David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson X Files Interview

DUCHOVNY AND ANDERSON RETEAM IN X FILES

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, X Files Interview by Paul Fischer.

It may be onr of the summer's most anticipated films of the year, at least for ardent fans of the Emmy winning TV series. The movie's title, I Want to Believe, refers to Duchovny's Mulder returning to the FBI to help solve the disappearance of an FBI Agent. The one clue is at the hands of a psychic paedophiliac priest [Billy Connelly]. At his side is the more cynical pragmatist, Scully [Anderson] ex-lover and partner. The pair seem as comfortable off screen as on. PAUL FISCHER reports.

Paul Fischer: Can you talk about getting back into these characters after a fiveor six year period?

David Duchovny: Well, I had two weeks before Christmas of basically running aroundand chasing Callum Rennie who plays the running bad guy that I chase allover the place. That took a good two full weeks of running even though Iknow it's only about ten seconds in the movie and then Gillian and I startedworking on it after Christmas break. The first two weeks I felt a littleawkward and I didn't really feel like I wanted to do longer scenes. I wasjust fine running around. Then as soon as Gillian and I started working andit was Mulder and Scully, then I kind of remembered what it was all aboutand that relationship kind of anchored my performance just as I think therelationship anchors this film.

Gillian Anderson: I had a similar experience. This feels so weird. Summertime. Ididn't have all the running around that David had to do, but I did have myown unfortunate beginning which was starting with one of the most difficultscenes for Scully in the film where it's later on in the script and she goesthrough a range of emotions in confronting Billy Connolly's character. Ijust had a really time for those first couple of days that that scene was. Ihad a really hard time just finding her, finding her voice. I think Imust've gone through ten other characters in the process of trying to get toher when I had assumed that I would be able to show up on the first day andit would just be there. It wasn't until I think day three when we got towork together, not just necessarily in a familiar environment which itreally wasn't, but in the environment of each other and the relationship andthat it kind of felt natural and familiar and I felt like I'd landed thistime.

Paul Fischer: The film was very heartfelt and thought provoking, similar to someof the early episodes. Did that play a part in coming back to this after allthis time?

David Duchovny: No. My coming back was not based on script. At this point I havealmost complete blind trust in Chris [Carter] and Frank [Spotnitz] to comeup with the goods. So my only concern was that it should be a stand aloneand not something that you needed specific knowledge of 'The X-Files' toenjoy. When I read the script I saw that it was that. Other than that I had no hopes or plans for what this would be. I just knew that the world we dc made and the world that Chris and Frank would remake was going to be satisfying to me.

Gillian Anderson: I had stated my interest in being onboard sometime ago as well and by the time I read the script it was kind of a given that this was something that we were going to do. So I don't think there was ever a point where I jumped more onboard or had an opportunity to back out of it...

David Duchovny: She wanted a musical.

Gillian Anderson: We'e I not allowed to sing.

Paul Fischer: What do you think the secret is to your chemistry when you twoplays these characters as actors?

Gillian Anderson: We've actually been having a fifteen year affair.

David Duchovny: I don't know why in the beginning, maybe just luck in the beginning. But after this long we actually do have a history and so when I look over at Gillian or I'm Mulder looking over at Scully, there's a lot of shit that I can call on. We have a lot between us and so you don't really have to make it up. I think that just as people, now fifteen years later, we have just shared so much regardless of how much we speak to one another. I expect to see Gillian even if I haven't seen her for a year. She's not even listening to me.Gillian Anderson: I was, I was!

David Duchovny: You just heard the last line.

Gillian Anderson: I did. I was really distracted. I was listening to every word thatyou said.

David Duchovny: I don't have a window like you do over there.

Gillian Anderson: You can tune out now. Whatever it is that's between us was there from the second that we started working together and it's not quantifiable.I think it's something that is unique and yes, they got lucky, but it was something that Chris had seen which is why he fought so hard, specifically, and this is something that's been written about a lot, to cast me over someone else. He saw something between the two of us that was unique. Whether it's luck or that we were meant to be with each other all along, I don't know.

David Duchovny: I mean, there's chemistry in life and there's acting chemistry. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but they're as mysterious.

Paul Fischer: There's the fact that you've both had children and have had children over the past six years or so. Does that align you more with a Mulder or Scully in terms of personal philosophy?

