David Duchovny participates in the 2007 Nautica Malibu Triathlon on Zuma Beach on September 16, 2007 in Malibu, California.

Favorite restaurants: "I go to this little place called A Votre Sante in Brentwood. It's healthy-ish, cheap-ish kind of food [13016 San Vicente Blvd.; 310-451-1813; entrées, $10-$13]. I also go to a vegan place called Real Food Daily. I'm a bit of an on-again, off-again vegetarian, so it's a great place for that kind of food [514 Santa Monica; 310-451-7544; entrées, $11-$13]."

Favorite theater: "Edgemar Center for the Arts, run by my friend Larry Moss, who's a great acting coach. He's a tremendous guy and his theater does interesting things [310-392-7327; edgemarcenter.org]."

Favorite galleries: "Bergamot Station in Santa Monica has a bunch of galleries. Two good friends of mine, Greg Colson and Daniel Wheeler, are very accomplished artists, and they'll have an opening or two a year, or they'll tell me about one I should go to [2525 Michigan Ave.; 310-586-6488]."

Favorite beaches: "We love Zuma and the beach at Point Dume."

Favorite ways to work out: "I do yoga, though not as much as I wish that I did. I like the classes at Yoga Works [yogaworks.com]. For the last few years, I've been into tennis. Before that, I went through a boxing phase. I always play basketball and swim. I would like to get back into boxing a little more than I have, but right now, tennis is my thing."

Source: Condé Naste Traveller

Portion of the Proceeds to Benefit Childrens Hospital Los Angeles

WHO: Andy Baldwin, Jon Cryer, David Duchovny, William H. Macy, Felicity Huffman, Paul Walker, Mark Paul Gosselaar, Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), Anthony Azizi (Desperate Housewives), ...


WHAT: The Nautica Malibu Triathlon brings together professional athletes, celebrities and triathlon enthusiasts to test their strength and stamina. A portion of the proceeds from this years race will be donated directly to Childrens Hospitals Los Angeles’ Pediatric Cancer Research Program. Thousands of spectators will line the route to cheer on their favorite athletes as they navigate a course that begins with a ½ mile ocean swim, followed by an 18-mile bike ride and ends with a 4-mile run along Pacific Coast Highway.

Participants can race as individuals or relay teams and nearly half the participants will compete in either the Entertainment Challenge or Corporate Challenge. The Entertainment Industry Challenge brings together the top studios, production companies and talent agencies to compete for the Studio Cup, which is awarded to the fastest team in this category. The Corporate Challenge offers non-entertainment companies the same chance to compete.



Adding to the fun of the weekend, a spectator festival will be held the day before the race on Saturday, September 15, 2007. Events will include a Sand Castle Demo, Beach Expo with Interactive Booths, Bike Demonstrations and Specialty Clinics.

According to Amazon.com 'The TV Set' will be avaiable in DVD on September 25, 2007

Director: Jake Kasdan
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Number of discs: 1
Rating: R
Studio: 20th Century Fox


Also according to Amazon.com 'You Kill Me'will be avaiable in DVD on October 9, 2007

Director: John Dahl
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
Number of discs: 1
Rating: R
Studio: IFC

David Duchovny and a friend enjoy a frozen treat at "Pinkberry" in Brentwood on september 12, 2007

In the new Showtime series Californication, David Duchovny plays Hank, a writer who moves to California to stimulate his creativity and ends up giving into temptation with wine and women. Abbie Bernstein spoke to Duchovny about the show and the much-rumoured new X-Files movie.

How would you describe Californication?

At its heart, it’s a comedy. It’s not a sitcom - it’s not Sex and the City or something like that. This is a dark world, but it’s got a kind of buoyant heart. The only thing that concerns me sometimes is that I wouldn’t want people to judge it superficially - that ‘it’s a show about a drug addict’ or ‘a show about a sex addict’ or all these tags that you try to put on things because they might make good copy or might enrage somebody.

It’s a human comedy. It’s an adult comedy. It’s an adult doing adult things; it’s not an adult acting like a six-year-old, which is what most comedies are like.

How do you feel sex is depicted on the show?

I just like that there’s no bullshit about it. So that makes Hank vulnerable, I think.

How has Californication evolved since the pilot?

