Fourteen years after we last saw Mulder and Scully on the small screen, The X-Files returns this weekend with a special six-episode series that revisits the smash-hit paranormal series. Ahead of the big premiere on STAR World Premiere HD (Saturday at 9pm), David Duchovny — the man who brought alive FBI special agent Fox Mulder who partners with Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson) to tackle cases dealing with the X factor — talks about the all-new The X-Files.
What’s changed for you and what’s the same, from years ago to now with new episodes?
I find it a lot harder to work through the night. I don’t know what has changed. Some of it is harder, some of it is easier. The hours are harder, the acting is easier. I think we are all better. We have done a lot of work since we started this show. A lot of that work was this show... we got better. I could look at — I don’t — but I could look at the first season of The X-Files as opposed to the sixth, seventh, eighth and I’ll see different actors. I am talking about Gillian and me. We both, I believe, have gotten better. So, that’s kind of fun to bring that to the same characters, bring the ability to access maybe more than we could have back then.
Now that your kids are older, you decided that they’re gonna get to see it live?
No, I’m not one of those parents that like… I’m proud of my kids [Madelaine, 16, and Kyd, 13]... I don’t need them to be proud of me. I’m glad that — they can’t watch Californication [where he plays a sex addict called Hank Moody] — they can watch it [The X-Files], so that’s good.
Now that you are back playing Mulder, how protective have you become of that character now?
Very protective. I feel like I’m the caretaker of that guy. So, there are times when you get a script and I’ll talk to Chris (Carter, the show’s creator) or whoever wrote the script, and I’ll say this doesn’t sound right. At this point, it’s really instinctive and intuitive, but every actor is like that, every actor is going to feel that way. Then, Gillian and I, when we have a scene together, we are both kind of caretaking of our points of view and it can get a little tricky, but that is the fun part as well.
How has this show affected your life?
It doesn’t really. I mean it’s affected my life in that it started my career. It gave me many opportunities, it gave me a lot of money, all great things. Most of all, it gave me the opportunity to go to work every day and act for 14 hours a day for eight years.
Are you happy to be back?
Yeah, I’m happy. I’m always happy to work. I enjoy the people that I work with. I think the show is great. I couldn’t be prouder of the entire show, from the first season to what we’ve done now. There’s so much of it that I am grateful for, but I don’t think of it — it’s such an internal thing for me. It’s like if you play a sport... at some point you stop thinking about hitting a tennis ball, you just hit the tennis ball. So, I just do The X-Files. I don’t think about it.
Is there anything, though, that you find challenging still?
Yes, it’s all challenging. It’s challenging in a good way — I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t challenging. I am now 55 — 54 when we started this one — and to go ‘Okay, what’s 54-year-old Mulder? He’s not 30-year-old Mulder, because that’s gross’. And yet, he’s not a different guy. So, now we’re kind of in this place where we’re all wondering like ‘Yeah, he’s kind of the same’, but that’s challenging because I can’t just go ‘Okay, now I just wear black and I got a French accent’. I gotta make changes, but they can’t be that obvious. That’s challenging and interesting to an actor.
What do you feel when you see people dressed like Mulder and Scully and all the excitement from the fans?
Can I look at any guy in a suit and say he’s dressed like Mulder? I’m walking around New York and walking down Wall Street like ‘Look at all these dudes! They’re all dressed like Mulder! Jesus, you guys are big fans!’
Come on, usually it’s more than that!
It’s nice... it’s nice that people love the show. I don’t know how else to put it without sounding like an idiot, or without sounding ungrateful because I am grateful. Without people still being interested, we wouldn’t have gotten to do these six (episodes), you know. It’s amazing to me that we kind of ended the show right before phones and Internet happened and yet somehow we’ve kind of created a life in this Internet world.
It’s attracted this whole new audience that not a lot of shows manage to do. And across generations, as well.
I don’t know how that happens because I haven’t been able to get my kids to watch it! I don’t know how anybody gets their kids to watch it. A lot of people have very nostalgic feelings for it. I live here in New York and there’s a TV station, I think it’s called MeTV, and it shows programming from the ’70s and I sometimes watch it because that’s nostalgic to me. But, I want it to be more than that. That’s not why we just did these six. It has to be more than just an exercise in nostalgia, you know, and I think we made another good six shows.
