David Duchovny Returning To His Best Role?
We want to believe that David Duchovny will be returning to his role on the fan-favorite series, The X-Files, and in a recent interview via The Discourse Podcast, the Californication actor revealed what it would take for him to step back into the role of Fox Mulder. For Duchovny, it all centers around what other “stories” would be told in a reimagining or third (technically fourth) chapter of the hit show. While he says that a follow-up would have “many reasons for being,” Duchovny adds that he would only see himself involved in a reboot if the series creator and writer Chris Carter were to be involved, or if someone close to him would pick up the torch.
Adding that he wouldn’t want to just continue the story where it left off, David Duchovny says that if he were to be in an X-Files reboot, he would need to see the show’s universe “change.” “There’s not a world where we just come back and do it the way we did before,” he says, mentioning that should someone approach him with a creative and fun new way to move forward, he may be in. Comparing his hypothetical reprisal of Mulder to what famous rockers The Rolling Stones are doing today, Duchovny speaks in metaphors as he says that he wouldn’t want to be playing the same hits, “still writing about making out with girls in the backseat of a car.”
If the show were to pick up with David Duchovny reprising Mulder, 30 years have passed, something the X-Files star totally recognizes and a fact that would influence his decision. “You’re going to play this guy in his thirties and his sixties,” the actor says, adding that if they rebooted the show exactly the way that it was that it could still work and that, while financial success is almost guaranteed, “part of you would die.” But, even with Duchovny’s latest comments on his return to the long-running sci-fi series, there’s one major thing stopping it dead in its tracks.
Gillian Anderson, who starred opposite David Duchovny on The X-Files has said on more than one occasion that she’s completely moved on from that chapter of her life. Both actors have gone on to lead fruitful and fulfilling careers, although they briefly returned to the story back in 2016. Dubbing the project the show’s tenth season, the story picked up fourteen years after the events of The X-Files’ final season.
Although it seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel for fans who were cheering on the return of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson to the bizarre and unexplained world of The X-Files, the show was split down the middle in terms of critical reception. Considered to be a special event, the show wouldn’t move forward with a spin-off or continuation. But that doesn’t mean that both Duchovny and Anderson don’t continue to run into interview questions surrounding their future involvement in the franchise.
For now, we can just be thankful that we were given the show’s tenth season as well as the 2008 spin-off film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. And while we may not be spotting an older David Duchovny in a suit, hunting down the Cigarette-Smoking Man in more episodes of The X-Files, the actor has plenty of new material out there. On film, he’ll next appear in the Netflix comedy You People and has recently held credits in The Bubble and The Estate, giving audiences a plethora of ways to get their Duchovny fix.
