Scholar in the Rough
Rough Cut,
October 1997
Why we love David Duchovny
David Duchovny is known to millions of television viewers as the dedicated FBI agent Fox Mulder on the long-running "X-Files." The role has made him not only a household name but a sex symbol as well. Yet Duchovny is a versatile actor who's done everything from Lowenbrau commercials to starring in such diverse films as The Rapture, Beethoven and Chaplin. Duchovny is also something of an academic, having stopped just short of getting his Ph.D. in English literature from Yale to pursue acting instead.
His latest film, Playing God (his first since 1993's Kalifornia), has him portraying Eugene Sands, a doctor fallen from grace and thrust into the drug-ridden, ultra-violent underworld. The role is a departure from the highly moral stuff of which his Fox Mulder character is made, and should prove without a doubt that Duchovny can make the transition from little black box to big screen without a problem.
Spencer H. Abbott recently talked with Duchovny about Playing God, giving up academia for a life in front of the camera, and how he deals with being the "thinking woman's sex symbol."
You've no doubt been inundated by the media hounds, given the popularity of "X-Files" and the fact that this is your first film in almost five years. What's been the most frequently asked question that reporters have thrown at you?
"What did you do to research playing a doctor?" The answer is: I watched as much "ER" as I could.
Then I'll bypass that question and hit you with something from left field. Can you name at least one item that's currently residing in your freezer at home?
Yes. In fact, not only can I tell you what it is and why it's there, but it's got like a celebrity-bent to it. I have crusted-over Mango-Passion Fruit Tofuti left there by Kevin
Nealon, 'cause he stayed in my house while he did a movie of the week in Vancouver this summer.
Did he actually eat any of it?
Well, yeah, it's like half-eaten, so I haven't gone near it, but I haven't thrown it out either. Well, you know, it's his, I just don't want to throw it out. Maybe he still wants it.
You were studying to get a Ph.D. in English lit, and then you got bit by the acting bug. Do you have any regrets about not finishing?
Umm. Yeah, I mean I wish I had, you know? Of course, it would have been better to have finished it than not, but I was heading down a different path and it just didn't make sense. It takes so much work to do a dissertation. It takes at least a year and a half, probably two years of concentrated focus, and I just no longer had that. If I could have done it in my spare time I would have, but it's not that kind of discipline.
Did you go the standard route; four years B.A., two years M.A.?
I did more. I did four years B.A. and then I never was in an M.A. program. I was in a Ph.D. program, so I did four years in the Ph.D. program. So I have more than an M.A. Actually I have an
A.B.D., which means All But Dissertation, which is a big "But." I loved college because it was its own reality, completely separated from the 9-to-5 world…It's kind of like being on a TV show.
Is that what drew you to acting then? I mean, do you view acting as being its own microcosm of reality totally removed from the 9-to-5 world in much the same way that college is?
Well, it is and it isn't. School's a lot easier than being on a TV show. You've got a lot less work. I mean, acting on a TV show is removed from the 9-to-5, but the hours are a lot worse and the food is worse. So there's a lot of stuff about acting that is tougher than working a 9-to-5 job, 'cause it's really the hours and the grind of it. And then most people who work a 9-to-5 job don't get scrutinized by millions of people, which you could do without. But I think, as sick as it sounds, I got out of going to school because I wanted to have a real life. I wanted to experience real life. That's why I went into acting right after that [deadpan chuckle]. Apparently, I didn't want to experience real life. I was gonna say, from the neo-reality of school to the surreal world of acting. I'd say you pretty much bypassed experiencing "real life." Well, you know, you're gonna experience real life no matter where you are. It's gonna jump up and bite you in the ass no matter what you do. If we wanted to get really philosophical, real life is different for each individual, so there isn't one singular definition of what real life is.
In a similar vein, do you view acting as a job or an art?
I think it's both. I think any art form is also a job to you if you do that to pay the bills or make a living. It's not a hobby. And it's some kind of expressive form. You can nit-pick and call it an art or a craft or whatever. That's not that important to me. I know that it's tough. I know that some people can do it well and others can't.
Does it come easy to you?
Certain things come easy and certain things don't. I've got some strengths and I've got some weaknesses and I like to work on them both.
So what are your strengths and weaknesses?
I wouldn't say my weaknesses because I wouldn't want to give other people a clue. I used to say my weaknesses all the time, and then I found that people picked up on them like they thought of it — and I didn't like that. I try not to do that anymore. My strengths? I think I have a believability and I think I'm relaxed and I think people believe what I'm saying. I think I have a good ear for speech rhythms and patterns and I think I sound like a real person. So that's a good head start. The rest of it takes more work or less work, more thinking or less thinking, but you just tackle each problem as it comes.
In Playing God, Kalifornia and, of course, the "X- Files," all of those leading characters you portray have a certain level of morality. Are you naturally drawn to these kinds of characters?
Yeah, I think those issues are interesting. Especially this character — Eugene in Playing God — and also in Kalifornia, it was the idea of being given, as it's put in the movie, to be "a slave in heaven or a star in hell," and do what it is you do for a bad person or don't do what it is you do and drift aimlessly through life. And which is the moral choice? It's like the movie
Mesphisto, to put it into actors' terms. You had this wonderful actor who now had the misfortune of living in Nazi Germany. Now does he move where he can no longer act or does he stay in Nazi Germany and do what he loves to do and what he was born to do? These are easy questions to answer in retrospect, but they're not so…I wouldn't condescend to say I knew what I would do in that position. So I felt that was a very interesting mix.
Is that what drew you to the script for Playing God?
It was that and it was the portrayal of a character that I hadn't seen center a movie before. I'd seen him as a minor character, you know, the doctor that the mob goes to when they need a doctor and don't want to go to prison. I'd seen that as a minor character and I thought that that character could sustain a movie. It was an interesting enough character to tell the story of. And so, it was a combination of what we were just talking about and the fact that this was a new character that made me want to do the film.
After doing Fox Mulder for almost five years, do you ever fear that his character will bleed into your other acting endeavors?
I don't know. I mean, there's so much of me that I put into Mulder that I think it's inevitable that I will bleed into the other characters as well. So much of me is in Mulder and I'm not yet or may never be, may never want to be the kind of actor that transforms himself. You know, I'm more along the Nicholson line of 80 percent of every character I do is me and then you futz around with the other 20 percent. I don't go a 100 percent one way or the other. I'm sure somebody will make that accusation at some point, but again, there's nothing I can do about it.
Do you have any fear of being permanently typecast?
No. I just don't.
What about the old entertainment adage that TV can ruin your career?
Yeah it can, sure. But you know, again, these are all questions that can only be answered in retrospect, and we're not there yet.
I guess it really depends on the actor.
Yes it does. If Robert De Niro started in "Family Ties" or "Who's the Boss?," he'd still be Robert De Niro today.
This whole thing about you being a sex symbol, some even go so far as to call you "the thinking woman's sex symbol." How do you respond to that?
I guess, thank you. And, umm, it's just the symbol, it's not the real sex. The real sex, that comes at home.
