Movie Q&A: David Duchovny

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