What really should happen on television shows is, you get better. Because you start to figure out what the show is. I’m proud of the pilot, I’m glad that we made it the way it is, and it’s close to what I thought it was going to be. I just want it to get better. And that’s on the writers, that’s on the actors – it’s on all of us.

Is your Californication character Hank at all like Mulder?

Well, I think Hank might be in a little better shape! I guess they both want to know the truth. I guess they both speak their mind to their own detriment.

You’ve said that the second X-Files movie is finally going to happen. What’s different this time?

I’m actually supposed to see it next week. Before, I would just say that because they told me, but now I’ve been talking to Chris [Carter], he’s been giving me progress reports. He actually called yesterday and said he’ll have it next week.

Do you know when you’ll shoot it?

I think it’s November, for a summer release.

How do you think X-Files would have been different if it were on Showtime?

Well, Mulder and Scully probably would have had sex right away and the show wouldn’t have lasted!

You’ve done a lot of indie films in the past couple of years. Is that just where the good roles have been or is that a creative ethos?

A bit of both. I started there. The X-Files was kind of a crazy, mainstream success that I never expected and it was wonderful. But I think my personal view always kind of fit more in the independent world, and I just really liked some of the parts that I was able to do.

I loved Trust the Man and I loved The TV Set - Jake Kasdan’s great, a really talented writer/director, so I was happy.

So do you think that Californication has an indie feel?

Yeah. I feel like on this show, I can do the kind of work that you want to do on an independent film, but I get to do it 11 weeks out of the year and pursue a story and character through a much longer genesis than a film.

What’s your relationship been like with the showrunners?

I’m getting to know Scott [Winant] and I think he’s really talented. I’ve had a great experience with [Californication creator] Tom Kapinos thus far, and I don’t see any reason for that to change because we have a really great collaboration happening.

Do your children understand your job as an actor?

They think it’s fun to come visit set, but obviously, my kids aren’t going to see this show for a number of years. I mean, they can see The X-Files, if they want to, in five or six years. I’ve done maybe one job that my kids have seen - the movie Beethoven, about the dog.

They know that we [Duchovny and wife Tea Leoni are] are actors and they know that sometimes people know who we are…but I’m sure they wish I was on Hannah Montana!

Californication is currently airing on Showtime.

Thanks to http://www.dwscifi.com!

David heads to his car after having breakfast at the popular A Votre Sant Restaurant in Brentwoo on September 11, 2007

David and son Miller get take-out in Malibu on september 8, 2007

David at Day 10 of the U.S. Open 2007 in NYC...

Siobhan Duck
September 05, 2007 12:00am

DAVID Duchovny is tired of sex talk. The Hollywood actor is concerned his new show, Californication, is being promoted as some sort of racy sex show.

He insists Californication is an intelligent adult comedy, in the style of the movie Shampoo or US cable series such Sex and the City and Weeds.

Californication, like Weeds, has been condemned by family groups and conservative Christians who say it uses shock tactics to win ratings. But it's hard to know whether Californication critics have actually watched the show, or simply the sexed-up hype Duchovny moans about.

In an interview in the US, Duchovny says: "I hope people and the press don't judge the show superficially and morally -- that it's a show about a sex addict, all these tags you try to put on it because it might outrage somebody.

"It's a comedy. It's an adult comedy. It's not an adult acting like a six-year-old, which most comedies are like."

Duchovny rose to fame as Fox Mulder in the cult hit The X-Files. He has not starred in another series since leaving The X Files in 2001, though he made a guest appearance in Sex in the City in 2003.

He's been busy doing other things: "Like raising a family, movies and writing and directing and not finding the thing I wanted to do".

"The thing that The X-Files afforded me was the luxury of being able to just choose what I wanted to do rather than have to do. I didn't feel I had to do anything until this."

It was Tom Kapinos, a former writer on teen drama Dawson's Creek, who lured Duchovny back to the small screen.

"His camp warned me that he wasn't interested in television and would pass," Kapinos says. "But I knew something was up when he wrote me a letter saying that the script had been keeping him up at night."

Aside from the sex -- and, yes, there's lots of it, despite what Duchovny says -- Californication is about Hank Moody (Duchovny) and his mid-life crisis.

It is based on Kapinos's own life, suggesting things must be fairly wild in his house.

"All around me, friends were getting married and having kids, but they were changing -- settling in, getting fat, watching reality TV with their wives," Kapinos says. "I started dreaming up this character who was the polar opposite -- a guy who was staving off adulthood for as long as humanly possible and would not go gently into the good night of domestic bliss."

