For the final 12 days of 2008, UNICEF celebrity Ambassadors and Supporters are posting daily blog entries about the impact UNICEF Inspired Gifts are having on children around the world. Téa Leoni continues her family's 50-year tradition of improving the lives of children worldwide by serving as a UNICEF Ambassador and board member of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Tea Leoni:

A mother will always do whatever it takes to protect her child from danger. And no mother would intentionally put her child in harms way. Yet every minute of every day, somewhere in the world, a child dies of AIDS-related causes and another child becomes infected with HIV—usually contracted during pregnancy, labor or delivery.

Providing moms-to-be with HIV/AIDS tests helps prevent HIV-positive mothers from unintentionally infecting their unborn children. And, you can help!

This holiday season I ask that you be inspired to offer the best gift any mother can offer their child — a healthy start in life.

I am Téa Leoni, and I believe in zero.


25,000 young children die every day from preventable causes—things like malnutrition, poor sanitation and lack of safe, drinkable water. UNICEF believes that number should be zero.

For a couple who announced just weeks ago that they had been separated for several months, self-confessed sexaholic David Duchovny and his wife, Téa Leoni, sure are spending an awful lot of time together. Téa's rep says, "Nothing has changed—Téa and David remain friends," but neighborhood sources say the actors, who have two kids, appear to have moved into a newly renovated maisonette on East 78th Street (they sold their Malibu mansion in July), and the family has been visiting the local Tasti D-Lite store for frozen treats. "They all ordered cones and were totally affectionate,'' reports one observer of the reunited brood, who took a big bag of goodies home with them on their most recent visit. The Californication star is no doubt relieved to have found a pleasure in life that is guilt-free.
—Beth Landman

Source: NY Post|Page Six

There's a pitch that Tea Leoni has made to a few film executives about why it might be more interesting to cast her instead of someone younger. Because she is 42, she argues, has been married for 11 years (to actor David Duchovny), and is a mother of two (Madelaine West, 9, and Kyd Miller, 6), she would bring an air of gravitas and complexity to a part. "It's not just that a 28-year-old doesn't have a lot of experience. It's that I don't worry about a 28-year-old, certainly not one who looks like most of the young leading ladies," Leoni says. "She'll be fine. And because of that, I can't get taken into the story; it's like letting air out of a balloon. So a couple of times I've tried to convince the folks making the movie that it would be better with ... me."

So far, these say-no-to-youth meetings have come to naught. But despite the fact that Leoni thinks that women in Hollywood are like boxers ("It can be a very fast and furious and short career," she says), she's hardly on the ropes at this point. In September she brought her clear intelligence and dry comic timing to the movie Ghost Town, playing a widowed archaeologist opposite Ricky Gervais's apparition-seeing dentist. And the night before we spoke, she had been up until 4:30 on the set of Manure, in which she stars as a 1960s-era cosmetics saleswoman suddenly forced to take over her father's fertilizer business. Neither of these roles, Leoni says, is "the chick of the flick," a category she is glad she's no longer considered for. "That's where your skirts are up to here and you're blissfully 20 years younger than your costar -- and that would be his bliss and not necessarily my own. It simply becomes a different movie if you're 10 years older."

Leoni's acting career began when she was a 20-year-old Sarah Lawrence dropout doing background modeling ("I was the one behind the pretty girl, out of focus on the tennis court," she says). Her boss dared her to show up at a cattle call for a Charlie's Angels update called Angels '88. Leoni got a part, but perhaps best of all, the series was never made. Though Leoni fans can reel off her greatest hits -- Flirting with Disaster, Deep Impact, Fun with Dick and Jane -- they'd be hard-pressed to recall the last time she vogued for the paparazzi at a Hollywood event. "The red carpet makes me feel like a bullshit artist," Leoni says. "I don't hang with anybody who stalks press."

It must therefore have been especially hard for Leoni when it was revealed in August that her husband had entered rehab for sex addition, throwing them both into the tabloid maelstrom. She declined to comment, but the news makes the couple's decision earlier in the summer to relocate from Malibu to New York seem prescient from a support-system perspective. Leoni, who was raised in Manhattan, pushed for the move because she wants her children to get an East Coast education and to grow up near their grandparents. "I would hate to think that my kids missed an opportunity to know these great people. I was very tight with my grandmother," she says, referring to Helenka Pantaleoni, who in 1947 cofounded the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, of which Leoni is a very active board member.

When it comes to growing older, Leoni looks to her mother, a retired nutritionist. "My mom bites life in the ass," she says. "Aging gracefully to me isn't about accepting it or doing only a little bit of Botox. I think it's a spark -- a way of being."