Gillian Anderson: I mean, when Scully had a child I'd already had a child.

David Duchovny: Gillian had a child the first year of the show.

Gillian Anderson: I had a child when I was three [laughs]. But I think that in the series, from what I remember, Scully thought that she had a child early on - Emily. Right?

David Duchovny: Oh, yeah.

Gillian Anderson: I don't think that I would've been able to get there as an actor realistically, if I did do it realistically because I can't really remember, because obviously that experience would've been informed by the fact that I was already a mother. I'm sure that our conversations that we do have from time to time about this child that I gave away must be influenced by the fact that I've had children, but the show was so not about maternity. It wasn't about parents. It wasn't about that. They were actually anti-parents in a way.

Paul Fischer: But in terms of having your own children, does that make you moreof a sceptic or a believer of miracles or in absolutes?

Gillian Anderson: That's interesting. I never related the two. Probably absolutes on my end.

David Duchovny: I'm gonna look out the window [laughs]. It's miraculous. It's spiritual. It's otherworldly to have kids. It's more Mulder, I think, but I don't know.

Gillian Anderson: But then also when you have kids, when your kids get sick or whenfamily members do, not just your kids, but when there's death there's alsoabsolutes and that can hit home at any stage of one's life.

David Duchovny: See, we're starting to argue.

Paul Fischer: When you play characters this deep for so long and then it stops how much of that stays with you for life? Does it impact your personality in some way for life?

David Duchovny: That's a very interesting question and I wouldn't know how to answer it. I mean, it impacts your life because strangers can see you that way. I'll sit here and I'll answer questions about this fictional person and so it stays with me in that way. I wouldn't say that I ever get up and think of Mulder unless I'm working on it. I think that I liked a lot about the guy. When I played him I liked his courage and I liked his energy to get to the truth and to the quest and all of that and I think that at one point I'd learned a little from that, like a fan might. I was a fan of the guy. So that's as far as I go in terms of saying that he lives in me.

Gillian Anderson: It's the same for me. I don't do things, mannerisms or something and think, 'Oh, that was kind of like Scully.' But by the same token I don't know how much of me today wasn't influenced by the fact that I got to play her for such a long time. It's possible that there are aspects of my seriousness or my independence or my inquisitiveness about the medical profession or science or something that aren't directly related to the fact that I lived with her for such a long time. But that's hard to qualify and hard to say.

David Duchovny: When Gillian operates on a human being -

Gillian Anderson: That's when I'm reminded of Scully.

Paul Fischer: Gillian, Scully was always rocking a cell phone way beforeeveryone else. Always on the cell phone and using it. What's your ownrelationship to your cell phone, and how do you think that the character has informed strong female law enforcement characters?

Gillian Anderson: I think I only ever talked to Mulder on that cell phone. I don't think that there were any conversation that was ever had with anyone else except for Mulder, if you remember.

David Duchovny: You were in my fav five.

Gillian Anderson: Was I number one or number two? Remember how big our cell phones were? We just happened to have them in our pockets.

David Duchovny: Yeah. You had to have like a trench coat to have them in thepocket.

Gillian Anderson: A cell phone in one and a Xenon flash in the other.

David Duchovny: 'Hello? I'm talking to you on a phone that's not attached to anything.'

Gillian Anderson: I've had letters from people, even actually recently, who have said, 'Funnily enough I've been a fan for many years and it's because of Scully that I'm now a forensic pathologist -' or 'I'm now a medical doctor -' or 'I'm now in the FBI -' or any of the fifteen things that she was as a professional to be able to say all those complicated words.

David Duchovny: You were talented. The cell phone question is interesting because I think that it extended the life of the series because Gillian and I were so fatigued and the advent of the cell phone, in what year? '96? I don't know. But it was instrumental in us being able to have time off because we could split up and we didn't have to be in the same room to have a conversation. I'm being totally serious. I could have some time off and Gillian could have some time off and we'd just talk on the phone to one another rather than being in every scene together.

Gillian Anderson: It's very true.

David Duchovny: So if not for the cell phone no second half of 'The X-Files'.

Paul Fischer: In terms of what's on film how much does Chris encourage a sense of humor?

