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DuchovnyNet is a fan run website and is not affiliated with Mr. Duchovny in any way. "The X-Files" TM and © (or copyright) Fox and its related entities. STALKERATZZI
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"Unknown"
TV
Guide
March 11, 1995
by Deborah Starr Seibel
David Duchovny is not happy. He stands behind Gillian
Anderson in a barebones photo studio, resigned to having roll after
roll of pictures taken on what promises to be another 16-hour day.
Now that The X-Files has been crowned with a Golden Globe for best
drama and is emerging from cult status to become a mainstream hit,
the world is descending upon Vancouver, British Columbia, where the
Fox series is shot and in all the X-citement, everyone wants a piece
of the costars.
Anderson, sensing Duchovny's mood, looks
down at his hand on her left shoulder and tries to brush it away, as
if it were a mosquito. Then she turns and jumps into his arms,
laughing, looking like a little girl making trouble for a protective
older brother. Startled to be holding her, the smile on Duchovny's
face is forced no longer. "When we first started X-files," says
Anderson, "I was so green. It was only my second time in front of a
camera. I desperately needed someone to show me the ropes. And he
did that. He was wonderful."
Little wonder, then, that
Anderson, 25, turned to David again when she was pregnant. It was
last winter, they were still in the thick of their first season in a
series showing real promise, and Anderson was worried about losing
her job. "I went into his trailer," she recalls, "and I said,
'David, I'm pregnant.' It looked like his knees buckled. I think he
said, 'Oh, my God.' And he asked me if it was a good thing. I said,
'Yeah, it is.' "No one else knew, and Duchovny kept it that way for
weeks, until Anderson was ready to tell her producers and deal with
the professional consequences. "We really trust each other,"
Duchovny says simply.
There is, between these two, a
real-life camaraderie born of necessity, a friendship strong enough
to survive too many work hours, and a chemistry powerful enough to
rearrange the atoms on-screen. "Whenever we're acting together,"
says Anderson, "it's there." As FBI special agents Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully, their sizzle packs a wallop not because of any romantic
involvement-which the show carefully avoids-but because their
characters' remarkable brainpower, each is incomplete without the
other: He never tires of brandind the mind-bending, hair-raising
crimes they investigate as paranormal or supernatural. She insists
that he root his out-of-this-world theories in science. "It's just
suddenly dawned on me," says wardrobe supervisor Gillian Kieft,
"that the way Mulder and Scully are on-screen is the way David and
Gillian are in person. They help each other, they respect each
other."
"But we don't hang out," cautions Duchovny, 34. "We
are very wary of the fact that at any moment the other can turn into
a psychotic human being because of the demands that are put on us,
the 16-hour days. So I know when she is very tired and irritable,
and she knows the same about me. We have a great respect for the
fine line the other is walking all the time."
They are
walking that fine line now, near midnight, at a creepy downtown
high-rise construction site. Chilly and damp, Duchovny and Anderson
are exhausted but show virtually no signs of the usual Hollywood
afflictions: no need for hand-holding by assistants, no entourage,
no preening between takes, no temper tantrums. They don't even seem
to understand that they are, in fact, stars. "One of the things
about Vancouver is that we don't have a lot of people hanging around
watching us, "says John S. Bartley, the X-files director of
photography. He reconsiders: "Or if we do, they don't get too close.
There is something about this city, perhaps a Canadian reserve. They
don't seem to bother people who are famous."
"Did you see
when we won the Golden Globes?" asks hairdresser Malcolm Marrsden.
"Gillian stood up, and she was in an absolute daze. She just never
expected it." Anderson agrees. "I had no clue about it. I just don't
get it. And ultimately, I think that's good because it keeps my head
small."
That may change. "The other day," says David, "a
production assistant came up behind me and said, 'Robin Williams
would like to meet you, David.' And as I was turning, I said, 'No,
he wouldn't.' And he was standing right there. And he goes, ' Oh,
yes he would!' So that was kind of funny. But you know, it is more
satisfying to me to deal with the people who tried to help me a long
time ago, who believed in me, who told me to just hang in there."
Which is what Duchovny and Anderson are telling each other
now. They have developed a sort of shorthand communication: few
words, very focused, very relaxed. "They both have a quiet side,"
says Bartley. "David can be very funny, very sharp. But mostly, he
holds back and just watches and listens to the people around him.
Gillian shows a little more emotion. She laughs just like a little
girl. They are terrific together."
But no one could have
guessed from their rocky beginnings in a tiny audition room at
Twentieth Century Fox Television that this twosome would take off.
"I already knew I had the part, so I was totally loose," says
Duchovny with Mulder-esquesardonic humor. "This was my room, these
were my people, this was my part. I was just fantastic. I wish I'd
been that good when the cameras were rolling. So I played the scene
in a kind of sarcastic way-much more sarcastic then it was
written-and Gillian was just completely thrown by it. I was toying
with this person, because Mulder doesn't really care whether she
stays or goes. And she was shock that anybody would talk to her that
way." He smiles at the memory. "That's exactly how she should have
reacted. It was perfect."
Still, the network needed to be
convinced. "They wanted somebody leggier," says Anderson," somebody
with more breasts, somebody drop-dead gorgeous." Even after she got
the part, she knew-and the crew knew-that she was swimming
up-stream.