Duchovny's personal life is a picture of domestic bliss. He and wife, Jurassic Park III star Tea Leoni, have two children, Madelaine, 8, and Kyd Miller, 5.

"You exist for these kids," he says.

"They're more important than you and that's a good thing. It takes the attention off yourself -- which is a good thing -- especially for an actor. It's humbling and wonderful.

"If you think you're tremendous at what you do, you've got a big hit movie or TV show and you've got to deal with an eight-year-old, you realise you really can't do s---."

It has been reported Leone almost talked Duchovny out of Californication because she thought Moody was unlikable.

"It's comforting actually to check in with her, and I think she would say the same," he says. "I ask her opinion. I don't listen to her, but I ask her."

Duchovny felt he could make Moody work.

"It's not a mid-life crisis," he says. "I think it's a life crisis. Actors are always having life crises because you don't know what's next. So it's always a crisis. You're constantly in some kind of low-level crisis modem and yet I think if we were all honest with ourselves, I mean, that's really what life is."

Like Duchovny, co-star Natascha McElhone was attracted to Californication's sharp writing and strong characters, rather than its lusty bedroom scenes.

"The scripts just get juicier and juicier," she says. "It's great to have a show that is character-driven. Usually it's about people who are cops, lawyers or doctors. This is just about people."

Duchovny says he was lucky notoriety didn't come until he was 32. Before The X Files, he played a transvestite drug-enforcement officer in Twin Peaks, made family movies Beethoven and Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and the cult hit Kalifornia.

"It's hard when you get famous when you're a kid -- 25, 18. I had a chance to mature a little before that happened, so when it did happen I could see it for what it was," he says. "I think on some level, even when I wasn't famous, I always felt I was famous. I always felt if fame came, it would be for a reason. It was something I wanted, it was something I was doing."

David Duchovny leaving ABC Studios after appearing on 'Live with Regis and Kelly' New York City on September 05, 2007

Lawrie Masterson
September 03, 2007 12:00am

AS THE star and an executive producer of new comedy series Californication, David Duchovny says part of his job is making his array of female co-stars feel relaxed on the set.

Which is never easy, considering they spend an inordinate amount of time naked.

“I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure they are comfortable but, really, how can you be comfortable?'' Duchovny says. “It's a s------ situation to come into, so you just try to make it as choreographed and as not demeaning as possible.

“It's certainly not my intention to make a show that demeans women.''

Californication, which premiered last week with strong late-night figures against Seven's City Homicide and Nine's The King, stars Duchovny in a role that even his character in The X-Files, Fox “Spooky'' Mulder, might have found scary.
New Yorker Hank Moody has written the Great American Novel -- a celebrated best-seller titled God Hates Us All, signed a lucrative movie rights deal and moved with his wife, Karen (Natascha McElhone), and their 12-year-old daughter, Becca (Madeleine Martin), to Los Angeles.

But when his book is turned into a romantic comedy called A Crazy Little Thing Called Love (the stars are referred to only as “Tom and Katie'') and he is ditched by Karen, writer's block sets in.

Hank soothes himself with a succession of meaningless affairs with a seemingly unlimited supply of available women, all the while trying to win back Karen and maintain a credible relationship with Becca.

According to Duchovny, the scripts by Tom Kapinos, a four-year veteran of Dawson's Creek, are “more like what independent cinema used to offer'' and certainly would not have been made by a US free-to-air network. Again it is US pay-TV -- in this case Showtime -- that is displaying a dash of daring along with all the flesh. And it is not only the women who get naked, either.

“It's my a--- up there, literally and figuratively,'' Duchovny says, laughing. “Stephen Hopkins, the director, said, `You're going to have to get naked or else it's going to look like we're just a show throwing naked women out there and that won't look good'.''

Apart from remaining comfortable with what he has to do at work each day and with whom he has to do it, Duchovny says the biggest challenge is trying to make the series look real.

“It is a comedy, but in the sense that it has to be in a real world that this guy is living in because if it's not it's a lot less funny,'' he says. “He's not even a guy who is on the make. He's more like the guy in (the 1975 Warren Beatty film) Shampoo -- sex is just coming at him all the time and he can't say no.

