Playboy: Still Strange but Not Alien

David Duchovny Discourses On His Once And Current Characters

You know this guy: special Agent Fox Mulder -- conspiracy theorist, loner and tortured paranormal investigator on The X-Files, one of the most successful dramas of the 1990s. Of course he’s really David Duchovny, who has been all but invisible since playing the creepy buy sympathetic Mulder so indelibly. This month Duchovny makes a high-profile return on the Showtime series Californication as Hank Moody, a divorced, hard-drinking writer and dad whose sex life is as phenomenal as everything ese in his life is shambolic. To keep things clear, we asked Duchovny to compare his past and present alter egos.

FAVORITE ALBUM
Mulder’s is Abbey Road, by the Beatles. Hank’s is The Wind, by Warren Zevon.

FAVORITE SHOW
Mulder watches Californication and wishes he could be Hank. Hank tries to watch The X-Files in syndication but always falls asleep halfway through.

COLLEGE STUDIES
Mulder majored in psychology with an astronomy minor. Hank majored in English with a minor in Latin (women).

WHAT HE HAS FOR DINNER WHEN HE’S HOME ALONE
Mulder will eat cereal at every meal. Hank drinks his dinner.

RELATIONSHIP WITH PORNOGRAPHY
Mulder enjoys vintage porn. Hank enjoys making porn.

FREQUENCY OF SEX
Mulder never gets laid. Hank always does.

OPTIMISM
Both of them are optimists at heart. Neither has any basis for his optimism.

BELIEF IN GOD
Mulder believes in gods, plural. Hank believes God doesn’t believe in him.

BELIEF IN EVIL
They both know evil exists. Mulder’s evil is the government and possibly aliens. Hank’s evil is within himself.

ON THE WHOLE
Both of them are essentially good people who are completely misunderstood as crackpots. Well, not completely.