-- Margy Rochlin

Originally published in MORE magazine, November 2008.

David Duchovny and Tea Leoni's banner And Then Prods. will be making some music with CBS Films.

CBS has acquired the comedy spec "Born to Rock" from writers Jess Walter and Mark Steilen, with Duchovny, Leoni and Dan Cortese producing and And Then's Susanna Jolly on board to exec produce.

The project revolves around a group of struggling, aging rock musicians who, because of a mixup in their demo tape, end up catching a record exec's attention for a children's
song written on a lark, then find unlikely success as a Wiggles-type children's band.

Duchovny, who described the project as "rock 'n' roll meets the sippy cup crowd," said that the mix of older musicians playing youth-oriented music had relevance. "It speaks to a cultural phenomenon that is happening right now in music," he said.

And Then conceived and developed the script, signing on Steilen and Walter to pen the screenplay.

Maria Faillace will oversee "Rock" for CBS.

The Amy Baer-led film unit is in development on a number of projects, including the Harrison Ford medical drama "Crowley" and the political thriller "Protect and Defend."

And Then is seeking to ramp up its feature production; the shingle is on board to produce historical drama "American Dreamers" as well as potential Leoni comedy vehicle "Sex Toy Lady" with Holding Pictures.

Steilen has collaborated with the Farrelly brothers on movies like "Stuck on You" and is penning the dueling-father comedy "Time Share" for Sony.

Walter -- who, like Steilen, is repped by ICM -- is attached to write the script for the Christian Alvart thriller "The Zero."

Source: THR

MANILA, Philippines - In “X-Files: I Want to Believe” (opening Aug. 13 in Metro Manila, Pampanga, Cebu and Davao), David Duchovny is back as Agent Fox Mulder.

What is it like reprising the role?
We had to figure out what Mulder might be doing and where, at the time we are investigating this particular case. [But] basically, some things are the same.

Was it tough shooting in the snow?
It was not so hard for me. I got to go back to my trailer between takes. It was hard for the crew, who had to stand out there 14 hours straight. I was fine with the action. I try to stay in good shape, doing a little of everything. I cross-train.

As Mulder, you are a believer (as opposed to Dana Scully, the rationalist). Is this true in real life?
I’d say Gillian (Anderson, his co-star) is probably closer to that. I am more of a skeptic than she is.

How do you balance career and family?
My family is great; my kids don’t care about the work I do. Tea (Leoni, actress, his wife) and I try to work at different times so we are not both away too much. We used to always take them with us on location. But they are getting to the point where we may get arrested if we keep taking them out of school (laughs).

Would you do another “X-Files” movie?
Absolutely. I loved the TV show and I wanted it to end when it did, but I definitely didn’t want “X-Files” to end completely.

Source: Showbizandstyle.inquirer.net

The X Files star tells Garth Pearce why men have trouble with monogamy

David Duchovny found fame with the TV series The X Files, which has now been made into a second film. He was born in New York and attended Yale and Princeton universities. He is married to Téa Leoni and they have two children, Madelaine, 9, and Kyd, 6

David Duchovny is not the only Hollywood star to drive an electric vehicle - in these eco-friendly days Los Angeles is clogged with Toyota Priuses - but he is one of the few to talk openly about their weaknesses.

“I’ve had my RAV4 EV [Toyota’s all electric 4x4] for the last four years,” Duchovny says. “It was supposed to be a prototype for the next generation of cars. But the problem is that the car needs charging every night and the most you can do in a day is 80 miles. It is like being tethered.”

He has become so fed up with it that since moving back to New York from Los Angeles he has bought a Vespa scooter.


Duchovny, who has returned to the big screen in a second film version of The X Files, the 1990s TV show that made him a household name as the brooding Agent Fox Mulder, will be the first to admit that cars are a form of transport, rather than objects of desire.

As a struggling actor in 1980s New York he used buses and the subway and it wasn’t until he moved to Los Angeles that he had to buy a car. “I never needed a car,” he says. “I could always get public transport. But there’s no public transport to speak of in Los Angeles and I needed to get myself around.”

After passing his driving test at t h e s e c o n d attempt, aged 27, he bought a s e c o n d - h a n d D o d g e D a r t . “ I could finally get to meetings and auditions for TV roles,” he says. “In New York, there was only one show being made, called The Equalizer. I must have auditioned 10 times for roles in that and didn’t get any of them.”

His first few years in Hollywood were hard work, and resulted in a couple of bit parts in TV series such as Twin Peaks and a beer advert. “I was broke, living in a rent-controlled apartment and looking for work,” he remembers. “It is a typical Hollywood story for any actor. It is best not to know too much about how Hollywood works, otherwise you might never try it in the first place.”

