)

MULDER: I'M AN ANNOYANCE TO MY SUPERIORS. A JOKE TO MY PEERS. THEY CALL ME SPOOKY. SPOOKY MULDER, WHOSE SISTER WAS ABDUCTED BY ALIENS WHEN HE WAS JUST A KID AND NOW CHASES AFTER LITTLE GREEN MEN WITH A BADGE AND A GUN SHOUTING TO THE HEAVENS OR TO ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN THAT THE FIX IS IN, THAT THE SKY IS FALLING. (cut)
BARTENDER: WELL, I WOULD SAY THAT ABOUT DOES IT, SPOOKY.

(She takes his drink away.)

KATIE: David Duchovny is here, our favorite paranoid FBI agent.

DD: Oh, (laugh) That’s lovely.

KATIE: Welcome back, nice to see you.

DD: Nice to see you.

KATIE: Sporting a new do, which I sort of described as the hedgehog look.

DD: That is exactly what I went in and asked for. He said, "What kind of animal would you like to look like?" I said, "A hedgehog would be nice."

KATIE: Do you go to a barber or like one of those fancy beauty parlor type places?

DD: (laughs) A barber. I haven’t been to a barber in a long time. No. I should go. No. I went to the man that cuts my wife’s hair. Laurant. and I uh …

KATIE: Who?

DD: Laurent.

KATIE: Laurent? (They laugh.)

DD: (laughs) I’m sorry, I had to say that. But it is Laurent. And I said, I just wanted to cut it all off. I had an idea I was going to have a disguise in the off season. I had a goatee, at the time, when I went in to get my hair cut, and I thought I’d get a crew cut. Because this is four weeks grown out. And, anyway, it’s all very interesting talking about my hair.

KATIE: It’s fascinating, indeed.

DD: You know, if there’s one thing I like talking about less than the "X-Files," it’s my hair. (Laughter.)

KATIE: Well, we’re going to talk about you second least favorite subject,---

DD: Okay, good. (CarriK: Camera pulls back and on the table between them the Mulder and Scully Barbie dolls are standing posed. Sorry, I just had to pause the tape for a sec. Very funny.)

KATIE: --- but before we do, you can’t go to a news stand here in Manhattan, I’m sure, a lot of other places in the country, without seeing your mug.

DD: But you don’t recognize me because of the hair, see?. (smile) It’s a different guy! (Indicates Barbie, I think) Totally different guy.

KATIE: That was very clever. (laugh) You’re on "Vanity Fair," you’re on "Movie Line," "Entertainment Weekly," "TV Guide," so you’re doing a major publicity blitz for this movie?

DD: Well, sure. Sure. I mean, I would probably do it anyway. because it’s kind of your responsibility. You know, once they pay you a lot of money to do a movie, that you go out and publicize it. But the wonderful thing about this is I saw the movie last Thursday and it really feels good now to publicize it, because I love the movie. When we made the movie, I thought, yeah, it will be fine. It will be as good as the TV show. Maybe it will make a decent movie, a good movie. But it’s really a fun --- I don’t know if it’s a great movie, but it’s just --- it was a lot of fun to watch. It just works on every level.

KATIE: Tell me how it differs from the TV show?

DD: Uh, it’s rectangular.

KATIE: (laugh) Duh! The screen’s a lot bigger.

DD: Like think of taking you to the movies.

KATIE: That’s a scary thought.

DD: Like you’ll go from here to here. That’s basically it.

KATIE: A lot more of David Duchovny to love. Really, how is it different in terms of --- thematically, or the characters? Is it just basically the TV show in a longer format on a bigger screen?

DD: I mean basically, that’s what it is. But it’s all the things that movies can do that TV can’t. The budget, the explosiveness, the reality of the special effects, the maturity, the grown-upness of the relationship becomes --- it comes to the front rather than, you know, on TV, you’re constantly making concessions to the medium. you don’t do it quite so much in film.

KATIE: A lot more action in the movie.

DD: Oh, yes. Really, it’s like an action film. Whereas, the TV show is often character-based or monster-based or you know ---

KATIE: Alien-based.

DD: Or even you know chicken stock-based. Occasionally. I don’t know what that means.

KATIE: (laugh) I don’t either. Whatever.

DD: Isn’t that a cooking thing?

KATIE: It is a cooking thing.

DD: (laughs) You know, based

KATIE: We’ve got a clip and this is my intro to the film. Nothing is what it appears to be. Scully and Mulder have to figure out. Figure it out. So let’s take (Laughter.)

