Transcribed by alfornos
Translated by lynx (on alt.fan.david-duchovny)

From Ciné Live, October 1998

All the truth and nothing but the truth
by Par Marc Toullec
Photographs by Mark Hanauer

[There’s a full page color photo of DD looking rather like Liam Neeson; caption: "That I'm identified with Mulder - I take that as a compliment."]

X-Files, it's the miraculous chemistry between the actors and their characters. Between Gillian Anderson and Dana Scully. Between David Duchovny and Fox Mulder. Alias Mulder the paranoid, Mulder the Martian, Mulder who sees conspiracies everywhere. Well named. Like David Vincent in "The Invaders", Fox Mulder runs after the truth. This truth which doesn't hide David Duchovny.

Cine Live: To play Mulder in the movie, was it a dream that you could have forseen in 1993, the year of birth of the X-Files on television.

DD: No. In fact, I never thought about that until the day Chris Carter talked to me about it. It is rather rare that a television series becomes a film during its first run. Nevertheless, progressively, I realized that we made each episode as if it were a small film. The sequence of events that led to the production of a cinema project was, in the end, natural. The popularity of the series was such that the audience had reached such a size that it became inevitable that we would would proceed to the Big Screen. The idea imposed itself gradually, but it wasn't, at the beginning at least, an overt ambition.

CL: According to you, is X-Files: The Movie a long episode, such that it could exist within the series - or, simply, a feature film. Is this an important distinction in your eyes?

DD: Yes. It was necessary that this film was completely separate from but directly related to the series. Thus it was the transition between the fourth and fifth seasons. We had a very specific brief to fill: tell a story that could be at once satisfying to those who had been attentively following the series since its debut - but a story that could, in parallel, present Scully and Mulder to those who don't know them from Eve and Adam This double function considerably complicated our task. It was probably the most complex requirement that the producers and writers had to deal with in the film. For Gillian Anderson and me, all the difficulty consisted of showing a character that we had played for nearly six years as if they had just been born. I had to thus redefine Mulder, rethink what had attracted me to him. In fact, to take Mulder back to the beginning. At the end of 5 years of television, he'd become as much a habit to me as to the public. He had become "obvious", had acquired a great broadness in his gestures and the expression of his personality. Given all of that, I had to almost forget him in order to take on the movie.

CL: How did Chris Carter portray this temporary amnesia of the character?

DD: At the beginning of the film, after the closure of the X-Files and the destruction of its archives, Mulder is deep in depression. CC thus presented me with a few thoughts: "It's the darkest moment of your life. Your career is finished. You are at the bottom of the pit." A good idea for finding the other face of Mulder...a condition to get out of. To persevere in showing the depressive [Mulder] would have been an error, because the fans of the series know that Mulder would get himself out of his funk, rise above the crisis. He has always done that until now. Humor seemed to me a good alternative for describing a Mulder at harmony with himself. A disillusioned humor, caustic, because it resulted from anger, from the survival of a profound depression. I think that was the best choice possible. I am happy not to have interpreted Mulder according to the established criteria of the series, to have noticeably modified him.

CL: The true job of the film and the series is to maintain the credibility of the intrigues which ocsillate unceasingly between truth and lies, information and disinformation. Not easy for an actor to find that path...

DD: Absolutely. Everything rests on the reality of the characters. Mulder isn't a hero like Indiana Jones, James Bond or Luke Skywalker. Even though X-Files the movie is in the same genre as action films and science fiction, its protagonists always remain human beings. In the end, ordinary people. By contrast, the events that they experience are out of the ordinary. The conspiracy, of which they are the playthings, attains an incredible level of complexity. Something inconceivable, difficult to admit to, something extraordinary. It's why these characters of the X-Files must remain anchored in reality, in the banality of the everyday. Even if you don't believe in the existence of extraterrestrials, you must be able to believe in Mulder. Arising from that, the unbelievable becomes believable. It's why I have continued to make Mulder,basically, a nonspecific type. Determined, opinionated, but normal. No question that I give him some of the attributes of a hero, that he is sort of cool in the manner of James Bond. But, Mulder has to fail, to reveal weaknesses like all men.

[photo: FM rescues DS in FTF; caption: "Playing God was an acting experiment. In the USA, they don't like experiments. They only like formulas."]

CL: According to you, the function in the embryonic love story between Scully and Mulder in the film - does it exist only to titillate the public?

