Ex-Files? DD interview. Long but a good read -- X-Philes World-X-Files Movie 2

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Date Posted: 08:41:11 04/02/00 Sun
Author: Scullystar
Subject: Ex-Files? DD interview. Long but a good read

David Duchovny speaks about leaving the show, and making it in the movies.
Cindy Pearlman
Chicago Sun-Times
4/1/00

Call it "The Ex-Files." In a strange way, David Duchovny is in the process of getting a divorce. He is dumping Fox Mulder. Mulder, of course, is the television character Duchovny has played for seven seasons on "The X-Files." Breaking up with him is hard to do.

Consider the separation agreement: Once his final "X-Files" wraps this May, Duchovny gets to keep his self-esteem and creative integrity. The Fox Network gets to keep Gillian Anderson, aka Agent Dana Scully, who has a year left on her contract.

In the end, Duchovny`s exit means "The X-Files" is left with the kind of mystery that Mulder and Scully would love to solve: the case of the missing leading man.

One person isn`t feeling alienated by all the strife. Next year poor Scully will find herself sinking into some gelatinous goo that`s really alien DNA. At any moment, she`ll be toast.

Duchovny rolls his eyes and retorts, "She`d better not yell out, `Who am I gonna call? I know! I`ll call Mulder.`

"That`s not happening. I`m outta there."

* * *

The truth is that David Duchovny plans to out Fox everyone who thinks television stars can`t make it on the big screen. He enters a plush suite in black slacks and a khaki T-shirt looking every bit the movie star.

He is trim, with sculpted muscles. There is not a line on his face. And his hair has been professionally coiffed to achieve that rugged "I just got off the range" look. (Yes, it gets windy walking from the limo to the hotel.) In other words, Duchovny is ready for his closeup.

Most startling: He`s ... gasp! He`s smiling.

The man who has spent seven years sulking over bubbling black tar, babies with tails and that annoying Cigarette Smoking man has a "what me, worry?" look on his handsome mug. Now that he`s unemployed, Duchovny is feeling downright giddy.

Saving mankind? Hey, not his problem anymore.

That`s not to say Duchovny isn`t a tad nervous about leaving the comforts of a steady paycheck and a prime-time TV slot (8 p.m. Sunday in Chicago on Channel 32).

"I`m scared," Duchovny says of leaving the series. "It`s comforting and easy for me to go to work on `The X-Files.` I get a lot of cash. I get approval for it. It`s a great show.

"But creatively it`s just not there. Just the idea of something new being around the bend makes me grin like crazy."

Back to that grin.

For a long time, Duchovny was known as an arrogant, sullen star. Some thought he was too smart to be a TV star with his pedigrees--a bachelor`s degree from Princeton and a master`s from Yale.

He even put down his series, once stating, "I assumed there was no way `The X-Files` would last. It wasn`t that interesting, and I thought it was silly. Obviously, I was wrong."

Others were wrong about Duchovny. In person, he isn`t the least bit difficult. And he`s usually the wittiest guy in the room, which doesn`t jibe with his image.

"Yeah, I`ve always had this problem of being conceived of as arrogant, but I never felt that way," Duchovny says. "I do have opinions. I will not play stupid to become a movie star. And I won`t tell you I love things because I`m supposed to sell them or play the game."

The game for Duchovny has changed radically over the last seven years. For starters, he has mellowed thanks to a stable personal life with wife Tea Leoni and baby daughter Mia.

That joy is why no topic is off limits. Take his wife giving birth 18 months ago.

"I was good in the delivery room, man," boasts Duchovny, uncharacteristically open. "The head was coming out and I wasn`t fainting. Everyone was like, `Don`t look at it! Don`t look at it! You`ll never want to make love to your wife again!` I was like, `Look at what I`ve seen on "The X-Files." Do you think I`m going to be fazed by a woman giving birth to a human child?` " Duchovny jokes.

These days Duchovny is laboring to give birth to a career as a movie star. The first push will happen Friday.

* * *

His new baby is "Return to Me," and it`s the story of a Chicago architect whose wife dies in an automobile accident. He signs away her heart to the organ donor program. Flash forward a few years and in an unbelievable twist of Hollywood fate his new girlfriend (Minnie Driver) is the recipient of ... beep, beep, beep.

The film is much more than a medical premise. Directed by Bonnie Hunt and set in Chicago, the movie is full of neighborhood joints and wisecracking characters who bring a different sort of heart to the project.

Duchovny dubs the whole thing "a romantic comedy without Julia Roberts, and I believe it`s the first one allowed to be made in the last 10 years without her."

Duchovny couldn`t wait to play a guy close to himself. A guy whose family--at least at this juncture--has never been kidnapped by aliens. A guy who . . . yes, smiles. "There was an innocence to this character and to this movie that I wanted to get back in touch with again," he says.

