From Stuff for Men, January/February 1999
Images and article from Janet

Like An X Machine
by David McCandless

Agent Fox Mulder has a great life. But David Duchovny finds it all a bit depressing.

"Not only am I the worst actor that ever strode the earth but this is the worst show that has ever been put to television" Duchovny on how he felt after watching an episode from the first series of The X-Files.

He is obsessed with finding the truth about supernatural phenomena and alien contact. He fights against a shadowy cabal of evil conspiracy fat cats, duffs up liver-eating cannibals, murderous inbred townsfolk and radioactive parasites from the sewers. He lives on his own, carries a gun, and works with arguably the most attractive woman in the world. Agent Fox Mulder leads the perfect life.

David Duchovny doesn't believe in UFOs. Nor clairvoyant Vietnam vets with a penchant for human flesh. But he's sassier and more intelligent than the average leading man and likes to put a sardonic distance between himself and the role which has made him famous and extremely rich.

"What keeps David Copperfield and Claudia Scheiffer together," is the global mystery the 37- year-old actor would instead like solved.

It's this contrast which keeps him credible. In The X-Files Mulder represents the little geek boy, the mad professor in all of us, whose obsession led from Space Lego to discovering a vast, intergalactic conspiracy threatening the existence of humankind. In real-life Duchovny irreverence is our inner voice telling us we shouldn't be too believing of all this sci-fi nonsense. His skill is in managing to remain credible in the face of such weirdness.

"I thought the script was good and I liked the character. I didn't think it would become a series because it was about aliens," he remembers, "which I thought was kind of a silly topic." His fears were apparently confirmed after catching a particularly bad first season episode on TV: "I smoked a joint. I thought 'Not only am I the worst actor that ever strode the earth but this is the worst show that has ever been put to television."'

But the series got a lot better. It's still formulaic, and is by turns good and rubbish, but it has a visual style, wit and a dark underbelly not often seen on modern TV. In a typical episode Mulder and Scully pop off to investigate yet another case of bisexual, flesh-eating, serial-killing psychic alien townsfolk. They flap some incandescent torches around. Somebody dies. Scully ducks to tie her shoelace as an entire armada of alien ships go by. And Cigarette Smoking Man lives up to his name, caning another ten Marlboros and turning to the camera, looking a bit puckered and evil. Fin.

Sex addict

The sparkle comes from the way the traditional roles are reversed. Woman Scully is all logical and rational. Male space-cadet Mulder is the intuitive one. This not only makes good drama but also generates a hearty forcefield of sexual tension.

"If we slept together, the show would turn into Thirty Something," Duchovny says of the considerable voluptuousness of Agent Scully. "No one wants to hear us whining about picking up the kids and then suddenly say, 'You know what, honey? There are some genetic mutants I've noticed down the street. Let's go get 'em."'

Duchovny was a late starter. At 26, after graduating at Yale and Princeton universities, he decided to become an actor. His motivation? "I thought: `I know, I'll write drama. That way I can work with a lot of pretty girls."'

But his brainiac past didn't help his acting. After a few bit parts (notably a cross- dressing FBI Agent in Twin Peaks) and almost getting the Woody Harrelson role in White Men Can't Jump, he got his first break in 1993 in Kalifornia, a psycho road movie with Brad Pitt.

After the unparalleled success of The X-Files, he was quickly dubbed a premillennial sex icon. Later he predictably became the Thinking Woman's Sex Symbol and then "a sex addict", according to The Sun. "It doesn't bother me," he says, "but if my mother sees it, it gets embarrassing."

His sex life was impressive. After cultivating a string of nubile(ish) actresses including Maggie Wheeler and Mimi Rogers, the man Gillian Anderson calls "catnip for women" finally plumped for the not-so-unlovely Téa Leoni whom he married after a picosecond romance.

But of course this still hasn't quashed expectation of an FBI-wedding for him and his co- star, on or off-screen. The reality is hard but fair - the two work but don't play.

"I don't socialise with Gillian just because we're working together all the time," he says. "You can't describe our relationship as `like' or 'dislike'. We've been thrown together, two people who don't know each other and forced to spend more time together than married people do."

Six has landed

And now The X-Files rolls towards its sixth gargantuan season, beginning last month in the US, scheduled for Sky in the UK at the beginning of 1999. It's starting under a cloud after the tabloids branded Duchovny as "infantile" and "whimsical". Apparently he'd forced the show to be moved to LA and upset the fans by describing his chief motivation for staying on as "money".

It highlights his ambivalent relationship with the show, a subject he is happy to talk about. "Each morning I drive to work with my dog, Blue," he says. "When we get to within a half-mile of the set, she starts jumping up and down and getting all excited. I start getting depressed. I'm trying to learn from her."

But even after 117 episodes, his character remains endearing and watchable: a combination of youthful Doctor Who and old-school cop, with hunches and clues. He downplays his role with monotonous delivery and dead-pan poker face. He leaps from one obsessive compulsion to another. He is stubborn but witty. He unblinkingly battles blood-sucking Goths one week and beast women from New Jersey the next. And he gets into plenty of fist fights (which he always loses).

"I don't know if you notice in the show, but I drop my gun a lot," he points out, demonstrating the cool distance he keeps from the ubergeeky leanings of the programme. "That's because I can't actually kill anything - if I did I'd have evidence."

What distinguishes Duchovny from his fellow Hollywood showmen is his irreverence. He speaks his mind and is happy to play around with his celebrity status. "People send me wedding invitations. I just think, how odd," he says. "Why don't I show up and get drunk and try to fuck the bride?" Why not indeed.

McCandless, David. January/February 1999. "Like An X Machine." Stuff for Men.