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TV Guide
GREAT
EXPECTATIONS
Nov. 15th-21st
by Daniel Howard Ceron
TV Guide visits the ultrasecret set of the X-Files movie and
returns with a highly classified preview
It's late afternoon
in the Mojave Desert. The temperature is a scorching 110 degrees,
and progress on the first-ever, highly secretive X-Files feature
film, due out next June, is slow. After waiting two hours for the
crew to set up just the right lighting, David Duchovny and Gillian
Anderson, who play FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, emerge
from their trailers in their tailored G-men suits to film a scene.
Behind them a wind machine blows, while a crew member dumps handfuls
of dirt into it.
"I don't know, Mulder, I don't see any
evidence of an archeological or any other kind of dig site,"
Anderson says, surveying the desert expanse as the camera rolls.
Gazing at the image in director Rob Bowman's monitor, it's startling
to see Scully and Mulder framed by a panoramic vista rather than the
tight confines of a TV set.
"This is where he marked on the
map, where he said those fossils were unearthed," Duchovny says.
They make the transition into talk of deteriorated fossils, viruses,
and chemical tests -- not much here for an eager reporter determined
to learn about the movie.
No expense has been spared in
shielding creator Chris Carter's secrets from what he describes as
the "rabid interest" in the $60 million film. Scripts are printed in
red ink on red paper so they can't be photocopied. Each one is
numbered, and the recipient's name stamped on it. Those who read it
sign nondisclosure agreements. Supporting players were given only
their scenes to read. And visitors not wearing passes around their
neck are immediately escorted away.
Sitting on a picnic
bench in a specially constructed -- and unexplained -- grassy oasis,
the 41-year-old Carter takes time out to talk to a visitor with a
pass. "This movie is a chance to blow the series open," says the
X-Files creator, who is attempting an unparalleled feat in TV
history: He will have the cliff-hanger of this season's The X-Files
lead directly into the movie. "I could have taken this idea for the
movie and incorporated it into the TV series, but I thought it
should be an event. My plan has always been for the series to get
better and better, for it not to suffer that entropic effect that TV
series often suffer in the fifth season. I feel that if we are
heading toward this event, which is the movie, then we are moving
toward something, rather than any sense that we are fading away."
The X-Files (Fox, Sundays, 9 P.M./ET) shows no signs of
fading. Ratings last season were the highest yet, with a weekly
average of nearly 20 million viewers. And if Carter's plan works,
the show and the movie should dovetail perfectly. "You hold back and
hold back and hold back, and now you have a chance to give a lot of
big answers to what the series has set up," he says. "You want to do
it well, and you want to do it big, and you want to do it carefully,
and you want it done artfully. This is our opportunity to do that
with more time and more resources, taking advantage of the newer
technologies out there."
The confidentiality surrounding the
X-Files movie is almost impenetrable; even the title is a mystery.
The film was code-named "Blackwood" most of the summer after a
fictional Texas town in the film. Then last month, word had it that
the movie had been named "X-Files Fight the Future." A week later TV
Guide learned that the name would be changed yet again.
Regardless of what the X-Files movie is called, here's what
we know: It opens with the bombing of a Dallas office building. The
feature's plot reportedly involves the Elders, a secret group --
FBI, among them -- who meet in periods of crisis and influence world
events. Central to the story are the personal quests of Mulder and
Scully. Their search for the truth. Their need to uncover a
conspiracy. And the movie will deal with the abduction of Mulder's
sister. Most of the series' best-known recurring characters are
involved -- Mitch Pileggi (FBI assistant director Skinner), William
B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man), John Neville (Well-Manicured Man),
and the trio of Dean Haglund, Tom Braidwood, and Bruce Harwood (The
Lone Gunmen).
One other thing is clear: Everyone involved is
taking it very seriously. "To me, it's like the fulfillment of a
boast we have made all along, which is that we are doing 24 episodes
a year of feature-quality work," says Duchovny. "Now it's time to
put up or shut up."