His big break came in 1993 when he was cast as Mulder alongs i d e G i l l i a n A n d e r s o n ’ s Agent Scully, charged with investigating para-normal activity. The show was a huge, unexpected hit and propelled Duchovny to stardom - something he wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

I recall meeting him in 1992, when he had a small role in Richard Attenborough’s biopic of Charlie Chap-lin. He was quiet, almost embarrassed - as if his education at Princeton University and Yale, where he gained a master’s degree in English, had got in the way of being an actor.

“I was an introvert,” he admits. “I was more solitary then than I am now, because I have a family. But I was not unusual among actors. Away from all this” - he gestures at the suite in the Dorchester, London, where we meet - “we are probably more quiet and sensitive than people realise.”

Duchovny says marriage helped him come to terms with fame: he wed Téa Leoni, an actress, in 1997 and they have two children.

Even so, he displays a striking similarity to his other on-screen character when he talks about the problems of fidelity and marriage. In Californication he plays Hank Moody, a man who cannot keep his hands or his mind off girls. His ex-wife Karen (played by Natascha McElhone), to whom he still professes love, is resigned to the weakness of his flesh. “I think every man feels that, don’t they?” he asks. “But dare he admit it? This is no shock for Téa. She knows my thoughts. She’s probably thought the same thing.”

And to us blokes who may have silently wondered but never expressed such questions, Duchovny offers the consolation that they are far from alone. “Is there a single married man who has not had second thoughts, at some point, thinking: ‘What if . . ?’ You would be asleep not to wonder.

“For me, getting married was saying, ‘I think this has a shot’,” he says. “This was the person I wanted to be with for a long, long time. I don’t think that any man or woman can plan every eventuality. You certainly know if you are profoundly interested in somebody else. It is what you do about it that matters.”

One advantage of a long-term relationship, he admits, is that it increases the size of the car pool. As well as owning a classic Mercedes, Téa also has a BMW that they use for those journeys his electric RAV can’t handle. “It’s an old BMW 540, which Téa bought just before our wedding,” he says. “We joke about it, because every time I get in there are various warning bells going off: check brake lights, check fluid, check oil. But it’s a great car.”

MY STUFF...

ON MY CD CHANGER British invasion bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and 1970s punk bands such as the Clash
ON MY DVD PLAYER Classy films such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, one of Woody Allen’s best, and Jaws
IN MY GARAGE A 2004 RAV4 electric car
I WOULD NEVER THROW AWAY My travel alarm clocks, which are my only fetish. A Swiss Army one sits by my bed at the moment

DAVID DUCHOVNY: MY LIFE IN CARS

PUBLIC TRANSPORT In New York as a struggling actor he couldn’t afford a car
1972 DODGE DART In 1987 he bought his first car after passing his driving test at the second attempt
BMW 540 The car his wife Téa bought just before their wedding in 1997
TOYOTA RAV4 EV His all-electric 4x4 is green but impractical
VESPA He has bought a scooter to cope with the congestion in New York

Source: Timesonline.co.uk

Some photos of Tea Leoni at a concert of her 'Manure' co-star Billy Bob Thornton's band. Billy Bob and his band "The Boxmasters" performed in Austin, Texas on july 25 and 26, 2008...

David Duchovny says working with Gillian Anderson again was like enjoying the "jam of appreciation".

The actor - who reprises his role as Fox Mulder alongside Gillian's Dana Scully in new movie 'The X-Files: I Want To Believe' - admits he'd "had enough" of Gillian by the time the original 'X-Files' TV show finished in 2002, but was thrilled to return to the character after a six-year break.

He said: "Gillian and I are not as close as Mulder and Scully but who could be? Nobody is as close as Mulder and Scully. But we worked together for so long that by the time the series ended we had enough of each other.

"But six years having passed, it's like, I don't make jam, but I'm assuming you pour away the boiling liquid so after six years the liquid is all boiled off and all that remains is the jam of appreciation."

David also compared British women to "frozen champagne".

He added to British TV presenter Miquita Oliver: "You know what Byron said about English women? He said that they were like frozen champagne. When champagne freezes all the non alcoholic liquids freeze to the top and at the bottom is just that strong distilled alcohol. I think it is a compliment."

Source: My Park Magazine

Aug 1, 2008, 05:04 PM | by Lynette Rice

Now that David Duchovny's Hank Moody (pictured) is finally settling down with Karen (Natascha McElhone), it looks like he'll hand over the "wild life sex baton" to Charlie Runkle (Evan Handler) on the new season of Showtime's Californication, which begins Sept. 28. "Charlie will start having all the show's sex," Duchovny told EW.com.

