Role's 'moral trajectory' drew him to film

David Duchovny is calling from an airplane, which seems to fit: Here's the star of "Playing God," calling from the heavens; the star of the UFO-obsessed "X-Files," calling from the skies.

And sounding for a moment very much like an alien, thanks to a phone problem. Apparently, it's a problem at his end, too.

"You scared me there," Duchovny jokes after the glitch fixes itself. "You sounded like R2-D2."

It's a Sunday afternoon, five days before the opening of "Playing God," Duchovny's first theatrical film in four years and his first since "The X-Files" became an extraterrestrial phenomenon. He's calling from his LA-to-New York flight because it's the only free space on a game board of interviews that, over two days, will include guest stints with Howard Stern, David Letterman, Rosie O'Donnell and Conan O'Brien.

"It's so filled up that I only realize how nuts it is when I actually get a day off and I don't recognize myself and I don't know what to do with myself," Duchovny says. "I need to go into a decompression chamber or something."

In "Playing God," Duchovny plays a character in an almost permanent state of decompression Eugene Sands, a drug-addicted, discredited doctor who gets mixed up with a peroxided mobster (Timothy Hutton) and FBI agents.

Duchovny chose the role largely because it's a far cry from Fox Mulder, the alien-chasing, conspiracy-battling FBI agent he plays on "The X-Files."

Mulder, who teams with his more skeptical partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) on bizarre cases, is driven; Eugene is on cruise control.

Mulder knows the truth is out there; Eugene finds that a drug mixed into a glass of milk is truth enough for him.

Mulder trusts no one except Scully; Eugene will trust you, as long as you can help feed his habit.

Eugene does have one thing in common with Mulder, though: a well-defined dark side that attracted Duchovny to the role.

"I was interested in the moral trajectory of the character, I was interested in specific aspects of doctoring, and doctoring outside the establishment," Duchovny says.

"I was really interested in the melodramatic aspects of it. I like the character. I liked his journey."

The movie has had a melodramatic journey of its own.

Originally scheduled for a January '97 release, it was dropped by Columbia, its original studio.

Disney's Touchstone Pictures picked it up, and has been promoting it heavily since summer.

But it also had been delayed during production.

"We didn't really have a script set in stone, and as you can probably tell from the movie, it's really a tonal problem," Duchovny says.

"I had come to it for the dramatic aspects of the character and in kind of the emotional terms of the character.

"The director and the production company got very interested in the adventure aspects of it I guess the 'Pulp Fiction' aspect of it. And that, for me, was a struggle, 'cause the movie turned into something else."

But Duchovny says he's happy with the result, which he sees as the happy outcome of his views colliding with those of director Andy Wilson, making his feature-film debut after winning a CableACE Award for directing three episodes of the original "Cracker" series.

Release delays weren't the only nerve-wracking part; Duchovny had only a week off between shooting "The X-Files" and beginning work on "Playing God" not much time to delve into his character.

"Any role you play is very terrifying in that by the time you figure it out, you've probably got three days left to shoot, and you're thinking, 'Oh, my God,' " he says.

"Then again, that's a blessing that the part of your mind that figures that out is not the part of your mind that helps you be a good actor. The rational part of your mind figures it out."

Philpot, Robert. Fall 1997. "Duchovny explores dark side." Fort Worth Star-Telegram.