Fear doesn't seem to come easily to David Duchovny.

He's not afraid to admit he wants to spend more time with his wife, not afraid to wear fluffy, white hotel-issued slippers to an interview and especially not afraid of the name that freezes every television actor who wants to be a movie star.

"Everybody keeps saying, 'What about David Caruso?'" says the star of Fox TV's "The X-Files."

"Well, what about David Caruso?"

What about him? Well, he's the prototype hot TV actor who found himself out of his depth in film and returned, newly humbled, to the small screen.

With Duchovny trading on his television success this month for his first starring movie role as Dr. Eugene Sands in "Playing God," the name keeps coming up.

Duchovny quickly tosses it aside. Caruso's experience, he believes, has less to say about the movie marketability of television actors than it does about the danger of making bad choices, and bad movies.

The public will judge whether "Playing God" was a bad choice. Many critics already think so.

In the film, Sands loses his license to practice medicine because, his brain addled by drugs, he messes up an operation and his patient dies. He's offered the chance to be a doctor again — to play God — by mobster Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton).

The situation soon spirals out of control into a "Pulp Fiction"-like farce. There's a sultry love interest Claire (Angelina Jolie), car chases, plenty of blood and the requisite cheesy 1970s song for the soundtrack — "Jive Talking."

Duchovny was attracted to Sands' tragic flaws, to his struggles with drugs and a shattered career. He wanted the movie's focus to be more on the doctor's moral choices while director Andy Wilson wanted a thrill ride.

"Andy and I collided every day," Duchovny says. "As a result of that, I think it's a better film."

Judging by the final product, Wilson seemed to win most of the battles. The chilly critical response suggests Duchovny should have, and points out the danger of creating a movie without a unified artistic vision.

The New York Times said the movie "wants so desperately to be stylishly hard-boiled that it runs wildly amok. In addition to the ridiculously high blood count, the movie heaves and strains with overripe dialogue and acting that veers between somnambulism and hysteria with nothing in between."

Duchovny may be fortunate he's keeping his day job at least a year longer than he had expected.

This was the plan: Make this his fifth and last TV season as FBI agent Fox Mulder and release "The X-Files" movie in the summer of 1998, creating a film franchise that could return dependably every few years.

During filming of that movie late this summer, show creator Chris Carter decided to come back for an extra year next fall. His lead actor, contractually obligated to a sixth season, will almost certainly be with him.

Duchovny understands. "We're a huge money-making machine for the Fox network, and they don't want us to stop," he says.

While he doesn't dread going to work, he admits it's becoming a grind. Duchovny doesn't want "The X-Files" to meet the same fate as "Northern Exposure," a groundbreaking and popular series that steeply declined in its last year.

He's ready to devote all of his energy to movies.

"As a lifestyle and an artistic style, movies are superior to doing television because you get to change jobs and change roles," the 37 year-old actor says. "You don't have to work 10 months out of the year. You get to work six months out of the year, which everyone would do if they had the chance."

His contract doesn't necessarily mean Fox Mulder will be back next year, though.

Duchovny is testing his power as a two-time Emmy nominee by threatening to walk out if the show's film site isn't moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles. The newlywed wants to be near his wife, Téa Leoni, star of NBC's comedy, "The Naked Truth."

"I think it's time to make the lives of the people who do the show more livable," he says. The decision will change the lives of dozens of people who are involved in the production besides himself.

If the pressure is getting to Duchovny, he doesn't show it while sipping water in a hotel suite. He seems to think it will all work out.

"The X-Files" premieres late this fall, on Nov. 2, because filming next summer's movie stretched into September.

Its devoted fans must wait another week to see if Fox Mulder was actually killed in last season's final episode, as it appeared. It's a good bet he'll survive — they're paying him for a year of acting, after all — and the Internet has buzzed with theories of how he'll make it.

Duchovny says he hasn't surfed through the Web sites created by fans of the show, including one created by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to David Duchovny.

"That made me scared," he says, "because I wondered who was being so cruel that they needed a whole Web site to protect me."

He says he's proud the show has attracted so many devoted fans. He says it creates a sense of community for people.

"I think it's warranted," he says. "I think it's a really good show. I understand why people gravitated toward it. It's different. It's a one-of-a-kind show and a one-of-a-kind phenomenon. I can't say I knew it was going to happen, but in retrospect I can understand why.

"I just think we're like a touchstone. People can talk to each other about the show and two minutes later they're just talking to each other."