David Duchovny: Very, very, very little. Chris and I have always kind of battled over that. In the series it got in more and more for both of us as we went on and did what we thought of as the funny episodes and we both enjoyed doing those because they were like vacations and certainly Chris, as the show runner, was guiding that and letting that happen and saw the virtue in what a huge tent this show so that it could encompass everything from stand alones to mythology to parody of itself. I can't think of another show that ever did that. We just never did the musical. We never did that, but that's the only thing, thank goodness. But in terms of me coming up with stuff in the moment, usually Chris doesn't like that because he has a different theory about the tension than I do. He really feels like it lets the air out of things and he doesn't like to do that. I feel like I like to let the air out. So that's just a difference opinion we have. I don't know what yourtake on that is.

Gillian Anderson: I'm not funny.

Paul Fischer: Did you ever ask her to the No Pants Restaurant?

David Duchovny: No, I never did. But I think I will.

Gillian Anderson: Give me a few months, please [laughs].

Paul Fischer: David, you famously sort of distanced yourself from the show in the last season, being fatigued, and then we hear that you're really who was big into getting this movie done. Can you talk about that? Is it a love/hate relationship?

David Duchovny: I wouldn't characterize me as the one who really wanted to get it going, but I'm certainly someone who would always say yes whenever Chris and I would talk about it. The love/hate has nothing to do with the actual content, the actual people, the actual anything. The love/hate had to do with me wanting to get on with the rest of my life, the rest of my career and when you think about it, that I did eight years and Gillian did nine, that's a lifetime. There are no other dramas that keep the same characters that run that long. If you look at 'Law & Order' or 'ER', they're twenty years old or whatever they are, but they're completely recast. So it's just not something you see. You don't see actors not get fatigued and not get frustrated in a drama where we're working, cell phones or not, everyday for many, many hours playing the same characters. So it's just natural to burnout. There was always love for the show and love for the character. There was never any hate for that.

Gillian Anderson: But it's interesting that it's always something for the press to latch onto. It's always a surprise, in some way or it's a good headline, that someone wants to leave. It creates good drama and so it always becomes this thing where actually it's just a natural thing.

David Duchovny: Right, like you're ungrateful in some way. Yes, I love 'The X-Files' and I love Vancouver. Those things are true.

Paul Fischer: Can you talk about working in the severe weather conditions up inCanada?

Gillian Anderson: This time around I didn't have as much exposure to it as Daviddid. Fortunately, Chris didn't write those words in the script for Scully. But I was up there in Whistler and when I arrived it was about eighteen below. Fortunately it didn't stay there for too long, but I was out there for probably a good couple of weeks, I guess and it's beautiful, but it's also exhausting.

David Duchovny: Yeah. Let me try to say this in a way that's right. Just doingquotation marks is going to get me in trouble. I had to work in one of themost beautiful ski resorts in the world for almost three weeks. Pity me. Ithink it's hard sometimes. The logistics of it is if you're out in themiddle of nowhere and you're running around in the freezing rain or snow youdon't get a chance to go off and warm up in your trailer because you're seeing so much that your trailer is on the other side of the town. So you are stuck in clothes that aren't fitting for the environment for a long time. So, yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but you just suck it up and it's not going to be that long and your feet are cold and your ass is cold and your hands are cold and your muscles are cold. You just suck it up.

Gillian Anderson: I think one of the more physically challenging aspects for me at the time were that there were a couple of scenes where we had quite a bit of dialogue and when you're in that kind of weather and the wind is slightly blowing and the snow is coming down, your lips actually do freeze. They do.There were a couple of times that were reminiscent of the pilot. There was ascene in the pilot where we're in this pouring forest rain that's freezing and I'm screeching at him about one thing or another -

David Duchovny: 'You mean to say thirty miles?! Came here?!'

Gillian Anderson: Are you making fun of me?

David Duchovny: No. I just remember it.

Gillian Anderson: I remember it too. It felt very much like that, but what was reminiscent was the fact that my mouth wouldn't work. I had all this stuff to say and it just comes out as gobbledygook.

David Duchovny: But when you see it on film it's just gorgeous. You look at thosebig snow flakes coming down in the movie and it's worth it.

Gillian Anderson: It's beautiful.

David Duchovny: You have to know that when you're putting up with it, that if you're experiencing this discomfort it's probably going to look pretty good on film.

Gillian Anderson: If there's pain involved.

Paul Fischer: What are your next projects? And was the George Bush/J. EdgarHoover thing scripted or did it just come about?

