By Lucy Sweeney
June 2001

Having finally won his freedom from The X-Files, David Duchovny is keen to prove he’s more than just paranoid FBI agent. So why’s he fighting aliens in his new movie? Lucy Sweeney finds out.

Both parties may say otherwise, but there’s no doubt that David Duchovny’s departure from The X-Files got a little nasty.

Having long expressed a desire to hand in his badge and let FBI paranormal agent Fox Mulder finally walk gracefully into the sunset, it took a lawsuit against the show’s creator, Chris Carter, for David Duchovny to finally get his wish. The case was settled two years ago, and the show’s most recent season will be his last. So, just how happy is Duchovny to be a free from the weekly slog of The X-Files?

“I have mixed emotions about that,” muses the 40-year old actor, in London this week to promote his new movie, Evolution. “I’m not yet out of the weekly slog of it, because we just finished the eighth season – of which I was a part of – and I wouldn’t have gone back to work until August on the next season normally. So when August comes around, and I’m not doing it, then I will be out of.

“I just miss the emotional side of it. I did it for eight years, made some really good friends, and I kind of grew up with the show. It was a big part of my life. Like any family situation, really.”

That Duchovny now has his own family to think about – having married actress Tea Leoni in 1997, with their first child, daughter Madeline West, born two years later – something that no doubt played a part in his determination to escape The X-Files. Of course, there was also the little matter of a burgeoning movie career, a career that had effectively been put on hold by the demands of chasing aliens every week.

Having made his mark in such movies as 1993’s Kalifornia (acting alongside Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis) and, em, 1992’s Beethoven, Duchovny is now keen to resume his short affair with the big screen. Earlier this year, he offered up the dismal romantic comedy Return To Me (co-starring the increasingly desperate Minnie Driver), and now it’s the far more likeable Evolution. In Ivan Reitman’s smart comedy, Duchovny plays disgraced Pentagon hotshot-turned-smalltown college professor Ira Kane, who, along with fellow teacher Harry Blocks (Orlando Jones), discovers a rapidly evolving alien life form. When the government bullishly take over their find, the two set out to save the world from being overrun with nasty, gnashing E.T.s.

For a man who’s trying to get away from playing an alien-chasing FBI agent, taking on the role of an alien-chasing ex-FBI agent does seem a little weird though. Heck, he’s even got Julianne Moore as a redheaded Pentagon sidekick.

“Yeah, I guess there are some strong similarities here,” laughs Duchovny, “but I was sold by the fact that I wanted to do a broad comedy. It was an opportunity to work in a style that I don’t do very often, and a style that I admire. To me, the coincidences were superficial anyway. Besides, it’s not like I’m trying to run away from anything.” So Duchovny has no fear of falling victim to The William Shatner Curse?

“What, and be known as Fox Mulder for the rest of my life?” he replies. “I don’t really think about it. I really don’t think William Shatner is all that upset anyway with being known as Captain Kirk everywhere he goes; it’s a role that’s certainly been good to him. But I don’t really think about my career that way. I feel blessed having landed a role like Mulder, but I’m ready to move on now. I want new challenges, new sensations.”

Of course, comedy isn’t all that new a sensation for Duchovny, having displayed a fine line in self-deprecation when he appeared as Fox Mulder in The Simpson’s celebrated X-Files spoof, The Springfield Files. And then there was the little matter of throwing his sexual orientation into question when he appeared as himself in the American chatshow spoof The Larry Sanders Show. For someone once regarded as a contender to Warren Beatty’s crown as Hollywood’s most dedicated raving heterosexual, Duchovny’s recurring effeminate role on The Larry Sanders Show proves the man definitely has a sense of humour.

“I like to think so,” he smiles. “Even on The X-Files, for me, much of the time, that was a comedy. You’ve got these two people chasing aliens and supernatural phenomena all over America; don’t tell me that’s not funny. Unfortunately, not everyone saw the joke.”

Of course, there are those who believe that there really are little green men out there. And they’re coming to take us away, ha, ha.

“Yeah, well, I’m afraid I’m not one of the believers,” states Duchovny, who’s plainly been asked if he believes in aliens many, many times. “Something tells me that someone, somewhere would have come up with some solid evidence by now. Or at least a good deathbed confession. I’m not saying there aren’t little green men out there… actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying. I just think, if they really existed they would have called us by now. Or at least left us a note.

“Maybe they just don’t believe in us.”

Article courtesy of oceanfree.net.