Speaking of sex, Pamela Adlon (Marcy Runkle) was also on hand to promise "more sex, drugs, rock and roll, and porn wrapped around a deep, emotional core" in the coming year. "The stories are so good, Adlon teased. "I was a little surprised at how much women liked it at first, but now I meet women all the time who are so into the show. They like the honesty we portray about marriage and sexuality in long-term marriages. People are really obsessive about it and I love being part of something that isn’t just there.

"We will have plenty more boobs in season 2," she continued. "I don’t think Marcy’s journey is over. One thing I am not supposed to tell you about Marcy and season 2? She’s going to develop a nasty little cocaine habit.”

Oops! Too late! Now, what about Hank's daughter Becca?

"Becca is disenchanted with being the parent to her parents and she starts to show that this season," says the character's alter-ego, Madeleine Martin. "She thinks the adults are still acting immature. She also gets a boyfriend this season, which was fun for me. It was nice to have someone else around on set who is my age. He is a brand new character and Hank doesn’t take it well that his daughter has a serious boyfriend."

Source: EW.com

David Duchovny has blamed the new X-Files film's disappointing box office performance on The Dark Knight.

The X-Files: I Want To Believe opened with an unimpressive $10 million in ticket sales last weekend, which Duchovny put down to having to compete with the Batman sequel.

He said: "I'd prefer if it was a huge hit, but there are mitigating circumstances. We happened to open on the worst day in the history of cinema - the second week of Batman. The only thing worse would be to open with Batman and nobody would've done that."

Duchovny suggested that the movie still has a chance of turning a profit because of its relatively small budget.

"We're competing for the same audience with what they're saying will be the highest grossing film of all time," he said. "What saves us is that we only cost $29 million to make. We're a small movie masquerading as a blockbuster."

Source: Digital Spy

The multi-hyphenate on taking on Mulder one more time.

David Duchovny started playing Special Agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files in 1993. Together with Gillian Anderson as Agent Scully, the duo explored paranormal phenomenon on a weekly basis for nine seasons and a feature film, entertaining audiences the world over and turning the show into a cultural phenomenon.

It's been six years since we last saw Mulder and Scully together on screen, and with the release of The X-Files: Fight the Future, David Duchovny sits down to tell us what the agents have been up to in the interrim and tease us on the next season of his other hit show, Californication.

How important were the fans in shaping this project?
I don't think in shaping it. I think in the ability to get it done in a business sense. I think that Fox would probably look at what the gift of the fan base is in order to make this movie. We didn't make the movie just for fans, we tried to make a movie that would stand alone and be understandable and enjoyable to fans and non-fans alike, so its really a question of Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz and how they conceive of a story that might reach out and satisfy the fans at the same time as reaching out to new people.

But as a performer, as the guy playing Mulder in the movie, not only do I not have to think about, but it would be silly to have to think about it.


Did the transition back into playing Mulder happen easily?
Yeah, it did. I would think that it always will. We've spent so much time doing it, and have so many days and hours under our belts, that we know how to do it. And we might be a little rusty at times but there's a baseline of competence and understanding in the characters that we'll always have.

What was the most important thing you knew you had to get right if you were going to revisit this character?
I didn't want to do an imitation of something I started in 1993. I don't think I'd be capable of playing that character the same way. He's not a comic book character, he's not James Bond or Indiana Jones, he is supposed to change like a human being changes.

The decision was made by Chris and Frank to pick up the story six years after the show had ended, so six years had passed for Mulder as well. That became a very interesting thing for me to try to play: What has the six years done? And what has fifteen years done to this guy? So I didn't have to try to figure out what it was I was doing in 1993.

These characters are very different from the people we saw in the series. They're in a completely different place now. How did that change your approach on a day to day basis?
These were all kind of instinctual and unconscious choices motivated by feel and trust. I think the important part of the change in Mulder was that he was just not working at the beginning. He's a guy who should be working, and he's not working because he's tried to make this relationship with Scully work, so what you get in the movie besides from the caper, the case, the thriller, the X-File, is a discussion of what it means to be in a relationship and also to be obsessed with their work. Or what it means to give up your work for a relationship, or sabotaging your relationship with work.

Especially for a guy like Mulder - it's not good for him not to work, and although he's trying his best when we see him, it takes a certain kind of life out of him. So for me there was an arc to explore, as he got more involved in his true passion, and then you know there is a sacrifice to be made at the end of the movie, and i think it's a very romantic one.