David Duchovny: Yeah, that was completely scripted and that was an example ofwhere I was trying to be what I thought was funny and Chris was like, 'No.No.'

Gillian Anderson: Probably because he knew in the back of his mind that that littlebit of music right there was going to be in there which kind of does the humor for it.

David Duchovny: Yeah, so no. That was actually always in it and was written in, literally as George Bush and J. Edgar Hoover.

Gillian Anderson: We tried a few other versions of it.

David Duchovny: Yeah, what did we do? I thought they were funny. It was funny. Ican't remember.

Paul Fischer: Your upcoming projects?

Gillian Anderson: I've got a couple of things coming out, but the next thing I'mgoing to do is a play in London. I'm going to do a play there a couple of months after the baby is born.

Paul Fischer: During your run of the show and of the movie, because of the things that you guys handled, did you ever experience any real paranormal happenings either on the set or outside of it?

Gillian Anderson: At Riverview. There was a place that we shot during the series and also during the film that was an abandoned insane asylum -

David Duchovny: But not so abandoned. It was like half abandoned and half not.

Gillian Anderson: Yeah. The top floor was being used for something.

David Duchovny: But there were some crazy people wandering around.

Gillian Anderson: Yeah. It was miles and miles of institution and insanity.

David Duchovny: Actually, where we did the photos for this movie, that was where -

Gillian Anderson: That was really creepy.

David Duchovny: We went into these rooms, tiny little rooms, that only had loops on the floor for where you would hook someone's retraining irons onto.

Gillian Anderson: There's paint peeling and all of that stuff.

David Duchovny: But I've never really had a paranormal experience per say in mylife. I believe in the spirit and the energy, but I've never seen it. I've felt it, but not seen it.

Paul Fischer: David, what's your next project?

David Duchovny: I believe I will be doing this movie called 'The Joneses' and then'Californication' season two is coming out in September. I have just three more days of filming of that and then we're done.

THE X-FILES™: I WANT TO BELIEVE

Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Xzibit, Billy Connolly
Director: Chris Carter
Screenwriter: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Producer: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Composer: Mark Snow
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy

THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE is a new motion picture based on the phenomenally popular, award-winning series The X-Files. Long-anticipated, the film reunites series stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson under the direction of series creator Chris Carter, who co-wrote the screenplay with Frank Spotnitz. In grand The X-Files tradition, the film's storyline is being kept under wraps, known only to top studio brass and the project's principal actors and filmmakers. This much can be revealed: The supernatural thriller is a stand-alone story in the tradition of some of the show's most acclaimed and beloved episodes, and takes the always-complicated relationship between Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) in unexpected directions. Mulder continues his unshakable quest for the truth, and Scully, the passionate, ferociously intelligent physician, remains inextricably tied to Mulder's pursuits. Months after shooting had wrapped, Carter remained as circumspect about the story as he was during its development and production. "Mulder and Scully are drawn back into the world of the X-Files by a case," is all he'll add about the plot. Perhaps more clues...to something....can be found in the film's title. "I Want to Believe" is a familiar phrase for fans of the series; it was the slogan on a poster that Mulder had hanging in his office at the FBI. "It's a natural title," says Chris Carter. "It's a story that involves the difficulties in mediating faith and science. It really does suggest Mulder's struggle with his faith." Carter is much more revealing about his goals for the film. "Simply put, we want to scare the pants off of everyone in the audience," he says.

While the scale and scope inherent in the medium of film allowed the filmmakers to take the story and characters where the show couldn't go, Carter says THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE also marks a return to the series' roots, when it was the lone beacon on television for fans of thrillers, supernatural tales, and of horror stories. "The film encompasses all the best things people loved about the show. It's scary, creepy, and has a good mystery. With The X-Files, we often scared people by what they didn't show, and we use that device for the movie." Adds writer-producer Frank Spotnitz: "I think the best part of The X-Files was that it could make you afraid of anything. They didn't tell typical horror stories or adhere to popular genre conventions. And this movie is in that tradition of showing things that you would not see in most scary movies." Unlike the first The X-Files motion picture, released in 1998, Carter and Spotnitz's story for THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE does not require audiences to understand the series' complex mythology that stretched across its nine seasons on the air. "The first movie was kind of an epic episode of the show, but THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE is a real, stand-alone movie," explains Carter. "If the show hadn't existed, this is a story that still would have found its way to the big screen."