We Talk X-Files with Duchovny

We recently had a chance to sit down with X-Files and Californication star David Duchovny to chat about his latest venture into the world of Mulder and Scully as X-Files: I Want to Believe hits Blu-ray and DVD. Check out the interview below for some teasing tidbits on a possible third X-Files film and the eventual third season of Californication.

IGN: Was it difficult coming back into the role after so long away?

DUCHOVNY: Because there were so many people who were involved from the beginning – specifically Chris Carter and Gillian Anderson and Frank Spotnitz – we all had developed a shorthand. I think if we did it twenty years from now, we would have stepped into it in the same kind of way. We all know how to communicate to each other how and when it's working and what we want to do with a particular moment. Having said that, the first day on set of any movie is stange and unnatural. With this one, it was odd because there was a sense of d?j? vu and a sense of not wanting to make a mockery of what we've done before and honor it and expand it.

IGN: Was the chemistry with Gillian there from the start, or did it take some time to get back up to speed with the characters?

DUCHOVNY: How many hours of Mulder do we have? A couple hundred? To be able to work on filling up the six years in between, or to be able to create a new kind of relationship between the two characters was part of what made it interesting...It was this idea of trying to take them into another place in their lives. Just as we all age, I thought it would be interesting to allow these characters to grow and not set them in stone…Both Gillian and I have gotten so much more confident, certainly since the first year of the show and especially since it ended. We've done so many other things and stretched in other ways, aside from the shorthand that we have, there was this added excitement of, "Wow, we're both doing very, very different things here."


IGN: To your point of having hundreds of hours spent with Mulder…When you play a character that much and for that long is there ever a malaise that sets in? Are you as invested in the character and the mythology as much today as you were when it began?

DUCHOVNY: I'm just as invested, but in a different way. I'm invested in the evolution of the concepts and the characters, but it's not a matter of life and death to me – it's not even a matter of career – but it's interesting to grow the characters and their relationships over a span of years. That's an interesting artistic investment. Malaise, yes, malaise would set in during the course of the show, which I think is inevitable when you do any long-running show. Especially one as time-intensive as the X-Files…But coming back after six years, everybody was happy to be there. Nobody was bitching like we used to bitch. It was only gonna take ten weeks, instead of ten months.

IGN: It's rare that a TV show ever comes back after its final episode, but science and culture have changed considerably since the X-Files went off the air. Could you ever envision returning with a revamped version of the show, especially considering that the original series finale left so much open?

DUCHOVNY: With me in it? No, probably not…For me to take it back to the serious, series grind of the ten-month, twenty-two episode structure, I just can't imagine in this stage of my career or my life, committing that kind of time and energy away from my family. I definitely see a place for the show. I can see the Next Generation. Maybe they can come visit me every now and then and I could give them some sage advice, but I'd love to just continue to do an X-Files movie every now and then.

IGN: What were your thoughts on coming back without a mythology story? And do you feel it's necessary, if there's a third film, to return to that aspect of the show?

DUCHOVNY: I think that's really the bread and butter of the show. The reasoning behind not making this particular film a part of the mythology was to try not to alienate people who didn't know the show…I don't think they thought they could just count on people knowing enough about it to want to come and see. They really had to think, "How do we make a movie that stands alone, where you don't need to know too much to enjoy it?" The first way to alienate people is to put aliens in it. Then they're gonna think, "Oh, I gotta know stuff; I've gotta study." But I think what we realized from the performance of this movie, which was disappointing to us, certainly…The positive thing that we learned was, first, don't open the week after Batman, and secondly, that the core audience is actually there. And if we had trouble, it was in reaching a new audience…But it was always the case that we'd go back and do some alien stuff, and I think that the performance of this movie showed that we still have a core audience that's interested in that story.

IGN: If you did go back to the mythology, especially in light of the alien envasion plotline, do you ever fear that it might give way too much to hardcore science-fiction, or do you think it's possible to still keep the smaller, conspiratorial nature of the show?

DUCHOVNY: I think that there's certainly ways for Chris and Frank to figure that out. That might be the fun problem, the limitation set on the next idea, which is always a drag at first but actually provides a spurt of creativity. The real problem will be competing ideas that have been influence by X-Files. Everybody's gonna want a 2012 alien movie!

IGN: Can you talk a bit about the future of Californication? It's such an intimate show that I would imagine it's difficult to find new situations and circumstances to keep the characters fresh, especially with the on-again-off-again relationship between Hank and Karen. Any hints about where the show is headed in its next season?

DUCHOVNY: I don't know! Tom Kapinos, who is solely the driving story-force, would have just started writing yesterday. I know he has some ideas that he hasn't shared with me about where it's gonna go. I've always said, "This is where I want it to end." That's why the first season ended where it did. The nature of cable, you don't know whether you're picked up until long after you stop. And both Tom and I are attached to an ending that we had at the same time, very synchronistic. The first season ended with the happy ending because we didn't know. Every season has to be the last, which is unfortunate, but I have no clue what the next year will be like. But you'll have some clue after the last episode. I wouldn't tell you if I knew, but thankfully, I don't know!

Source: IGN.com