David Duchovny – Twenty years ago when he was irresistible

September 2001 By Philip Berk

Is there life after X-Files?

You hate to ask David Duchovny that question.

Here’s an actor with everything going for him.

Harvard educated, intellectual.

Handsome with a boyish charm.

Quiet, cool, laconic?

Self-deprecatingly witty.

Cut up and inveterate prankster.

Occasional exhibitionist. 

Devoted husband and father.

But when it comes to choosing film roles, don’t ask!

His latest Evolution follows a succession of duds that includes Playing God and Return to Me.

When reminded of the choices he’s made and the difficulty that TV stars have of making the transition to movies (Steve McQueen was one of the few exceptions) he becomes defensive.

“I’m very proud of Return to Me. I thought that a great, beautiful little film. But there’s no science to this. I’m secure in the knowledge that before I got X-Files I was talented, and when I left, I didn’t leave my talent there.”

As a TV series, X-Files broke new ground. Shouldn’t he be looking for that type of movie rather than rehashing old genres?

“I’m not sure that breaking new ground makes a movie successful.” 

What about Star Wars?

“That was a culture changing movie. Look, I’ve only been at it a few times in last few years, and each time you’re stuck with your decision. When you’re an actor, you can only vaguely forecast how a movie will turn out. Unless you’re directing or writing you can’t control the outcome. I’m proud of the work I’ve done on those movies . All I can hope for is to continue to do good work in movies that interest me, that entertain, and not worry about doing something that changed the landscape.” 

One resounding success for him was his recent return to X-Files.

His passionate kiss in the final episode was an emotional moment not just for the audience but for the cast and crew as well. He and costar Gillian Anderson had never had a good rapport, but on that last day everyone was clapping and hugging. 

Even more gratifying were the ratings, the highest since his departure two years ago.

Instead of taking credit for it, he rationalizes, “The mystery of what happened to Mulder was a big tease for the whole year, so when he came back, people tuned in and wanted to watch.” 

His popularity had nothing to do with it?

“I’d like think that I’m irreplaceable or Gillian’s irreplaceable or Chris (Carter, the director) is irreplaceable, but once you set up the show, it’s such a great frame, you can replace anybody. We’re all replaceable. It won’t be the same show without us, but it’s still a show that people will watch.”

Is it true that his wife Tea Leoni, when he first met her, had never seen the show?

“That’s what she says.”

How about him, does he believe in paranormal phenomena?

“I’m open to it. I believe in the possibility of it. It’s a better bet to think we’re not alone. It makes little sense to think we’re the only animate life in the universe. I believe in spiritual energy and energy beyond the spiritual, so I suppose that could be considered paranormal. But I have had no experiences myself beyond deja vu and vivid dreams.”

Evolution is a sendup of the Aliens Invade Earth movies.

Is he a science fiction fan?

“No I’m not.”

Does he have any relationship with it?

“None at all. I don’t read it, I don’t write it, I don’t watch it.”

How about science?

“Science is great, but I wasn’t very good at it. I tried to read Scientific American, but I found it too difficult. I couldn’t even get through Stephen Hawking even though his book was supposed to be written for idiots.”

In college, of course, he  was liberal arts. Before becoming an actor, he earned a B.A. in English Literature from Yale, an M.A. from Princeton, and was only a dissertation away from his Ph. D.

What was his dissertation on?

“It was called, “Magic and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry”  Isn’t that just a lovely title? Should be a movie title, and its funny because some of it played into the themes of X-Files.”

Might he change his mind and return to X-Files?

“No because  before the episode was aired I had decided not to come back and do the show next year.”

But he’s game to do a sequel to the movie?

“Oh yeah, I’d be open to that depending on the script of course. I don’t hate the show. I’ll miss it. It’s just that I needed a break to do other things.” 

After his whirlwind marriage to actress Tea Leoni he was criticized for demanding that the series be shot in Los Angeles rather than Vancouver, Canada.

The next year he left the show

Was that a source of embarrassment?

“Why should it be. It was merely my desire to live at home with my wife and to fulfill a promise that had been made to me when I signed to do the pilot. I had been promised that they’d shoot the pilot there, but after that we’d come back to L.A. After three years I felt it was time to say, ‘Look I’ve been playing along with you, how about it?’ Unfortunately it became a public debate where it seemed that, because I’m a star of some kind, I can decide on a whim to move the show back to Los Angeles. But that was not the case at all.”

His marriage had nothing to do with it?

“Only in the sense that when asked the question, ‘How are you going to swing being married when your wife is in L.A. and you’re in Vancouver,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I’ll be up in Vancouver much anymore.”

Tea combines domesticity with a busy acting career.

This month she stars in the second Jurassic Park sequel, and last year she made a strong impression as Nicolas Cage’s wife in The Family Man.

Was he jealous of Nicolas and Tea’s terrific chemistry in the movie? 

“It’s called acting.” 

Would he like to work with her?

