David Duchovny tells Jean Cummings about the future of The X-Files, fatherhood, and his new movie, Return to Me..
Hollywood, California - David Duchovny in person is not unlike his X-Files alter ego. He has a relaxed manner about him, and when he speaks, one tends to lean towards him to be sure to hear his comments. This demeanour allows the actor to choose his words carefully, and to insert his dry sense of humour into his response to a prying question.
Of course, the foremost question these past few months (which has since been confirmed) has been 'Will there be an eighth season of the X-files?', but at the time of our interview he seemed unsure and iunfazed. "I have terms that I've offered to [FOX] that would possibly being me back in some capacity for an eighth year," he says. "I can't tell you what the terms are because it's part of the negotiations, but at this point it's really up to them whether they want to do it on my terms. I can tell you that I'll be happy either way.
"If it's my last year, that's great," he says.. "Seven years was a long time and it was a great show and I'm proud of it. And if it goes an eighth year, then it will be on my terms and I'll be happy about that as well."
Duchovny is clearly in control of his own destiny, and it doesn't hurt that he's now recognised as a talented director and writer too, having had the opportunity to perfext those skills duing his seven years as Agent Mulder.
"I'm just at the point where I can take stock of what I want to do in the next ten years," he explains. "I'm looking at a bunch of things that I want to do but I also want to be able to write and direct at this point. I'm just trying to figure out what I want to do next, and how best to proceed."
Whatever his decision, it'll be one he'll make carefully and in a business-like manner, something he's done from the ouset of his career.
A native of New York, Duchovny attended prestigious Yale University and taught at the Ivy League school while working on his Ph.D. But he left academia in 1987 to pursue an acting career and, within three years, moved to Los Angeles where he joined the cast of TV's Twin Peks. Three years later he was cast as FBI agent Fox Mulder.
The stardom and success that The X-files has provided aside, Duchovny has had a never-ending desire to shed the Mulder image, and to do so more through film than television. "I'm not considering TV right now," he says simply. "You know, that's not a judgment on television, it's just that the prospect of coming in and playing the same character for another seven years right now is not an attractive one to me."
What is attractive is his newest role, that of a widower who meets and falls in love with the woman (Minnie Driver) who receives his deceased wife's heart via an organ transplant in the film, Return to Me. Despite the implication to the contrary, the film is a romantic comedy that lends itself [in part] to ask the question, does a person's spirit live on through such a surgical procedure?
"The movie is not about whether or not the spirit of a person lives on in an organ," he offers. "However, it's an issue that arises out of the fact that I fall in love with the woman who has received my dead wife's heart.
"It's an intersting questions," he suggests. "How much of us is just in the brute mechanical workings of our bodies and how much is spiritual and how much is soul? Or is the heart the heart? We speak of the heart as if it was the seed of the soul, not the muscle. Why do we say the seed of the soul? Is there some truth to that or have we simply made it the poetic choice?"
The actor doesn't suggest to have the answer to his own question, but he is quick to say that doing Return to Me was a lot more work with's comedic base that doing The X-files which has had its fair share of comedy-flavoured episodes of late. "It was enjoyable, yes, relaxing, no, because believe it or not, The X-files is very relaxing. I mean, after seven years, I can do it in my sleep. I know the character. I know the schedule. I know what to expect every day whenI go to work.
"It's much more nerve-wracking to have to create an entirely new character in an entirely new movie and to strike the right tone of your performance within the movie. I mean, it's fun because you're doing something new, but it's anything but relaxing because you don't have a second chance in a movie. With a television show, you've got 22 [episodes] a year. With a movie you've got one chance, one chance only in a lifetime to do this particular movie."
At the same time, he's quick to add that working in films lends itself to his being a more active father to his daughter with actress wife, Tea Leoni. "I've worked just about every day since she's been alive so I've had a really good excuse for not doing certain things, like getting up at three in the morning!" Duchovny says with a grin.
"My wife has been the most conscientious and loving mother that I could ever imagine," he says proudly. "I try to do my share of things around the house and I'm not especially neat and nor am I a really good cleaner."
He laughs aloud before adding, "Really, I've changed diapers but it's to the point where Tea goes 'It takes less time if I just do it because I just have to re-do what you did.' But it's great being a father."
Would he advise his daughter as to the virtues of an education over a film career? "I do think that having a higher education can't hurt," he says. "Since it's so expensive now to go to some schools, I would say that the way to get out of debt is not necessarily to become an actor. It was a great opportunity for me and a great education and certainly it hasn't hurt me in any way. But to give advice about acting or about actors... it really is something that each person has to figure out on their own.
"I mean, I would have never given myself the advice that I ended up doing nor would have I listened to it., I might well have said, 'What are you doing? Why go through the hard work of education and then throw it all away, and I'm glad somebody didn't say that to me because it might have stopped me."
Duchovny grins. "First, I'm going to go through toilet training. t will be a one step at a time thing. At this point, if I look forward, I think I would never try to tell my child not to do something that she wanted to do if it wasn't hurtful to other people or to herself.
"I think being an actor is a very painful process with all the rejection and everything so I would think, well, there's going to be a lot of pain, but I'd never say it. She'd going to do what she's going to do."
Which sounds very much like her father. David Duchovny is obviously an independent individual with his sight set on very specific goals which, his personal life aside, mean he has to choose carefully in making decisions that are right for him... That may no longer include The X-files, but wife and daughter aside, it does mean making the decisions that are right for him.