The movie doesn't revisit the show's mythology. Was that, at all, a decision made to allow more time with the characters and their development?
I think less a decision for the development of the characters and more a decision to make the movie understandable to somebody who didn't know anything about the mythology. The decision to make it a stand-alone movie that was a whole world in itself and totally understandable in itself, is basically a business decision to try and reach out to new fans, and I think a smart one.

You know you can't just assume that even fans are going to remember, all of those details. I don't remember. I wouldn't assume that anybody else did either. I mean I'm sure there's a handful, but you want to reach out.

You're one of very few actors who can claim one successful American TV show, let alone two. What can we expect from the second season of Californication?
More of the same, you know, I think we struck a really interesting tone with that show, which was partly crass, partly very smart and partly very sentimental, and I can't think of how we pulled that off. It's really a testament to Tom Kapinos who's the showrunner. I think its a very unique kind of show.

It's a certain magic that you can't easily write.
Yeah, and I think we did it again this year. I think we now understand what we're doing. At first, when we did the first twelve, you're just finding your way, and there's a certain kind of energy to that. It's just great and it can work. But we just finished this season on Wednesday, and I think we knew better what we were doing in terms of this show, and I think we just get better. I got one of my co-stars from the X-Files movie, Callum Rennie, to guest star in ten out of the twelve episodes, as a legendary record producer. He's a really good actor.

What do you think Fox Mulder and Hank Moody would make of each other?
I don't know, I guess they'd be really surprised at how similar they look! I think Mulder would say "It's like looking in the mirror, look at you." That's all I can do for you, sorry!

Are we going to see any more of you as a director?
I'd love to direct more. I had a great, great time doing that; I think I've been happier doing that than almost anything I've ever done. If that's any indication of what you should be doing with your life - your happiness when you're doing that - then I should. I directed the season opener of Californication, but I would like to do another movie, it's just a matter of finding the time.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Q: What was it like working with Billy Connolly?
A: I like Billy a lot. I thought he was great in the movie - which is most important. Billy is fascinating because he's interested in just about everything.

And he's not "on" like a comedian.
He's got a lot of energy - or mental energy - but he's not like entertaining you. You're actually involved in a dialogue with him and I liked him a lot.

How did it feel stepping back into the character of Fox Mulder, who was so iconic in your career?
It would have been depressing if I had to try to play him the same way I did when I started. Thank goodness we weren't trying to do that. We were acknowledging 15 years had passed since then and six years since the show ended, so it was interesting figuring out how this guy had changed. That was the challenge - how to keep him the same and make him different. It was somewhat tricky.

Did you enjoy with Gillian Anderson again?
It was good and helped me cue into the character in the show. I did the first couple of weeks without her and, when we started back after Christmas, Gillian showed up and I began doing scenes with Scully. That's when I really started to feel we were doing The X Files.

Have X Files fans impacted you on a daily level?
Not really. I mean I'm very famous but that's been a fact for a long time. People know me and I don't know them. I recognise it's an odd situation to think you know somebody. It happens to me when I see somebody famous - like "Hey, Mel Gibson".

You are also in another successful TV show, Californication. Did you have any trepidation about going back to television and signing on for however many years?
No, because it's not like a network show where you work 10 months of the year and shoot 25 episodes. I work 12 weeks a year and shoot 12 episodes, so it's like signing on to do one movie for the next four years or so.

Source: Daily Record

by Andrew Williams
Friday, August 1, 2008

David Duchovny, 47, became famous as UFO-obsessed FBI agent Fox Mulder in The X Files. It ran for nine years, although he left after eight amid rumours he'd fallen out with show creator Chris Carter and co-star Gillian Anderson. He recently starred in TV show Californication. Duchovny reprises his Mulder role in film The X Files: I Want To Believe, out today.

Why did you do the film?
It was always in the back of my mind. Especially leaving the show a year before it finished, I always said to Chris and Gillian I didn’t want to destroy the show, I just wanted to do it as a movie franchise. I wanted to do another X Files film, it didn’t matter about the money. It provides some resolution in my relationships with Chris and Gillian.

Would you do more films?
Absolutely, I love how it looks and enjoy working with everyone. It’s not up to me though, it’s down to the economics of it.


This is more accessible than the first film though, is that intentional?
Yes we wanted to re-introduce the X-Files world to people and attract new fans who might not be familiar with it.

Will the lack of aliens upset the fans?
It might. Everyone knows the story can’t just be about one thing. If it was about aliens I'm sure it would have upset some people. You can't please everyone all of the time. So far though Chris tells me the fan response is very positive, they're very happy just to have the X Files world back.

Was working with Billy Connolly a laugh?
Everyone knows he’s very funny but he’s also interested in what other people have to say, which isn’t a trait of most comedians. He doesn’t feel he has to make a joke the whole time. He listens a lot. He’s not draining to be around as some comedians are.

