David William Duchovny never dreamt with being a romantic lead, nor the star of a sci-fi show. Originally a fervent student, the man who would become Mulder earned a Literature degree at Princeton and later a Master at Yale. Just short of earning his Ph.D., Duchovny fell in love with theater and worked regularly at Off-Broadway plays. In 1987 he decided academia wasn't right for him anymore and put all his energy in becoming a professional actor. Between beer ads and small roles in Hollywood movies, 5 years later Duchovny was known as the transvestite agent in Twin Peaks, the famous David Lynch series. In 1993, the show TXF made him one of the most popular faces in the planet. With the precedent of a big screen failure (Playing God) and a big screen success (the movie version of TXF), Duchovny has decided that the year 2000, is the year he will change screens. He will stop being Mulder in the small screen and will bet everything on the big one.

Q: Is it true that George Clonney told you about the script while flying together?

A: That's how happened. George is a good friend. We were travelling to NY. We met on the plane and we started talking because we have known each other from meeting other times before. He is from Chicago and knows Bonnie Hunt very well, and he knew I had worked with her before. He asked me if I knew that Bonnie has written a script. I called my manager and asked her to get it for me. After I read it, I thought it was a beautiful love story, truly sentimental, and when they told me Bonnie was going to direct it, knowing she is so smart and funny, I thought it would be a good movie, but most than all a movie I haven't seen since Moonlight premiered. I called Bonnie and she told me she would love if I worked for her. I couldn't refrain my curiosity and asked her why she hadn't sent me the script before I asked for it. I realised she hadn't wanted to send it to me, because she didn't want to put me in the position of telling her no, because we know and like each other. Two weeks after tel
ling her I was interested in the movie, the whole project was set in motion and we started scheduling the shooting.

Q: Are you going to give George a fee for telling you about it?

A: That wouldn't be wrong. I haven't seen him since then. I suppose he told me because he went trough a situation similar to mine. When you do a successful TV show, you are worried thinking it will be impossible to break from that powerful image of yourself that TV has given the audience. That's why you do anything in the 3 free months you have. The problem with Playing God was that we did it in a hurry. It would have been a great movie if we have worked on the script for 6 months before starting shooting. Just look at Angelina Jolie. There wasn't a lack of talent in that movie, but we weren't ready to start shooting and we have to do it because the shooting of the show was starting and I wouldn't have been available later.

Q: In RTM you have to show your whole potential as an actor...

A: That's precisely one of the things that attracted me when I read the script. We had to set the whole tone of the movie in the first ten minutes, because if we didn't, the whole movie wasn't going to work. And logicaly, the movie's ability to involve the public relied on how well we did our job in those first 10 minutes. In those minutes the audience has to learn that Minnie is the person who could die any time, who needs a new heart with urgency and that I have lost the love of my life, because if those two elements aren't well established, the viewer won't give a damn about what happens in the next hour and 45 minutes. RTM is a movie which has no mistery. The audience knows what is happening during the whole movie. There are no surprises, no twists. The pleasure comes from watching what is going to happen. Therefore, if you don't care for what is going to happen, 10 minutes after the movie starts, you can walk out and not lose any more time. That way, I tried to fulfill my respon
sability with the director to do everything possible for that scene to feel real and help the movie to work.

Q: Is this character more similar to the real David Duchovny than the ones you did before?

A: Yes. With this character I felt that I had lots of freedom, I was able to explore things that I was never able to explore with a character before. I don't know if it was that it was more similar to me that previous characters, I just know that there was a certain inocence in that man, and even during the shooting I felt very confortable. Basically I understood what happened in this man's heart. I didn't have to think a lot to do it. I left myself be carried by my heart and it was enough...

Q: At least this character has your sense of humor...

A: That's possible. The turth is that Bonnie and I have a lot of fun together, she makes me laugh and I make her laugh. We have a very similar sense of humor. She doesn't like to make fun of people and neither do I. Her stuff is also very democratic, everyone who took part in the shooting put his grain of sand and I believe that shows in the humor of the movie...

