"I don't know. I mean, I don't want to, but I could loose my leg and all of a sudden nobody else would want me to act in their film. I'm not going to say never any more. We'll see."~ David Duchovny on a Ninth Season

In his latest movie, David Duchovny has abandoned sci-fi for a bit of old fashioned romance.

David Duchovny, the X-Files heart-throb, is a little tired. The slim, genial actor has been tramping the globe talking himself to a standstill as he publicizes his latest and most successful movie to date, the touching, old-fashioned, romantic comedy, Return To Me.

But if the recent success of fellow television-star-turned-movie-star George Clooney is any indication, the effort just might be worth it.

Like Clooney, Duchovny is a journalist's darling--- witty and smart and constantly the subject of magazine cover stories as a result. It is perhaps no surprise that these two affable, articulate men with great senses of humour (though Duchovny's is as dry as a bone) know each other, mostly because they have a mutual good friend in the lovable comedian/actor-turned-director, Bonnie Hunt.

They were sitting together on a plane headed for New York when Clooney suggested that Duchovny call Hunt regarding a part in her upcoming movie, because it might be just what the actor was after. After reading Hunt's screenplay Duchovny asked the opinion of his wife, actor Tea Leoni.

"We have similar takes on movies, but there are instances like this where Tea didn't know Bonnie like I did," Duchovny says in Paris. "She thought the script was really straightforward and simple, but I knew that if you added Bonnie to that, it would be different."

Certainly Return To Me's tale of a widower who finds love again (with Minnie Driver) is sweet and sentimental. But Duchovny was right--- in the hands of Hunt (who also plays Driver's best friend) the film is touching and hilarious. Still, given his droll FBI agent and his earlier erotic roles, it's difficult to think of Duchovny as the sweet and sentimental type.

"I think we are all sentimental underneath," he says, letting loose his distinctive straight-at-you stare. "But this is really Bonnie's vision of romance, a world that doesn't have any cultural reference after 1965. I don't think this movie is meant to define a way of life, it's simply meant to be an escape, like any good love story.

"It's not about what happens to Grace and Bob after they sleep together, it's about what it takes to get there. After they sleep together, that's when reality sets in. We're not interested in showing you that."

In many ways, he says, RTM is not so far from X-Files territory. "In The X-Files you have to create a mundane reality out of something that is extraordinarily implausible. And RTM is similar in that you have to work up a belief.

"They're both fairytales, so the actor has to have a conviction. He can't be winking at the audience and saying, 'I don't believe this, this is all stupid, there's no such thing as somebody getting my dead wife's heart and then me falling in love with her.' You know it doesn't exist. So you have to create the world for the audience so they don't question it themselves, so the don't sit there going, 'I don't buy this'."

In person the casually dressed actor, who turns 40 on Monday, seems like a regular guy. There are glimpses of movie star charm--- at times he resembles a young Richard Gere--- yet overall he is much too understated. His dry wit probably has a lot to do with his half-Scottish ancestry. It was only last month that he was donning a kilt for his film's Edinburgh UK premiere.

Would he like to do more romantic leads? "I'd like to do everything," he says. "I don't think of getting myself to the position where I can do the same thing over and over again, I've already learned that lesson."

His lesson of course was learned on The X-Files and the subsequent recent lawsuit against 20th Century Fox and the show's creator Chris Carter, for reneging on a deal regarding his share of the television series' profits. Part of the settlement was that Duchovny would sign on for an eighth X-Files season.

"I didn't really want to do it," he explains, "but I'm doing it in a diminished capacity. I'm only doing as little as six full episodes and possibly bits in up to 11. So in time that's about three months as opposed to ten, so it's a big difference to me.

"At this point it's just a money-making enterprise. It's not really the time for bare challenges or inspirations--- they haven't come about for a number of years. It's just time to move on. I just wish we all would."

Will there be a second film? "I don't know, I imagine (there will be). The first one made money, so they'll probably make another one. They keep going till they don't make money, that's how it goes."

Will there be a ninth season? "I don't know. I mean, I don't want to, but I could loose my leg and all of a sudden nobody else would want me to act in their film. I'm not going to say never any more. We'll see."

You get the impression that if Duchovny set his mind to it, he could succeed at anything. When his co-star Minnie Driver quipped that he was "too smart to be an actor", he responded, "That's a nice was of saying it", as if she meant he was too smart for his own good.

But smart he is, with a Masters degree in English Literature from Yale University. The then 25 year-old New Yorker was about to complete his doctorate and his thesis ( titled Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose) when he fell into acting.

"I was trying to figure out how to write for the stage," Duchovny recalls, "so I thought maybe I should try to figure out what it is to be an actor, to say words that other people write. Life has way of happening around you."

After smaller parts in Ruby, Chaplin and Beethoven ( where he met Hunt) Duchovny starred in the independent movies The Rapture and Kalifornia. But it was as the narrator of women's fantasies on the erotic cable television series Red Shoe Diaries ( from the creator of 9 1/2 Weeks) that he first emerged as retiring, sensitive and sexy--- a combination that still has women drooling.

He played a troubled doctor in the box office underperformer, Playing God, and brought Mulder to cinemas in the 1998 feature, The X-Files: Fight The Future.

Now, as he is looking for a varied career in movies, he says he chooses by "gut instinct. It's crazy, unreliable. I just know that I like that one and I don't like that one. If they tell me to do that one then I don't care, I do what I want. There's no rhyme or reason really. I wish there was."

Having already written and directed an X-Files episode featuring his wife, Duchovny wouldn't rule out the possibility of working with Leoni again---but not on the series.

"It was sickening, in a way, how good she was," he beams. "She's such a powerful, unique performer."

The only obstacle is their infant daughter, Madeleine. "It would be nice for the kid on the one hand, but then it would be difficult because we'd both be working at the same time. We're think of doing on-and-off deals."

The ever bubbly Leoni seems to be the polar opposite of the more introspective Duchovny, who at least, thanks to acting, has overcome the painful shyness he endured through his childhood. One of the most devoted of Hollywood couples, their differences obviously make for a healthy relationship.

"She's not bubbly all the time, she can be a pain in the ass," he protests, at the intimation that he is not so frivolous. "But she's definitely an optimistic, capable, active person. I love her capability. She's just able to do stuff. She tackles problems. She's not passive."

Is Duchovny passive? "Ah, ah," he pauses. "I can be. I'm more in my head that Tea is. She's more in the world. But then we switch roles. Sometimes I'll be totally taking charge and she'll get passive.

"But that's another movie........."