David Duchovny names the greatest role he ever played: “I really enjoyed that challenge”
A lot of people really liked The X-Files, and with the benefit of hindsight, it isn’t really hard to see why.
Starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, it was not only one of the best-written and most inventive shows in modern history, tapping into conspiracy theories and alien sightings, but it was also, to those of us who watched it as teenagers, absolutely terrifying.
It rightly made global superstars out of Anderson and Duchovny, each of whom has gone on to have successful careers in other franchises, Anderson mostly in movies and Duchovny with the likes of Californication, the sex-packed comedy-drama that ran for seven seasons in the mid-2000s.
A genuine polymath, Duchovny has written, acted and directed, and he’s also a published poet and a musician who has released several albums. When The X-Files came about, the New York-born actor had appeared in a few low-budget TV shows and didn’t think the new sci-fi would last very long. In the end, according to the show’s executive producer, it was Duchovny who ended up making the most important decisions about his character, Fox Mulder, the FBI agent who believes his sister has been abducted by aliens.
The X-Files was a revelation, earning Duchovny nominations from the Golden Globes and Emmys for ‘Best Actor’ and spawning a movie in 1998. Duchovny eventually left the show in 2001 and the same year appeared in the cult hit sci-fi comedy Evolution.
Guest spots then followed over the next few years before Duchovny landed Califonication, the story of a womanising book reader who attempts to cure writer’s block by drinking a lot, using drugs and sleeping around. It earned him a second Golden Globe nomination and lasted some 84 episodes up to 2014. He followed that up with another drama, this time Aquarius, which told the tale of a detective in 1960s Los Angeles on the trail of murderous cult leader Charles Manson.
Perhaps surprisingly, given his body of work, it’s a little-known film from 2023 that Duchovny picks out as his favourite out of all of them. He told Business Insider, “I have to say I’m probably most proud of Reverse the Curse at this point as a work of art or commercial art. I loved playing Marty, the father. It was never something that I had planned on doing…I wrote this story originally as a screenplay 15 years ago.”
Adapted from Duchovny’s own novel called Bucky F**king Dent, the film is a romantic comedy about a man who moves in with his dying father and decides to fake a winning streak by the Boston Red Sox baseball team in order to keep his spirits up. Duchovny plays the ailing dad Marty in the movie which won several industry awards and co-starred Stephanie Beatriz of Brooklyn Nine-Nine fame.
Duchovny added, “I got close to doing it a few times. I’m happy that it took long enough for me to age out of that part and to have to confront myself playing Marty because it’s not a role that I’ve ever played before. It forced me to do certain things that I haven’t been forced to do before. And I really enjoyed that challenge.”
The actor this week released a new book of poetry based on his career titled About Time, and in promoting it was asked about the potential of any more X-Files being made, to which he retorted, “I wouldn’t say no [to doing a reunion], but it just has to work for everybody at the right time. And obviously, we’re running out of time.”
He also has several other projects coming up, including a horror set in Siberia called Unearthed and Truly Like Lightning, a TV mini-series about a former Hollywood stuntman who lives off-grid in the desert with his three wives and ten kids.
