By Kevin Smith for viewaskew.com
January 19, 2001

The day becomes an epochal one in the Smith household, for it's the day that I'm to meet with David Duchovny.

I'm a fan of the man, going back to The Rapture, in which he gives the most haunting delivery of a single line ever in film. Ever. David plays a swinger who eventually settles down with a Born Again Christian (portrayed by Mimi Rogers), and the scene I'm talking about is the one in which a disgruntled employee David's character recently laid off returns to the workplace with a shotgun. The guy's icing people left and right, and he comes to David's office, wielding his George W. menacingly. David says simply "I have a daughter." Following that, he's blown away. I can't do the delivery justice here in print. Check the flick out for yourself and see what I'm talking about.

Of course, I'm an X-Files fan as well (indeed, I have two Yellow Labrador Retrievers named Scully and Mulder). But there is no greater casual X-Files fan on this planet ("casual" meaning a fan who won't whip him or herself for missing an episode) than my loving wife, Jen. But more than an X-Files fan, she's a Fox Mulder fan. And more than that, she's a Duchovny fan. And when I say fan, I mean she had a little picture of David Duchovny in his tighty-whiteys (that she'd cut out of a magazine many moons prior to meeting me) in her wallet. We were well into the fifth or sixth month of wedded bliss before I'd eventually asked her to remove it, as... you know, we were married and all.

So the wife is going ape-shit about this meeting, which she's going to as well, running around the hotel room practicing her giggle and hair-flip. It's the only thing I've ever accomplished that she's impressed by, and she's all aflutter. What should she wear? Does she tell him about the dogs' names? Should I (meaning me) stay home?

It's quite emasculating, to say the least.

The meeting came suddenly. His agent called our casting mistress - having heard I was in town, doing the rounds - and said that David wanted to meet. Not necessarily to be in the movie, as he was doing an Ivan Reitman flick during the time we were to be shooting Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He just wanted to meet for the hell of it. They also sent over the episode of the Files he'd directed last season called "Hollywood A.D.", so that I could familiarize myself with his directorial efforts. It was unnecessary, as I'd not only already seen that episode when it aired (in fact, I'd watched it with great interest, due to the fact that an article in Entertainment Weekly made it sound like there were some minor plot similarities to what I was doing in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), but also his directorial debut on the show the year before (the great baseball episode with Jesse Martin; he of Law & Order fame). I'm up - way up - on the Duchovny oeuvre.

The Ivy in Santa Monica was to be the meeting place, and on the ride there, Mosier filled me in on what had went down with the ill-fated Kate Hudson New York meet-and-greet.

If you'll remember, Kate's new agent had suddenly informed us that a meeting we were supposed to have with the Almost Famous starlet was now not going to happen, and we were to, instead, simply offer her the part. I wanted to find out why the sudden shift, when her previous agent had scheduled a meet-and-greet with us a mere few days before. Was it that her new agent felt the white-hot Kate had bigger fish to fry, due to the amount of offers he'd been fielding since Cameron Crowe's flick hit the screens? Or was it something more sinister that accounted for the change of heart?

You see, the agent had read the script already. He's one of the few in town who had, solely because he's Ben's and Matt's agent, and Ben and Matt are in it. Since he's now also Kate's agent, this could mean that he'd judged the project as being beneath her (which, let's be honest, it is; but then, the flick's beneath even Mewes), and he was trying to remove us from Kate's periphery entirely. This irritated me to no end, because even if it's something he doesn't want Kate to do, Kate should be allowed to decide that for herself.

The question was moot, however, as Kate already had decided for herself, without needing to look at the script. Mosier had talked to the agent and was informed that Kate's just not really a fan. She doesn't hate the movies, but she doesn't like them either. She put the kibosh on the meeting.

Fair enough. Shit, she's not alone. There are many cats out there who don't like our flicks. And truth be told, she wasn't the best part of Almost Famous anyway. Jason Lee was (but then, I'm biased), and I've already got him in the picture.

That Kate's out of the running means that Heather Graham's casting has lost another obstacle. But I still want to meet Amy Smart before any offers are made. And beyond those two choices, Shannon Elizabeth remains a front runner (her meeting was just that good, and we continue to be impressed by her, even five days later)..