When was the last time you saw Gillian Anderson prior to shooting the film?
It had been a number of years but when you spend that much time with someone it doesn’t feel like you’ve been apart. She’s like my sister.

After working so closely together for eight years you must have been sick of the sight of each other.
Absolutely. Familiarity breeds contempt. It’s nothing to do with the other person. All that fades away and you’re just left with the appreciation and love for the people you’ve worked with for so long. We used to argue about nothing. We couldn’t stand the sight of each other.

What’s the most extreme thing a fan’s done to meet you?
I did The Howard Stern Show. He gave this woman a series of humiliating things to do to meet me. If I’d have known about it, I’d have asked him not to. She ended up having mayonnaise spread over her ass and let them throw baloney at it until it stuck. I was as gracious as I could be under the circumstances.

What’s it like being the kind of man women will put mayonnaise on their bum to meet?
It goes up and down. Sometimes you’re popular, sometimes you’re not. It has very little to do with you or your work. It has to do with vicissitudes of business.

Did you enjoy the massive fame you achieved when X-Files first became a hit?
Some aspects are enjoyable but it becomes claustrophobic very quickly.

Have you got any favourite conspiracy theories?
My father wrote a play about Lee Harvey Oswald. There’s a strong strain of that in the Duchovny family. I think Oswald was a gunman working alone, though, ha ha.

Has your English MA ever come in handy?
I can’t think of specifically how but it’s not a bad thing to have read some of the best books ever written. I was going to write about contemporary American fiction and poetry for my dissertation.

You nearly got a PhD in English. Why did you turn your back on academia?
I didn’t think I’d be great at it. I was at a high-level school [Yale] where I saw people who were really great at it. I could do it but it was hard. I decided to find something I really wanted to do.

Have you ever been tempted to go back and finish it?
I would do if it was a possibility but I can't see how I’d get a year off to study eight hours a day and write.

What’s the worst job you’ve had?
I was a delivery boy for a meat market – which was fine, but I also had to clean inches of fat and grease off the chicken rotisserie. It was good aside from the rotisserie. It was in Greenwich Village and I got to see inside people’s homes – I’d carry the meat in and see how people live. I was 14 and found it fascinating.

Have you ever been attacked by an animal?
A seal made a run at me in Malibu. I thought he was injured, I was going to have a look and call an animal rescue group. As I got close he reared up and I ran away but he chased me. I looked behind me and thought: ‘How can an animal with no legs be outrunning me?’. He gained on me but veered off into the water. It makes you realise how puny man is, that he can’t even outrun a thing with no legs.

If you were a kangaroo what would you keep in your pouch?
A bottle of tequila.

When was the last time you had too much?
I never drink too much. I enjoy one drink, two drinks I’m drunk. I never drink three drinks. I know I don’t need it and I don’t want it. I know the English can’t understand it.

Source: Metro.co.uk

Television’s odd couple are back with a new film. X-Files star David Duchovny reveals why Mulder and Scully weren’t done investigating.

When Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd finally got it together as David and Maddy on 80s private eye caper Moonlighting, it killed the show faster than John McClane took down the precisely accented terrorists in the Nakatomi Plaza.

But when FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully finally locked lips in the X-Files to celebrate the new Millennium after more than six seasons of foreplay, there was enough unresolved romantic tension to see them through another three years. There were also aliens still to be encountered, conspiracy theories to be debunked (or not) and natural or scientific anomalies to be explored.

So confident is the series creator Chris Carter, that even six years after the show ended the audience is still out there for more of the same, he has brought the dynamic duo of Believer boy and Sceptic girl back for a second film,.


David Duchovny said that far from being worried about type-casting he looked forward to the reunion.

“I gave up worrying about it once I realized it happens across the board. Comedy actors get trapped in there.

“What overcomes it is my love for the show and belief in its legitimacy as an interesting movie franchise.

“We’ve been doing other things, both professionally and personally, it felt like good timing. ”

Duchovny, of course, stepped away after series seven, pleading exhaustion – his place taken by Terminator 2’s Robert Patrick as the dogged John Doggett – although he returned periodically and for the two-part finale of series nine.

“I had to leave because of the time commitment. It was never ‘God I hate the show. I can’t stand working with these people’. It was always a case of ‘Let’s stop because we are all tired. We’ve all worked longer than anybody’s ever worked on a drama with the same two people’.

“Towards the end I didn’t really want to be there. I was miserable.”

Both Duchovny and Anderson have been refreshed by successful ventures into other acting avenues. Anderson who lived in London from the age of two until she was 11, dusted off her British accent to give superlative performances in the period pieces House of Mirth and Bleak House.