THE X-FILES fact file
Premiered in the US in May 1993, The X-Files quietly, but quickly, became a runaway hit, thanks to its intriguing theme and treatment and its protagonists, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and his colleague Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Here’s why we loved the show and couldn’t wait to watch the new one!
The Mulder-Scully chemistry: They worked in tandem but represented two diversely opposite viewpoints — Mulder, with a sister he lost to what he believes was possible alien abduction as a teen, believes staunchly in paranormal phenomena, while his FBI partner Scully questions everything. Their dynamic is often complicated, with their witty exchanges keeping things fun even as they develop a deep friendship in the course of the show. And that unmistakable sexual spark keeps the romance-loving fans in us happy.
The X-Files theme: Created by Mark Snow, the instrumental piece with the whistling effect still makes us break out in goosebumps. And yes, it’s one of the best things about the new season! (See review)
The opening sequence: A flying UFO, an invisible figure walking down a corridor, distorted faces, imprint of a hand, a disco light and flashes of Mulder and Scully’s IDs — we loved it all, culminating in the line ‘The truth is out there’ and the recurring message ‘Trust no one’.
The Myth arc: The X-Files pioneered many a theme later picked up by shows like Lost and Fringe. Referred to as the mythology of the show or the Mytharc, it dealt with the existence of alien life form on earth and government conspiracies to keep it secret, and referred to aliens as “colonists”, all out to colonise earth.
The intrigue: It made paranormal the new cool and with Mulder and Scully not reducing themselves to just unemotional investigators, the cases became a lot more personal and the sense of foreboding a lot deeper.
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The CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN: The show’s most enduring image remains of the man quietly smoking a cigarette season after season. One of the primary villains of the series, the C-Man — later revealed to be Mulder’s biological father — remains an iconic villain.
(The X-Files: Event Series premieres tonight at 9pm on STAR World Premiere HD)
I am hooked to The X-Files because.... Tell t2@abp.in
REVIEW
SPOILER ALERT!
... But ep 1 season 10 scores only for nostalgia, says t2 after a sneak peek
Having grown up on The X-Files, I was over the moon when a new season was announced last year. And then the fan in me did a silent jig when producers Fox gave me an opportunity to watch the first episode of Season 10 a few weeks before telecast.
As I logged on and the familiar 20th Century Fox logo flashed on the computer screen, I felt a rush. And then came the voice: “My name is Fox Mulder. Since my childhood, I have been obsessed with paranormal phenomena… since my sister disappeared when I was 12 years old.” And then appears David Duchovny, sporting a salt ’n’ pepper stubble, looking a little weary and worn out. Mulder’s voiceover tells us that after The X-Files programme ceased, he’s become even more of a recluse, his days and nights being taken up only with reading up and researching on alien phenomena and UFO sightings.
Cut to a totally different scenario where we are reintroduced to Dana Scully (a radiant Gillian Anderson). She’s just heading to surgery when she gets an urgent phone call from Walter Skinner of the FBI… and she promptly calls up Mulder, years and years after the two last met.
It’s tough to review My Struggle — yes, that’s what E01S10 is called — without giving out spoilers, so let’s focus on the good and the not-so-good. What’s enough to bring a smile on the face of any die-hard fan is the X-Files theme and the stroke of the seventh minute, when Mulder and Scully meet. They’ve become strangers — though the daughter they had together is discussed — but there’s no missing the crackling chemistry, even now. The intrigue is set up nicely, with the narrative shifting between present day and 1947 Roswell, the site of a possible UFO crash. Mulder and Scully find themselves drawn inexorably into the story of a girl called Svetta who believes she has been impregnated by aliens. Saying anything more will spoil it for you, so let’s leave it at that.
What didn’t work for us? The episode is messy, as creator Chris Carter tries to say everything in just 44 minutes — giving a past context to everything that Mulder and Scully do and say. And despite the recap, things can prove a little too complicated for viewers not clued into the world of the X-Files.
What will definitely make us tune in to Episode 2? That shot of the Cigarette Smoking Man alive in the present day, stating that the X-Files have been reopened. Can’t wait!
Priyanka Roy