DD: You’ll get it right in the movie!

KATIE: Thank you.

(Clip of MULDER and SCULLY interviewing kids.)

MULDER: (getting kids’ attention) HEY -- HEY --
SCULLY: DO YOU BOYS LIVE AROUND HERE?
KID: YEAH.
SCULLY: HAVE YOU SEEN ANYBODY DIGGING OVER THERE?
KID: WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT IT
SCULLY: NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT IT? WHO TOLD YOU THAT?
KID2: NOBODY.

MULDER: NOBODY? THE SAME NOBODY THAT BUILT THAT PLAYGROUND? NOBODY BUY YOU THOSE NEW BIKES, TOO?
SCULLY: I THINK YOU BETTER TELL US.
KID: WE DON'T EVEN KNOW YOU.
SCULLY: WELL, WE'RE FBI AGENTS.
KID: YOU'RE NOT FBI AGENTS.

MULDER: HOW DO YOU KNOW?
KID: BECAUSE Y'ALL LOOK LIKE DOOR-TO-DOOR SALESMEN!

KATIE: I understand that you contribute a fair amount to the script. Is that right? That you like to tinker with it, add some lines?

DD: Yeah, usually, usually with the humor. Sometimes with the sense of the --- you know, if I don’t think that the sense is being conveyed. But it’s usually with funny things. I actually had a different line for that scene, that I can’t remember, that I thought was funnier. (thinks) I wish I could remember it now. But I can’t.

KATIE: Get back to us on that one.

DD: I’ll come back the next segment with it.

KATIE: You’re sort of --- the way you act has been described as laconic.

DD: Yeah. What does that mean? (laughs)

KATIE: Restrained.

DD: Oh, restrained. (laughs)

KATIE: I looked it up and I didn’t have time to actually write the full definition, but I think not over the top, very understated.

DD: Yeah. Yeah.

KATIE: I sort of think laconic as a positive form of laziness. But that’s just me. My interpretation.

DD: (laugh) That’s interesting. Taking a deadly sin … a cardinal sin and making it into a virtue.

KATIE: What do you think of that characterization? Is that just a necessity?

DD: I like to think of it as real. I don’t think people run around being dramatic all the time. There are moments of high drama in one’s life, as there are in dramatic --- in movies. I like to pick and choose the spots, rather than play it at a level that is dramatic the entire time. I like watching performances like that, and I naturally gravitate myself towards creating performances like that.

KATIE: Yeah. Is this your last year with "The X-Files?" Your last season? I guess that’s the big question on everyone’s mind?

DD: I don’t know. I really don’t know.

KATIE: Are you getting tired of it -- Are you bored a little bit?

DD: Well, yeah. Creatively, I’m doing the same character week in, week out. It takes ten months out of the year, and I don’t get to do other things, other projects. So I would --- It’s not that I’m so bored of the show or the character, but just that I would like to go out and do other things.

KATIE: Need to spread you wings and try your hands at other things and other cliches we can come up with? (Laughter.)

DD: I’d like to test new grounds. I’d like to mow another lawn, and other cliches that didn’t become cliches because they don’t make any sense. (Laughter.)

KATIE: Exactly. I have a very important question. Why do they cover Gillian Anderson’s beauty mark in the movie? Do they do that in the TV show? As you know, I don’t watch the TV show. But they put makeup over the beauty mark.

DD: (touches his mole) And yet mine remains.

KATIE: Yeah, that’s true. Why do they do that?

DD: The truth? You want the truth?

KATIE: Yeah.

DD: When we were doing the pilot, Chris Carter, who is obsessive about detail, and opinionated about things that uh .. most people don’t have opinions on, decided that her face wasn’t big enough for her mole ---

KATIE: (laughs) You’re kidding. It’s a very teeny ---

DD: --- in some FBI sense. It was like Chris decided that an FBI agent wouldn’t have the mole in that place. So --

KATIE: Thank you for clarifying that. That was bugging me.

DD: You didn’t ask Gillian when she was ---

KATIE: No, but I will.

DD: You saw the mole in the movie.

KATIE: Yes. No. No. I saw the mole in person.

DD: (about to talk)

KATIE: Anyway, we’re out of time. I gotta say good-bye. Best of luck, David. Good luck with the movie. And we’ll talk to you soon.

DD: Thank you.

KATIE: We’ll be back after this.