DD: It's true. CC knows the desires of the X-Files public very well, much better than I. It's because he has refrained until now from all physical intimacy between Scully and Mulder. The majority of fans are ferociously opposed to it, even though they aren't opposed to a certain closeness. The kiss, or the non-kiss, is a type of compromise. A response to the fantasy also: we know what you want to see, but... I appreciate this very much because it underlines what Scully and Mulder are expressing for each other until a stroke of fate stops the intimacy. X-Files: The Movie thus raises the veil a little on their physical attraction, on what they could be together if they had the time. If it's a game for CC to blow hot and cold, the fact of presenting this kiss and then the interruption constitutes an intelligent response to the desires and the fears of many.

CL: It's a sort of complicated gimmick, a game of cat and mouse, "will they or won't they?"

DD: Recently, in a movie theater, I was present for the reactions of spectators at this scene. They waited feverishly, excited, then almost became enraged that Scully and Mulder didn't kiss. I saw people getting out of their seats, banging their heads at that moment. It worked marvelously!

CL: The movies, the working conditions are pretty luxurious compared to television. Don't you have doubts about acting Mulder on the small screen after having tasted the comfort of the Big Screen?

DD: Not at all, even though the difference is great between movies and television. In the movies, you benefit from a schedule that's much easier than on television. On the other hand, you have to waste a good part of your time waiting. Twelve hours of patience for one lone line: you risk losing sight of the reason for your presence, you lose concentration. In television, you are constantly in action. You never have time to mope in a corner. Finally, both the cinema and television have their advantages and dangers. I don't prefer one over the other. Only that with television, I don't have a need anymore to prepare myself to play Mulder. I come home and take off his skin.

CL: Have you, since the productiion of the first episode of the series, given Mulder a personal touch.

DD: Of course. The Mulder that CC had imagined was only a two dimensional person. He was only there to make the story progress. This Mulder only possessed the appearance of the protagonist, he lacked a soul. In the beginning, his eccentricity didn't give him any humanity. In five years of work, we have created a person of flesh and bones. Truly. A real someone. I don't know precisely what it is I brought to this, what CC brought to it by choosing me, what time has brought to it. Let's say that things evolved by themsleves.

CL: Don't you feel youself, from time to time, a hostage, as well as the portrayer, of Mulder?

DD: I only hate the fact that that the role, which I like in other ways, doesn't allow me more time. At the same time, if I hadn't incarnated Mulder, I wouldn't today have other opportunities. It's at once a blesssing and a curse. I can always fight against those who think of me only as Mulder, who stereotype me. Really, this was the case for Sean Connery and James Bond or Harison Ford and Indiana Jones. They succeeded in their rebirth. But not Mark Hamill after Star Wars or William Shatner after Star Trek. All the actors playing icons of movies and television have the same problem. My identification with Mulder, I take it as a compliment. It doesn't embarrass me to be associated with one sole role. It's the same for more eclectic actors or the most talented. For the majority of people, the career of Robert De Niro is summed up in two roles, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, even though he's made at least fifty films. It's like this: all actors are identified with one or two roles. Especially ones which they play for a long time.

CL: With a little hindsight, how do you encapsulate the big commercial failure of Playing God?

DD: At heart, Playing God was a good idea for a film. A film that I had to fit into my work schedule, because X-files only allowed me six or seven weeks free in the year. I thought that in Playing God, I had a chance to play a different role in what I thought would be a good film. I always try to do my best, and it's still hard work even if you end up with a bad film. [The next sentence is clearly idiomatic and I can't do it justice - so I'll just say it straight <g>] People believe that filming a turnip returns from vacation to the expenses of a princess. [hmm - maybe - you get out of it what you put into it?] False. On Playing God, I worked hard and the film didn't make a dollar. Why? Because it wasn't a success, but also because the public thought that, being popular, I would only play a blockbuster hero a là Armageddon. It's terrible. Critics did not overlook me. According to them, I tried to become a movie star and I put myself right in the middle of a modest film. They never mentioned that Playing God was an acting experiment. In the USA, they don't like experiments. They only like formulas. Despite all that, Playing God tought me a lot. Notably that I won't get involved with a project before the script is completed. In this regard, I never had (on PG) a definitive manuscript in hand.

Filmography

1988	Working Girl (Nichols)
1989	New Year’s Day (Jaglom)
1990	Bad Influence (Hanson)
1991	The Rapture (Tolkin) Julia has Two Lovers (Shbib) Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead (Herek) Denial (Dignam)
1992	Venice/Venice (Jaglom) Chaplin (Attenborough) Beethoven (Levant) Ruby (Mackenzie)
1993	Kalifornia (Sena)
1997	Playing God (Wilson)
1998	The X Files (Bowman)

Par Marc Toullec. October 1998. "All the truth and nothing but the truth." Ciné Live.