The X-ceptional David Duchovny
"Cable Guide" November 1998
by Ian Spelling
The truth is out there.
"I get tired of the X-files." Admits restless series star David Duchovny.
"You've seen it in certain interviews where I denigrate the show and everybody
that has anything to do with it. That's just me getting testy. It's my way
of saying. 'I can do more. Give me a chance to go and do it.'
"There's been no time to do the movies I want to do," continues the New York-born
heartthrob whose film credits prior to hitting it big on the small screen
include The Rapture, Working Girl, Kalifornia and Beethoven. "I don't have
a chance to do Batman--not that I'd want to--or some other big film with
a polished script and a three month shooting schedule. So the X-files has
been my life for five years, and I sometimes chafe at that.
Odds are, Duchovny's chafing was soothed--at least temporarily--by the healthy
83 million-plus raked in at the box office by the show's theatrical adventure.
The action-packed flick tracks FBI agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana
Scully (Gillian Anderson) through a tale of human-alien hybridization, a
swarm of bees and an audience-teasing near-miss kiss between the lovelorn
heroes. Duchovny, in fact, was downright pleased with The X-files movie.
"It did what it was supposed to do," notes the 39 year old, "which was to
stand alone as a movie for those who've somehow stayed away from the series
and to also be enjoyable to die-hard fans. I liked the idea of collusion
between certain people on Earth and alien conspirators. I liked the idea
that Mulder's search for the truth may not be what's best for the planet,
that he actually may be screwing things up when all wants to do is find the
truth." Speaking of screwing things up, Duchovny's chances of having two
hit films back-to-back were shot to hell thanks to 1997's Playing God, in
which Duchovny costars alongside Angelina Jolie (HBO"s Gia) as a self-destructive
surgeon who is strong-armed into healing the cronies of counterfeiter bad
guy Timothy Hutton. "I shot Playing God in six weeks," offers Duchovny about
the film's unhealthy performance at the box office. "It was perceived as
a big-budget movie and it was not. It was a $6 million movie we shot in a
small window of time, which was one reason it didn't come out fully formed.
I don't want to make that mistake again."
Offscreen, Duchovny--who earned a B.A. from Princeton and an M.A. from Yale,
both in English Literature--made no mistake last year by marrying fellow
thespian Téa Leoni, with whom he spent much of the summer relaxing.
So taken with married life was Duchovny that he was even successful in playing
God and asking that filming for the X-files TV series be relocated from Vancouver
to Los Angeles in order to accommodate his desire to be closer to his home
and wife, who last month announced she's pregnant. "Now, I've just got to
work on being a husband," quips the Golden Globe award-winning actor. "I
never really thought of myself as the marrying type until I got married,"
adds the elated ex-bachelor, on whom Leoni has had a deeper impact than even
he probably imagined. "It's very comfortable having Téa there for
me, and you can never underestimate the comfort of having someone there for
you."
And ain't that the truth.