Q: What do you think this movie tells about love?

A: I don't know what it says about love. But I believe there is much love in this movie. I don't know if there is a moral lesson in this story, I just know that when I saw the movie as another viewer, I came out very contented, very moved. I don't know if what I'm saying is idiotic, but there aren't many movies that make you feel the same thing as RTM. I couldn't explain the reasons, besides the fact that Bonnie has created a world the viewer enjoy to be part of for two hours.

Q: Speaking about love, do you remember your first girlfriend?

A: Of course. I was about 13 years old. A friend from school knew a girl in another school and she was convinced we would be a very good couple. That girl was very pretty, so when she sugested it I said yes. On friday we were going to have a dance at school and on wednesday my friend told me that my engagement with this girl was official. I have never talked with her before, but I was very happy with the idea of having a girlfriend. When friday arrived, my new girlfriend came to the dance at our school. But I got so nervous, than I not only didn't speak to her the whole night, I didn't dance one song with her either. I suppose that's why on monday I learnt she had broken with me.

Q: How was Bonnie Hunt as a director?

A: Excellent. She had the movie filmed in her head since 2 or 3 years ago. I knew she had a vision, and even if I wasn't sure it everything was going to go like she wanted, when you are an actor and agree to be in a movie, you do it to fulfill that vision which the director has.

Q: What do you remember from Beethoven, the movie you did with Bonnie a few years ago?

A: That we were having so much fun on the set that Ivan Reitman forbade us to improvise anymore. Patricia Heaton was with us in the cast, she is a great comedienne. There was also Charles Grodin, who is fantastic, the four of us were dying from laughing on the set. We thought that what we were doing was funny, that we were making a great movie, and then they told us to just say our lines... after all, we weren't the stars, the star was the dog...

Q: Many directors need a big Hollywood star to get money to do their movies. As an actor, do you fell that fact as an extra responsability?

A: But I don't know if that is my case. There aren't many actors able to greenlight any project they get involved with. I believe that my involvement may have helped in Bonnie being told she could start with the movie. Of course that's a big responsability. And that responsability implies that you have to ask yourself if you want the movie being done. If you know that by saying yes, the project is going to be greenlighted, you have to be very sure that you really want to do it, because once you have signed you can't go back. I agreed to do Playing God before the script was written. I liked the idea, but I didn't know how things worked in Hollywood. They told me the script was going to be ready when TXF shooting was done. When I was ready, the script wasn't finished and we filmed the movie regardless. That's why you have to be very careful in this business.

Q: Were your wife and daughter at the set of RTM?

A: They came a couple of times. My daughter was very little at that time, but she enjoyed our walks through Chicago. She loves the life of the big city. She enjoyed a lot more being in Chicago and New York than Los Angeles because she loves seeing people walking around her.

Q: Which is the secret of your marriage's happiness?

A: Téa Leoni. She is an exceptional woman. I'm very lucky that she chose me. She is a woman who always have fer feet on the floor, she has a great integrity and never forgets which are her priorities in life. She is a woman who was raised in a marvelous way and have excellent parents. She is a brilliant, incredible mother, who is always aware of our daughter's necessities. I can't find enough good qualities to describe Téa. I insist, I'm very lucky that she has looked at me...

Q: How do you live your paternity? Are you one of the worriers?

A: No, I'm a very calm father. My wife is the one who worries all the time for little things. I worry about about things like if there's going  to be any water left on the planet when my daughter is 25. My my wife  worries about, 'Has she eaten today? I suppose she is a better mother than I'm a father. I'm worrying about where do we hide the coins so she doesn't eat them while she is changing diapers....

Q: How are you changing diapers?

A: I'm the typical man in that sense. I was the first one changing her diapers, but I made it so bad on purpose that they never asked me to do it again...