Even though they're playing the same
roles as in the series, Duchovny and Anderson say the experience of
shooting a big-budget movie has been different. On the TV show, "the
actors are the focus of the day," Duchovny says, "because we have
pages to shoot. Here, it is much more technical. Like any big-action
moviemaking, it's not about the actors, it's not about the
performance. There is the challenge. You have to stay on top of it."
Anderson agrees. "In the beginning I thought there was going
to be a lot of differences," she says. "I put a lot of pressure on
myself to make it bigger and better. And then I realized that if
anything, I just had to make it smaller, because you're so much
bigger on the screen."
On-screen, things may be coming
together, but behind the scenes, getting the X-Files movie off the
ground was often a touch-and-go process. Guarantees and financial
negotiations -- including Anderson's demand for pay equal to
Duchovny's reported $4 million salary -- were required to secure the
services of both actors, who would have preferred to star in their
own movies. In addition, talks are under way to move The X-Files
from its Vancouver home to Los Angeles after this season, which has
created unrest among the loyal Canadian crew members. "Being there
the first three years was probably beneficial because you had a
Spartan attitude," says Duchovny, who wants to be in Los Angeles to
be near his wife, The Naked Truth's Téa Leoni. "You didn't have your
friends to distract you. You didn't have your normal hangouts to
distract you. Basically, you were a working machine. It also served
us well in that we weren't exposed to any of the hype on a regular
basis, which made the show great. But now...you know? That time is
past. We have all changed."
Duchovny's not alone in his
desire to relocate. "I think that is the interest of David's and
Chris's and mine," Anderson says diplomatically. "I think we are all
counting on that taking place. I love Vancouver. I think it's a
beautiful city. But it is not and never has felt like home. Los
Angeles feels like home."
The priority in Anderson's life is
her 3-year-old daughter, Piper, who spends every day on the set,
supervised by a nanny. "It is challenging," says Anderson, 29, as
she relaxes in her air-conditioned trailer during a break. "It's
hard to make the choice to work on the script because you have a
challenging scene coming up when I'd rather play with her." (Split
from her husband, former X-Files art director Clyde Klotz, Anderson
now dates actor Rodney Rowland.)
Any perception of Anderson
as a secondary cast member on the show officially ended in
September, when she won an Emmy as best actress in a drama series.
Her paycheck also recently increased, and she now makes as much as
Duchovny, a reported $100,000 per episode. Though her failure to
recognize her X-Files colleagues during her acceptance speech caused
a stir, Anderson quickly made amends by placing full-page ads in The
Hollywood Reporter and Variety warmly thanking Carter and Duchovny
for their support and inspiration.
Could it be that the
stars are simply being worn down from the tough schedule? Both
actors have contracts that tie them to the series for seven seasons,
and Duchovny at times sounds as if he regrets having signed up for
so long. "You come up against your own imaginative limits," he says.
"Every year, every month, every day, there is a new psychic
challenge for you. I have just come out of resenting the fact that I
have to play Mulder again this summer into the happiness of trying
to make a great movie and then backsliding a little in resenting the
time it was taking away from me."
Duchovny attempted to
expand his repertoire and kick off a feature-film career this fall
with his first starring role in a major release since The X-Files
took off. But the thriller, "Playing God," in which he played a
defrocked surgeon who reluctantly goes to work for the mob, received
generally weak reviews and did poorly at the box office. It's not
surprising, then, that Duchovny would be open to the idea of X-Files
movie sequels -- "If the responsibility wasn't too great. Like every
five years or so would be nice. I don't want it to be my career,
which is what it turns into the more you keep doing it. It's not
about the money. It's not about the fame at all. It's really about
fulfilling something within yourself that has nothing to do with the
show. You have to find a way to make your existence on the planet
worthwhile to yourself creatively."
THE END |
Transcript appears courtesy of TVGuide, copyright © All Rights
Reserved
Transcript appears here courtesy of GAWS. |
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