Duchovny earned a Golden Globe last year for his role as a blocked novelist with an over-active sex life in Californication.

They have also been busy raising families. Duchovny, 47, has two children, Madelaine and Kyd, with his wife, actress Tea Leoni. Anderson, 39, is pregnant with her third child, her second with her partner Mark Griffiths. They have a son, Oscar, and Anderson has a daughter, Piper Maru, by her first husband Clyde Klotz.

The test for the new film will be in seeing whether audiences have similarly tired of the spooky goings-on, their attention distracted by other labyrinthine plotted cult hits about the unexplainable, such as Lost or Heroes.

“I would think if they fell in love with the show for the premise and characters, the execution and the writing – well that is what we are back to,” says Duchovny confidently.

“There is a real feeling that we don’t want to cash in on the past, we all want to do something new and make it good. We don’t want to throw a piece of crap out there and have people go look at it for nostalgia’s sake.”

X Files: I Want to Believe is a reflection on the power of faith, redemption and the lengths people go to for love.

While the first X-files movie, Fight the Future, dealt with the long-running alien story line, this is more of a stand-alone thriller. Familiarity with the cult show’s mythology is helpful but not essential.

“I think the movie is much more accessible to the non-fans in terms of story, plot and everything else. It is pretty dark and there is some nasty stuff going on,” says Duchovny.

It stars Billy Connolly as a disgraced priest who is receiving visions about the location of a missing female FBI agent. He leads the manhunt to a snowy spot where they dig up a man’s severed arm. At which point the G-men decide they need to call in the X-perts.

“He (Billy) was a terrific guy,” Duchovny enthuses about the Scottish comedian. “He’s just a great person to be around and always energetic and funny off set. I can’t understand a word he is saying but he seems to be very nice.”

This in spite of Duchovny’s own Celtic roots. At the Scottish premiere of Return to Me he wore the McFarlane tartan in honour of the fact his mum was born in Aberdeen.

Questions about the “are they or aren’t they” status of Mulder and Scully’s relationship are answered in the movie after the end of the TV series saw them together but on the run from the FBI.

Scully is working as a doctor in a Catholic hospital whereas Mulder seems to have recreated his old basement office in the isolated house he is hiding in, compete with walls of weird newspaper clippings, a ceiling full of pencils and bowls of sunflower seeds.

“The themes are the same as the show always was, you have got belief and faith and the relationship between Mulder and Scully, how that’s developed over four or five years,” says Duchovny. “They’ve not been stuck in time, they’ve moved on in some fictional realm, just as we all have and yet their issues remain the same.

“Circumstance might have changed, however, the couple’s characters essentially remain the same.

“I always liked that he (Fox) was so narrow minded in his pursuit and I think that is attractive. I think that people respect that.

“He is a quest hero and that is not something we get to do in real life, and he is never a drag, which that kind of character could easily be.

“I think his dry sense of humour is an essential part of him.”

Source: Birmingham Post

Happy to be back in his most famous role for a new X-Files movie, David Duchovny is in a playful mood, finds Paul Byrne

In the words of that great 20th Century poet, Lord David of Byrne, the world moves on a woman's hips. It's a line that could be used as the battle-cry in David Duchovny's latest TV hit, Californication.

And it might be said that, at the heart of his most famous TV outing, The X-Files, was an undying lust between its two leads, Duchovny's Agent Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson's Agent Dana Scully.

"Absolutely," smiles Duchovny, when I caught up with him in London's Dorchester Hotel. "Sex is the driving force behind just about everything. Every piece of art, of every piece of commerce, every industry, invention, every divine inspiration -- a woman's hips. Or a man's, of course ... "


It should come as no surprise to anyone who's ever followed David Duchovny's career that the man has a sense of humour. It's there in his wonderful Basic Instinct-inspired cameos on The Larry Sanders Show. It's there in Evolution. In, eh, Beethoven. And it's there in The X-Files.

Only trouble is, for Duchovny, there's never quite enough humour in The X-Files. Hence his constant on-set clashing with the sci-fi franchise's creator, Chris Carter.

"Yeah, Chris and I don't always see eye-to-eye on the humour front," nods the 48-next-Thursday actor. "It's just something I think helps you swallow all the crazy stuff that bit easier."

The crazy stuff like, hey, the alien abductions, the psychotic visions, and the big, hairy fallen priests.

"If you get too po-faced about it, people turn off. And, you know, I think that's been borne out ... "

Hmm, is he referring to the demise of The X-Files series on May 19th, 2002? Or the fact that not that many people went to see The X-Files: I Want To Believe when it opened in the US last weekend? Either way, David Duchovny isn't the kind of actor who's going to try and sell you something he doesn't believe in.