On location in Chicago, he got in touch with the locals. "I was staying at the Ritz-Carlton, and right down the street there was a little community center," Duchovny recalls. "I got into a pickup basketball game with Chicago cops. I played every Saturday. And we went out drinking a couple of times."

How did he do against our men in blue?

"Drinking or playing?" Duchovny shoots out.

Both.

"I played better than I drank."

And then there were his co-stars.

Hunt and co-star Jim Belushi could not resist. Hunt says, "We would wait until a very serious scene and then someone would scream, `I think I see a UFO in the distance. Wow, is that Scully?` "

"They`re just lame people," Duchovny says of his tormentors. "They`re just jealous of me, too."

* * *

Who wouldn`t be jealous? Duchovny seems to have it all. Wife. Baby. Bank account.

He figures none of it was meant to be. Start with Leoni. "The first time we talked on the phone, I thought, `What a chatterbox! This girl is not for me,` " he says.

And now?

"I`m just really lucky that she likes me. She`s so level-headed and real. She has great integrity and amazing priorities. Plus she`s a wonderful, incredible mother. Just such a caring, concerned woman. I can`t say enough about her."

He is finding fatherhood to be the ultimate challenge. "My daughter is in love with Tom Brokaw," he says, sounding hurt and bewildered. "She responds to him on the TV. She blows him kisses. . . . We`re going to have to stop now with this line of questioning. You`re hurting me now."

Doesn`t little Mia watch "The X-Files"?

"She doesn`t respond. It`s not like, `Oh, Daddy is on TV.` You can see it on her face. `Bring back Tom!` "

* * *

Born in New York City, Duchovny was a shy, withdrawn boy. Duchovny`s brother even went around telling people that young David was retarded.

"He didn`t actually believe I was retarded. It was a joke," Duchovny says, adding, "It`s not as vicious as it sounds. It`s not an abusive thing. He was just goofing on me the way brothers do."

Going to an all-boys high school didn`t help his confidence with the opposite sex. Duchovny says he went on a blind date as a high school freshman. He arrived at the dance, took one look at his date and went running out of there.

"She broke up with me on Monday. That was the first time I spoke to this girl. It was before Oprah, so she didn`t exactly say, `You don`t communicate.` She was like, `You know, you kinda have to talk to someone when you go out with them.` "

Instead, Duchovny immersed himself in his studies and planned on becoming an English professor. But when he was working on his Ph.D. ("Magic and Technology in Contemporary Fiction"), a casting agent noticed the handsome, quiet one and cast him in a Lowenbrau beer commercial. In 1990, he was cast as Denise the transvestite detective on "Twin Peaks." Where to go from there? Duchovny`s resume includes everything from "Beethoven" (1992) to "Kalifornia" (1993).

But it was "The X-Files" that changed his life--for better and worse.

"I hurt an eye playing basketball," Duchovny says. "The next week the National Enquirer reports that I`m blind. I`m not blind. Will it never end?"

* * *

The end is near. When "The X-Files" wraps in May for Duchovny, it might end for everyone else, too. Producers aren`t sure if the show will go on. Duchovny says it`s a moot point. "I think it`s stupid for the show to go on. Honestly, it`s all about money. It`s about making sausages and doughnuts," he says.

Speaking of money, last year Duchovny filed a lawsuit against the Fox Network and "X-Files" creator Chris Carter, seeking more money for past episodes.

"The lawsuit has nothing to do with the day-to-day working of the show," Duchovny is quick to state. "It has nothing to do with the crew and the actors. We make the show every day. The lawsuit is just business. I have a different view of my contract than they did. And when they have my view of my contract, then the lawsuit will be settled and not until then."

What about another "X-Files" flick?

"If they ain`t got no TV show, they will make money with the movies," Duchovny says.

Doesn`t he see "X-Files I, II, III" the equivalent of the "Lethal Weapon" franchise?

"Wait a minute. There are creative challenges still with the `Lethal Weapons.` There are many ways to go with that one. I loved `Police Academy 5.` It`s about the art, man. It`s about those unanswered questions," he says.

"Why are you laughing?" he asks.

But seriously, why would a guy trying to make a career transition go back to being Fox Mulder? Even on the big screen?

"Because it`s not television. And I wouldn`t want anybody else to play Fox Mulder. That`s the bottom line," Duchovny says. "And I do enjoy playing Fox. I just don`t enjoy playing it all year long. It`s not that I must get away from this character."

Scullystar

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Replies:

I enjoyed this. . . -- Islandgirl, 13:44:14 04/02/00 Sun
- I have no idea. It's Madeline West. I don't know where the Mia comes from. nim (NT) -- Scullystar, 14:18:48 04/02/00 Sun
Re: Wonderful--gives me a little hope for answers somewhere-somehow!NIM (NT) -- CW, 08:11:32 04/04/00 Tue