David Duchovny has spent most of the last four years playing FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, and he's not really complaining about it. He's just a little tired.
"I wouldn't want anybody else to [play Mulder]," admits Duchovny. "I love the character and I love the show, which is why it's a misinterpretation when it's said that I'm burned out. I am, but it's not because I don't like the character or the show. It's just basically belly-aching."
After four season of living to X-tremes — filming an average of 14 hours a day on the weekly X-Files TV series, taking time out to star in the upcoming feature film, Playing God, and then spending several months on a film set making the X-Files movie, Duchovny admits that sometimes it's hard not to ignore the alarm clock in the morning.
"When I go to work and I'm tired, I can't say 'The kids need me today, the kids need Mulder'," Duchovny explains during a break from filming. "It's not like that.
"It's that I've said that I will be here, and I will keep my commitment and I will try to have fun and do the best that I can do. To me that is a commitment to the fans, indirectly."
Besides his personal commitment to do his best, what moves Duchovny to keep those Mulderisms coming?
"The money," says the transplanted New Yorker with a laugh. "It's pride, really," he counters, more seriously. "When it becomes less creatively new, which it can be after four years, it's about pride in doing your job well."
And no one can say he hasn't put his nose to the grindstone. "The first year was physical survival, seriously," recalls Duchovny. "I had never worked that kind of schedule, and I don't think anybody should. I don't think it's conducive to creating.
"The second year was about survival, and actually getting some enjoyment out of the work, knowing that I could survive," he says. "The third and fourth years became about doing the best work that we could.
"The fifth year? I think I'm just going to have somebody drive me along the way," the actor says with bemused sigh.
But what does Duchovny think about the ultimate unsolved mystery? Will the fifth season be The X-Files' last?
"I would prefer it if it was, but there are other forces in motion."