Marsden chopped the long, wavy, ashblond hair
that reached to the middle of her back and turned it into a sleek,
strawberry-blonde bob. But that was just a surface alteration -
Anderson ,an award-winning Off-Broadway actress, also had to learn
how to move, how to speak scientific jargon with ease, and how to
cope with the crushing demands of an hour-long series.
"In
the beginning," says Marsden, "she had trouble with her lines, and I
think it kind of upset David because he is so accomplished. He's
worked in feature files. He's worked with Brad Pitt. And he can
learn his lines"-Marsden snaps his fingers-"like . But I know he
appreciates how hard she works."
Then came the emotional
roller-coaster ride of Anderson's life. Within six months of
starting the series, she met and fell in love with Clyde Klotz, then
the production designer-a man crew members describe as "very
talented, very gentle"-and married him on the spur of the moment on
New Year's Day, 1994, on the 17th hole of a magnificent Kauai golf
course ("because that was the most beautiful place we could find on
short notice," says Anderson). Even her hairdresser didn't know what
was going on. "I didn't have a clue she was getting married," says
Marsden. "It just really stunned me."
Anderson was a little
stunned herself. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the happy couple
conceived their daughter, Piper, who is now 6 months old. on their
wedding day. When Anderson got back to the mainland, she says, "I
was at a party that Fox gave for at a Burbank Airport hangar, and
there were fortune-tellers. So I sat down, and the fortune-teller
said to me: 'You are going to have a little girl soon.' And I said,
'I am not!' A month or so later, I started feeling nauseous." And
happy. And very, very worried. A pregnancy would mean limitations on
her work schedule and missing episodes - no one could predict how
many - in the second season. "I knew I needed to make my decision
about the pregnancy first, before broaching the subject with the
producers," says Anderson. "I couldn't be wavering. Having this baby
was the right decision for my husband and me. But it was like, 'Oh,
my God. They did all this for me and now look what I'm doing to
them.' So many things go through your mind. So yes, I was worried."
Apparently with good reason. According to several sources,
executive producer Chris Carter was not pleased. "He went
ballistic," says one source. "He wanted to get rid of her." Two
other insiders back up that claim. "They were considering
recasting," confirms Anderson. "I heard a lot of stuff through the
grapevine, and it was not comforting."
Not so, says Carter.
"I never, ever considered replacing her. It's a lie. If anything, I
was the loudest voice saying: We have to protect this show and this
person. Scully and Mulder are two characters that the audience has
invested in, they are the secret to the success of the show, and we
have to find a way to make this work."
How did all of this
affect Anderson? "She's grown up," says wardrobe supervisor Kieft.
"Getting married and having the baby has matured her, I think, and
given her a bit of stability. When she was pregnant, we did have a
bed standing by, and whenever we could, we would get her to lie
down. But she is quite a strong little person." In fact, Anderson
missed only one episode and was back to work - after an emergency
C-section - in just 10 days. "I was getting restless," says
Anderson. "I wanted to get back to work because it was really hard
on David, and it's the two of us up there, you know?"
In the
meantime, Duchovny - whose pre-X-Files career included the feature
films "The Rapture," "Chaplin," and "Kalifornia" - had his own
crosses to bear. For this sometimes homesick New Yorker, the idea of
living in Vancouver for at least five years is not heaven on earth.
"There are some days," says Duchovny, "when it is really a terrible
prospect to me. I never imagined myself on a television series
because I always imagined hopping from one glorious movie to
another. When we were signing contracts to do the pilot, my agent
said, 'You really have to think about what you are getting into.'
And I said, 'I have thought about it.' But I never thought about it.
Because I didn't know how hard it would be."
Making matters
worse is the fact that his girlfriend, actress Perrey Reeves, still
lives in Los Angeles - "although I'm not sure I'd see any more of
her if she lived up here," he says. Duchovny, who dreams of one day
"having a wife and three kids," consoled himself by becoming the
proud owner of a fluffy Border collie/terrier mix he named Blue -
for the Bob Dylan song "Tangled Up in Blue." "The idea was that she
would help me with my blues," Duchovny says. "People think that you
listen to the blues when you are sad, but actually, the blues kind
of help alleviate sadness. It was a totally selfish thing." Did it
work? "Oh yeah," he says, as he pets her and her tail goes crazy.
"She's a living thing. And training her is like training for being a
dad. I see aspects of myself in the way that I handle Blue that I
would want to curb a little bit when I have a child. I don't get fed
up, but sometimes I don't want to give her all the time that she
needs, you know? I've got a dog staring at me every morning saying,
' Let's go play Frisbee.' And I have to say, 'Don't you know how
hard Daddy works?'"
Mommy's pretty busy, too. Anderson heads
back to her trailer immediately after each shot to check on her baby
girl, who's now sleeping. "I have had the best over this past year,"
whispers Anderson. "And , I am beat. I have thought that all of was
too much. But having Piper has saved my life." How? "It took the
focus off of me and put it on something much more important."
A knock on the door and it's time for another take. Anderson
hurries back to the dank basement of a high-rise, where Duchovny is
waiting. "You OK?" he asks her. "Fine," she smiles. Just like Scully
and Mulder. And the camera isn't even rolling.
THE END |
Transcript appears courtesy of TV Guide, copyright © All Rights
Reserved
Transcript appears here courtesy of GAWS. |
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