The longest-running sci-fi TV show ever in America, The X-Files hooked as many people with its tales of 'things' (aliens, government spooks, raccoons, whatever) going bump in the night as it did with the smouldering lust threatening to overcome Mulder and Scully.

It was burning love strong enough to inspire that rather fine Welsh band Catatonia to write a rather fine pop song all about the Ross and Rachel of sci-fi geekdom, imaginatively titled Mulder And Scully. Going one better, our boy was the subject of a song by Philadelphia songstress Bree Sharp. Wittily titled David Duchovny.

For Duchnovy, coming back to the show that he had pretty much abandoned two years before its TV finale (his role having by then been reduced to the occasional cameo) hung largely on his old onscreen flame making the return trip too.

"It was crucial that Gillian came back too," he says. "I wouldn't have really been all that interested in coming back to The X-Files if we weren't somehow continuing the story that we had started. Otherwise, you're just dealing with a different beast.

"I think, as much as the fans want to delve further and further into the science fiction part of the show, there's a large chunk of them out there who care deeply about these two characters, and what happens to them."

What happens to them in I Want To Believe isn't, unfortunately, all that much. Currently sitting not-so-pretty on the Rotten Tomatoes website with a lowly 34% approval rating, those diehard X-Files fans were quick to voice their disappointment with the latest outing.

Like so many of those fans, I really wanted to believe that creator Chris Carter made X-Files: I Want To Believe because, well, he believed he really had something to say. And he wasn't just milking his once-lucrative TV franchise for one last round. Unfortunately, it feels like he was.

A traditional serial-killer thriller at heart, having half the budget this time round (under $30m, compared to $66m for 1998's Fight The Future) kinda put the kibosh on the pyrotechnics too. There's a distinct sense that The X-Files spaceship has flown.

Despite the poor box-office performance in the US, Duchovny says he's "all for the idea of another movie somewhere down the line".

In the meantime, he's busy with another TV series, Californication, playing a depressed single dad writer who's living a very single life in sunny LA. Which must have been difficult to tap into, given that, in real life, Duchovny is living the very married life in sunny LA with his beautiful actress wife, Tea Leoni, and their two, no-doubt-beautiful kids, 11-year- old Madeline West and six-year-old Kyd Miller.

"Oh, yeah, playing a guy round about my age, living in the city where I live, being an artist, getting it on with all these beautiful women ... ," Duchovny pauses, "It was a hell of a stretch for me. I just had to read a lot of Warren Beatty biographies. It was my only hope of understanding this character."

The X-Files: I Want To Believe hits cinemas today

Source: Herald.ie

The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened in an underwhelming fourth place among the top ten movies this past weekend, but actor David Duchovny is No. 1 at men's sportswear, footwear and accessories company Johnston & Murphy, where he will star in a national campaign breaking in August.

The effort, via Toth Brand Imaging, Cambridge, Mass., is anchored by a print campaign that will launch in September issues of such publications as Esquire, Forbes, Fortune and Men's Health. Support includes Internet and POP. Spend for the campaign was not disclosed.

The ads show Duchovny, with a pensive look on his face, wearing Johnston & Murphy sportswear and shoes and, in some creative, accompanied by accessories such as a briefcase and other leather goods. Text reads: "Johnston, Murphy & Duchovny."

The effort is part of the company's recent strategy to rejuvenate the 157-year-old brand "by portraying a fresher, more dynamic and relevant image in the marketplace, as well as promote emerging categories such as luggage, small leather goods and outerwear." Former ads have featured musician Ziggy Marley, BMX rider Mat Hoffman and football star Tiki Barber.

"We're thrilled to have David Duchovny as part of our ad campaign," Jason Dasal, vp-marketing at Johnston & Murphy, Nashville, Tenn., said in a statement. "David embodies success and confidence, along with a great sense of style, communicating the ideal image for the Johnston & Murphy brand."

Source: www.brandweek.com

David Duchovny leaves GMTV studios and makes his way to the Dorchester Hotel, London, on july 30, 2008

David Duchovny arrives at his London hotel after dining at the Benares Restaurant in Berkeley Square, London, on july 28, 2008

David Duchovny enjoys a meal in the West End, before heading back to his hotel in London on july 28, 2008

David Duchovny and a friend jogged across 5th avenue traffic and into Central Park on July 26, 2008

David Duchovny and pregnant co-star Natascha McElhone stroll through Central Park while filming a scene for the Showtime TV series 'Californication' on July 25, 2008 in New York City