 WIZARD: It seems like this film's wrapped in as much secrecy as the X-Files themselves.
DUCHOVNY: The reasoning behind being mum for [director and show creator] Chris [Carter] at least, is to give an audience an experience of surprise. Having said that, the themes are the same of what the show always was: belief and faith and the relationship between Mulder and Scully and how that's developed over the past four or five years.
When the series started, it captured the zeitgeist of the country in a way that other shows haven't before—how is the "X-Files" different now that the world has completely changed?
Has the world completely changed? Since 1998, I'd say it has… Since 9/11. People say the world changes all the time, and yet human nature remains the same. Good stories are going to be good stories and people are going to see them. I don't think people go to the movies because of what's going on in the world. They go usually to escape what's going on in the world, and that always remains the same. I think what changes is the size of our cell phones.
Why was this the right time to return to "X-Files" for you?
I felt always that, at any time, it would have been fine. Whenever Chris was ready to come up with a script, whenever his burnout was over. As actors, our burnout was probably a little shorter than his. I think he carried a heavier load, producing and writing and directing. I know it took me about a year to feel whole after the show was over. After that point I was ready, and it was always my intention, my desire, that the show would continue on in movie form.
So, this could be a series of movies?
I wouldn't see any reason to do it unless it were. It's a serial show by its nature. The frame and the characters throw off an infinite number of stories and situations, it's a classic, archetypal relationship, with a believer and a nonbeliever, with this kind of unrequited love in the middle of it, and it all works. And that can work forever as long as your stories are good.
How has Fox Mulder changed since we last saw him?
In my experience, things don't change that much. People are who they are. You'll have to see. We are affected by things that happen. Does character change? In my life experience, character doesn't change.
Was it exciting to return to Mulder for you?
I was very excited to do it, and then as the date approached nearer I started to wonder if I needed to work more, to kind of get back into that, and so there was a certain amount of fear because I had maybe changed. I'm going back on my word. This character might have represented a narrower box than the one I've been working in for the past four or five years since I left. So it was how to bring what I've learned in the last four or five years into this box. |