Q: Do you think TXF will go on even if you leave?

A: I don't know. I believe it is stupid, but if they want keep doing money they should do it. After 7 years, it is only about money. If someone tells you after 7 years that a show is airing, that they have still creative challenges to confront, they are lying to you.

Q: Do you get a little scared that the show is ending for you?

A: Of course. At this moment it is very confortable and easy for me going to work: they pay me very well, I'm praised for what I do and it is an excellent show. There are lots of good things for me on TXF. The truth is, that having a baby there is not a bad idea to work on a TV show. It is the most steady work an actor can get and I don't have to leave town to shoot. It would be great for me, for convenience, to continue doing the show, but from a creative point of view I can't do it...

Q: Will you do special appearences on the show if it still airs after you are gone?

A: No, I think that would be a very bad idea.

Q: But you wouldn't have problems playing Mulder in another XF movie, would you?

A: That's right...

Q: What's the difference?

A: Money. The time it takes to shoot it. The size of the project, it has to be something ver special. We aren't talking about doing 22 movies a year, it is about doing one every 3 years. It is something completely different...

Q: Are they planning a second movie?

A: Not that I know. But I imagine they will do it. I think at this moment they are more worried about what they are going to do with the TV show. When they have decided that, they are going to see what they do with the second movie. I suppose they will want to do it because it will do lots of money. If they have stopped making money from the show, they will want to do it with the movie...

Q: What I don't understand is why you will play Mulder in the movie when you are leaving the show to put distance from him...

A: The thing isn't so easy. I love Mulder and the show very much. I wouldn't like another actor to replace me because I enjoy playing him very much, what I don't enjoy anymore is playing Mulder the whole year. That's why I don't need to distance myself from Mulder... and if they decide not to do movies, I won't be desperate either...

Q: What would you say is the greatest misconception about you?

A: I hate to answer that question because the only thing it does is to perpetuate the prejudice that the public could have about me. The truth is that it is absolutely impossible to convince the people that I'm not what they think I'm. Sigmund Freud used to say that the unconscious doesn't understand the word "no". But I think that many times people think that I'm arrogant. I never felt I was arrogant. It is true I'm a man with strong opinions, but I can say with pride that I never said that I liked a movie that I really didn't like because I was in the moral obligation to help the studio to sell tickets. That's why I love talking about RTM, because it is a movie I'm very proud of and I have no problem recommending it. I'm not doing it so the movie have good luck on the box-office, but because I think this is a type of movie the public should go to see. It isn't the kind of blockbuster that people will run to the theaters. Julia Roberts doesn't work in it. It is a romantic comedy wit
hout Julia Roberts. From the start it is a miracle that they gave us the money to do it even if Julia wasn't available...

Q: What is it about acting that you like?

A: It is a kind of creative expression for me. That's what I always wanted to do, be it as an actor, writer or director. I like the creation, and acting have given me the chance of being a privileged member of a creative team, like the one that do a movie.

Q: When did you realise that it was what you wanted to do your whole life?

A: Truth is, I realised it when I was 25 years old and I decided I wanted ot write playwrights or screenplays. I felt that to do it, I have to learn some acting. I started acting and, 14 years later, here I am.

Q: Would you have liked working as a professor for dramatic arts?

A: Of course I would have liked it, because it is a profession that also demands colaboration with others. But acting was stronger... I never thought to look for this profession, I run into it and I accepted my destiny.

Q: How do you do to keep down to earth when you suddenly become a TV and movie star?

A: It's difficult. It helps a lot having a wife who shows you what is real. I believe the worst thing about fame is that there is too much attention given to actors when other people deserves that attention. The bad thing isn't that they are writing about me the whole time, the bad thing is that they aren't writing about that other people who deserve it. In any case, I believe freedom of the press is more important than the false stories the yellow press writes about me. I can deal with the lies with a lawsuit, but it is escential that everyone can print what they want. That's the better thing the US has as a country...