David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovnyis an American actor, writer, producer, director, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He is known for playing FBI Agent Fox Mulder on the sci-fi horror action drama show The X-Files and writer Hank Moody on the comedy-drama series Californication, both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards. Duchovny appeared in both of the two X-Files films, the 1998 science fiction-thriller of the same name and the supernatural-thriller The X-Files: I Want to Believe. As of May 2015, he has...
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth7 August 1960
CityNew York City, NY
I don't care why people love me, just as long as they love me. And I don't even care that they do so much. Is it better to have money or not to have money? Better to have love or not? Both money and love may be bad for the soul or bad for the art. I'm on a show that a lot of people like to watch. Does that make me better off?
If young actors ask me things, I always tell them to get on set and watch how it's done. If you can, watch the people that you like, how they work.
I don't discount belief. I just discount most of the things that people believe in.
At one time there were voiceover artists, now there are celebrity voiceover artists. It's unfortunate because these people need the money less than the voiceover artist.
I really like gratuitous nudity. I hate when people go, 'I'll only do it if it makes sense for the movie'. It never makes sense. So I like it - the more gratuitous the better.
I don't like watching people work if they're making art.
I enjoy comedy and I hope that people enjoy watching me do it.
People always love and respect characters who speak the truth, even if the truth hurts.
Just like every show has a tone, every show has different people on it playing different games. I don't say 'game' in a pejorative sense, I just mean, these are different stories that we tell ourselves when we go to work.
Obviously people's feelings are going to get hurt when you use certain words, but you can't outlaw words. They're really the history of our culture. They tell you what's going on. When you make words politically incorrect you're taking all the poetry out of the language. I'm pro anybody living their lives the way they want to live, sexually and otherwise; and I'm anti any kind of language repression.
People are really much more respectful than they're made out to be and much more discerning about the fact that I'm not the character I play.
The real truth about a lot of life's mysteries can be explained by science but people don't want to get in bed with science because it's cold. They prefer religion, myth, drama.
Every time Mulder smiles, people say, 'God, it was great to see you smile. Mulder never smiles.' I say, 'Mulder smiles a whole lot. He smiles at least once a show.' People get these ideas in their heads and they're impossible to shake. But, to be honest with you, Mulder is every bit as vulnerable and quirky as Ally McBeal. I think Mulder has pretty good legs, too.
What I liked about Mulder was his quality of not caring what other people thought of him. He was very independent. He wasn't interested in women. I liked that. He had kind of an intellectual quest, but not a sexual quest. That was the challenge of Mulder. Here was a guy that got almost sexually excited about aliens. And I wanted to be able to do that!