But none of that matters right now, because we're almost at the Ivy. Jen's decided she's not going to sit through the whole lunch. She'll shop for an hour and then "drop in" afterwards. Mind you, she's still trying to perfectly fashion her meeting with Duchovny (because that's what it's become: her meeting).

So Jen goes off to shop, and Scooter and I sit down at the Ivy and down some gumbo while we wait for the guy who plays the man who believes the Truth Is Out There. And after ten minutes, the Truth isn't Out There; it's standing in front of us, smiling, saying, "Hi, I'm David.

Continued in Next Week's column...

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This is my tenth column, and I'm celebrating my ability to do over a thousand words each week and still not relate anything even somewhat remotely revealing (or even somewhat remotely interesting) about Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Ah, the ability to say so much without saying much at all. When I'm done with this film crap, I'm heading straight for the political arena where this talent will, no doubt, serve me well (you heard it here first: 'Silent Bob' in 2008!).

So it's still Saturday, and David Duchovny has just joined Mosier and I at The Ivy in Santa Monica. It's a lunch during which Mosier says almost nothing, because Dave and I talk about religion and children for almost two hours. We both have new kids, and we both share a passion for the subject of faith. Mosier can lay claim to neither, so he mostly sits there, stirring his iced tea, wondering how two non-Mormons can discuss the Mormon belief system for as long as we do without laughing (at least, that's what I hope he's wondering).

Duchov and I dissect Christianity, Judaism, Satanism, and the rest of the 'isms. We've both written scripts about religion (me, Dogma; him, the X-Files episode "Hollywood A.D."), so we do an hour on that subject alone. Then we start in on our kids. Needless to say, Mosier's in Hell.

We gloss over Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back because Duchov wouldn't be available for any lead roles in our flick even if he was foolhardy enough to hitch his wagon to our imploding star. He's knee-deep in a flick called Evolution, and following that, he still has his remaining X-Files episodes to shoot before the potential actors strike. But his affinity for Dogma and his curiosity about Jason Mewes ("Where'd you find that guy? Is he really like that?") has him asking to read the script all the same. I promise to get him a copy.

It's at this point that my wife Jen shows up, after having been shopping in Santa Monica for an hour ('shopping' meaning 'killing time until she could bum-rush Duchovny'). She joins us and the subject of our dogs comes up. We now have to confess that our two yellow labs are named Scully and Mulder.

"Oh, that bums me out," David deadpans.

David deadpans a lot. He's a really funny and well-versed guy who I instantly love. There's no bullshit about him - no pretentious air that makes most actors and actresses insufferable. And when the subject of The X-Files finally can no longer be avoided, he indulges my fanboy-ism-ness and suffers through my Chris Farley-like probings along the lines of "Remember that time when Mulder was trying to find the truth, 'cause it was out there? That was awesome!". But I don't beat the topic into the ground, because I know personally that cult roles have a way of haunting a motherfucker (ask me how many times people point at me in the mall and say "Fly, fat-ass, fly!" Mind you, I'm only assuming here that they're reciting the line from Mallrats). Indeed, as we're waiting for our cars outside the restaurant, a guy walks by, points and says "Whoa! X-Files!" Without missing a beat, Duchovny offers "This is my life."

Then, once Duchov's car is pulled around by the parking attendant and he's about to go, the strangest thing happens: the man writes down his phone number and tells me to give him a call when I'm back in town. "Maybe we can get together with our kids, or just shoot the shit," he shrugs.

When I got back to L.A., I called David Duchovny, as instructed. He invited the wife and I and our baby to his house to chill with him and his wife ('Tea' something) and their adorable kid. Since he'd expressed interest in reading the script, I brought a copy with me to lay on him. Two days later, he called and said he laughed out loud reading it, which I took as a compliment, opting not to dig for further details as to whether he was laughing at it or with it. Duchov cleared up the mystery by saying he'd love to come aboard for a small role he fell in love with in the script.

I was floored. Needless to say, the wife doused her drawers.

So at press time, we're trying to make the schedule work in a way that'll allow the ever-busy David to come out and play. No promises here, because once he's finished with Evolution (the movie he's currently shooting), he has to go back to The X-Files. And as much as I'm salivating over having the brother in our picture, I'm not going to be the guy who fucks with Mulder showing back up on the Files. I like our movie a lot, but shit - I'm an X-fan first. Keep your fingers crossed that we can work it out.

Courtesy of viewaskew.com.