Theory of Evolution: David Duchovny Branches Out from The X-Files... A Bit...
By Ian Spelling May 2001

Alien organisms ride a meteor to Earth, quickly evolve and threaten to destroy mankind. And only a college professor, a women's volleyball coach and a fireman wannabe — accompanied by a disbelieving government epidemiologist — can save the world.

Such is the plot of “Evolution,” which is not a big, fat and funny episode of “The X-Files.” And that comes straight from the mouth of former “X-Files” star David Duchovny, who plays the college professor opposite Orlando Jones as the coach, Seann William Scott as the firefighter and Julianne Moore as the epidemiologist in the sci-fi comedy. Directed by Ivan Reitman of “Ghostbusters” fame, “Evolution” will open nationwide on June 8.

“I can't say I was overjoyed when I realized Ivan wanted me to do a movie with aliens,” Duchovny admits. “I was like, ‘Oh, s--t.' But it's not in any way similar to ‘The X-Files.' When you see the movie, you'll see that for yourself.

“With the exception of specific comedy episodes, like the ones Darin Morgan did or the episode (“Hollywood A.D.”) I wrote, ‘X-Files' is a super-serious, ponderous show that takes itself very seriously,” Duchovny explains. “It has to take itself seriously in order to make the preposterous reality that it's advancing work. “‘Evolution' is miles away from that.”

Duchovny and Reitman worked together once before, sort of. The actor played a supporting role as a villain in the 1992 family film “Beethoven,” which Reitman executive-produced.

The two men never met on the “Beethoven” set. One day, however, Duchovny got word that Reitman wanted him and Bonnie Hunt — who went on to direct Duchovny in “Return to Me” — to stop improvising lines. That didn't happen while shooting “Evolution.”

“Ivan had a little more respect for me this time around,” Duchovny says, laughing, as he speaks by telephone from the Manhattan apartment he shares with his wife, actress Tea Leoni, and their baby daughter. “On ‘Beethoven' he was just shutting down some day player who was trying to run away with his film.

“On this one,” he adds, “there was always a time at which Ivan would get what he needed and then say, ‘Go do whatever the hell you want to do — have a free one.' And a lot of those free ones ended up in the film. So Ivan is smart enough to get what he needs and then let the actors do what they think is right.”

Bottom line, Duchovny sounds pleased with the film.

“I was scared because, if you don't laugh, it doesn't work,” he says. “You can't come out of a comedy and say, ‘I didn't laugh once, but I thought it was really great.' I don't laugh easily, and I found myself laughing — not necessarily at myself, but at Orlando and Julianne and Dan Aykroyd and Ted Levine.

“I also liked the effects,” the actor adds. “There's a real imaginative array of creatures, from single-celled amoeba to worms to fish to rodents to lower primates to upper primates. There's not one gray alien — it's sort of a parallel evolution to what we've had on this planet. I found that to be pretty interesting.

“I just think it all comes together,” Duchovny says. “It's not going to change the world. It doesn't have pretensions to be anything other than a real fun, summer, ‘Ghostbusters' type of experience.”

The film will invade theaters only weeks after Duchovny's final appearance as Fox Mulder on “The X-Files,” the show that catapulted him to fame. When last seen, Scully (Gillian Anderson) was holding her baby, William, while Mulder planted a passionate kiss on her.

“It had been enough,” he says. “It was almost a decade of my life. It was a great series and a great opportunity for me. I was lucky enough to stretch as a writer and a director. Creatively, though, I'd reached the end of my rope as an actor.

“There comes a time when you have to move on,” Duchovny says. “The show could very well keep on going for 15 years, you know? I'd love to continue to do ‘X-Files' movies, to come back every now and then, but not as the sole focus of my professional life.

“I think it was time for me to step away.”

Some actors are proprietary about their work, and Duchovny is among them. He admits that part of him wanted to see the show end with Mulder's exit.

“But the more mature part of me realizes that this is a business, and everybody wants to continue to make money and be creative and do more shows and introduce new characters,” Duchovny says. “So you just have to talk to that 6-year-old inside you that's going, ‘It's my ball. I'm taking it and going home.'

“You have to say, ‘Well, it's everybody's ball at this point. Good luck to them.”'

(Ian Spelling is a New York-based free-lance writer.)

Article courtesy of The New York Times