“I don’t know. It would have to be a perfect situation because on the one hand it would be great to have the same schedule, but on the other hand there’s some weird taboo about actual couples doing movies. A lack of chemistry seems to happen. I’m not sure why, except acting is lying, and maybe people get uptight about lying in front  of people they’re most honest with. I don’t know.  Also, the audience would rather see two strangers simulating making love than people who live together.” 

Is he glad he waited till he was thirty-six before he married?

“For me it was better. Some people are ready when they’re twenty. I don’t think there’s any kind of template you can use. Everybody’s got a different schedule.”

Wasn’t he worried that at 36 he might be set in his ways?

“You do get used to living alone, and in the beginning it was hard to live with somebody else, but I’m lucky because my wife allows me to be the slob that I was, whatever that was. She doesn’t ask me to change.”

And now there’s a third someone in their life, their two year old daughter Madeleine West.

Who does she take after?

“She looks mostly like her mother, but when she’s pensive she looks like me. I have a tattoo, above my ankle, of a compass and her name. I got it when she was very sick in the hospital for more than a week. She was only nine months old with double pneumonia. I didn’t know what to do to help her. I kept walking past a tattoo parlor, so I decided to do that. And as soon as I got it, she was fine. It was my way of telling her I wanted her to be a permanent part of my life.”

That’s the sweet side of David! 

His parents were divorced when he was eleven. Did that experience affect him?

“Very deeply. It’s the kind of experience you spend the rest of your life reacting to. As I get older I deal with it in different ways. It’s something that will be with me forever.” 

Is he hoping to avoid the mistakes his parents made?

“When you react to what your parents did, you go too far in the other direction. So you make different mistakes. Most of the time you make the same mistakes  because it’s instinctual.”

He and Tea recently celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary

What did they do?

“Actually, she was working so I went down and got this dress that I liked — and  I put it on.” 

And he greeted her that way at the door?

“No I bought a dress that I liked, and I left it in a bag in the room, and waited for her to see it, which she didn’t. Eventually I said, ‘Something came for you,’ and she opened it, and she was like, ‘Who sent me that? Can I wear it?’  And I said I want to wear it — and that was our cross dressing anniversary.”

Where does he get his sense of humor from?

“My father thinks he’s funny so I probably get that from him. I I think I’m funny just like he thinks he’s funny. My brother thinks he’s funny. It’s a family trait. But I must admit my father is a kind of funny guy.” 

In the movie David shows his rear end, which is nothing new for him. Nude shots from his movies have been featured in Playgirl magazine.

Is he a closet exhibitionist?

“The only time I can remember being nude was in The Rapture, and that was because of my penchant for realism.”

Wasn’t he also nude in New Year’s Day?

“Look, I don’t have any problem with nudity. Not at all. I don’t see that it matters male or female. I don’t think it’s an issue for me.”

And yet the director said he was shy about mooning for the film?

“He got that all wrong. I wasn’t concerned that my ass was going to be seen. I just didn’t want the things up front to get exposed. Look, when I was in high school, I did a lot of mooning. I remember when I was on the baseball team and we used to travel great distances on the weekends; on the way back — we were in those big yellow school buses with those big windows — if we’d get caught in traffic, we’d plaster five asses across the back window. Some poor woman stuck in traffic had to look up at these asses as they steamed up the window.”

With or without his clothes on, David’s considered a hunk. Is he comfortable with that label?

“I don’t really know. Some exterior labels don’t really sink in. I had a professor who read us something written by Robert Blake, the poet, and when we asked, ‘Is this a poem?’ he  answered, ‘Well, you can call it  that, but it won’t come.’ Sometimes I feel that way. You can call me a hunk, but I won’t come. Working twelve hours a day I really don’t come into contact with it. Once it a while when I’m on vacation it happens, and then it’s kind of startling and strange.”

Does he ever regret not having completed his Ph. D?

“Not really”

Would he ever go back to complete it?

“The only motivation would be a sense of completion.”

What would be the advantage of having a doctorate in Hollywood?

“For all the horrible things you can  say about Hollywood –like being related to someone is an advantage — the truth is what you’ve done before makes very little difference just as long as you can act.”  

Since leaving Yale has he run into any of his former students? 

“I was once interviewed by one who worked for a magazine. That was interesting.”

Why did he give up teaching?

“My heart wasn’t really in it. I liked teaching a lot, but I didn’t want to do it forever.”

Was he always drawn to acting?

“Not at all. I became interested in writing plays while at Yale, and I thought I could learn something about it by acting. I tried it and enjoyed the collaboration. Writing is a very lonely activity. I wasn’t ready, at the age of 24, to sit in a room twelve hours a day. I wanted to be with people and create rather than create alone. Acting seemed the way to do it .”

What was the reaction of his friends and family?

“At the time they were saying, ‘You’re a fool for giving up what you do.’ I had already completed four years of graduate school, and I was doing something that most people think of as a desirable job — and I was pretty good at it. People were asking me, ‘Why throw away all that education to pursue a profession which considers education something of a handicap.  My family wasn’t at all pleased. My friends were puzzled.”

What can he say is the best thing about leaving X-Files?

“Knowing that my time is now my own.”

And the worst?

“Leaving the people I’ve been working with for eight years. That was really difficult.”