“This is not about a sex addict. What I thought was very interesting and very important in (last week's) pilot was that it's established that he was faithful to his wife during the whole marriage but she cheated on him.

“That kind of set him off on this path, so it's almost like it's out of heartbreak.

“That's much more interesting than saying the guy is clinically, obsessively driven to having sex.''

With Californication taking about three months to complete 12 episodes, Duchovny says he still has plenty of time to pursue other projects, including a new X-Files movie.

Duchovny and his co-star in that series, Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully), recently lunched with creator Chris Carter "just to make sure we're all on board at the same time".

He adds: "It was great. Chris picked up the check."

From The Sunday Times
September 2, 2007

Californication is the juicy new series that lured David Duchovny back to TV. We ask him about its appeal

David Duchovny is tired. He’s been shooting and reshooting the same scene all day – and, for an actor who likes to improvise, this means he’s had to think of fresh funny stuff for almost every take. He’s just finished fending off a crowd of hacks who are slightly shocked by the sex-and-drugs-and-rock’n’roll nature of his new television series, Californication, and he’s batted them back with his usual Ringo wit: “David, what do you think you will take more heat for, the nudity or the smoking?” “I think it’s the nude smoking.”

So, when he slumps on the sofa in the ultra-modernist house the crew have been working in all day, he squints in the sunshine and speaks slowly and quietly. He’s also slightly uncomfortable if anyone mentions the X word – as in Files, rather than porn. Because, while the American headlines around Californication are about the sex (there is plenty of it, fairly graphic and extending into most peccadilloes) and the mayhem (boobs, alcohol and drugs being unfashionable on American television since Janet Jackson’s Nipplegate moved the broadcasting watchdog to the far right), this is also Duchovny’s second big shot at playing a 21st-century screwball Cary Grant, after mysteriously lousing it up last time.

The X Files, across its nine seasons, put Duchovny and his co-star, Gillian Anderson, into the stellar championship division – not quite in the Premier League with movie stars and footballers, but way ahead of most rock stars and almost all TV stars (and this, my child, was in the days before reality shows, when TV stars really were TV stars). Duchovny clambered off the X Files ratings train early and, for a while, was set to be the next George Clooney, with witty roles in twisted comedies such as Evolution and wry cameos, including a hand model in Zoolander. He said he’d never work in television again. Yet here he is. “It was a character I liked, and it didn’t matter to me what the medium was,” he shrugs. “It was more a sense of humour I liked, an adult humour I hadn’t been able to do or hadn’t seen or hadn’t had available to me for a long time – if ever. It reminded me of movies I love from the 1970s, like Shampoo – dark adult comedies with actual situations and real adults. Sure, they can be childish, that’s the essence of comedy, but they’re not children.”

So, does that mean today’s comedy is childish? “I think American comedies are – British comedies are a little more adult,” he smiles, charming the Englishman. “It seems they are appealing to everyone, even 12-year-olds, but 12-year-olds wouldn’t get this show.” Certainly, they wouldn’t get in to see this show if it was on the big screen. Duchovny plays Hank Moody, a New York writer in the Will Self mould whose masterwork, God Hates Us All, has been made into a romantic comedy called A Crazy Little Thing Called Love, starring Tom and Katie. He’s rich. He’s lost his girlfriend, mother of his beloved daughter, to an interior designer and sinks into the waves of depravity that wash through LA.

Does Duchovny, a father of two with his wife of 10 years, Téa Leoni, worry about depicting fractured family values? “What appealed to me was that the guy supposedly without morals was the most moral person when the chips were down,” he explains carefully. “Not having the right morality, necessarily, but – well, ‘a walking id’ was how he was described in the pilot. He doesn’t really have desires, but he doesn’t have any ‘no’, either. If you gave him booze or coke or a woman, he would take that. Being a good father was part of that.

“But I wouldn’t know what family values are – I’m just making it up as I go along. In terms of the right god and the right school and the right approach to drugs and sex, all that stuff, to me it’s not set in stone. I’m not a just-say-no guy – I could never say that.” He seems wary of taking that thinking further, so switches back to the character. “What seemed real to me was that he was not some driven guy who was going to do every joint – he was a man who had lost something, lost his will.”

You wonder if he feels for his character’s compromise. Duchovny was born in New York to a working-class Scottish mother and a Russian father, so he felt like an outsider. He won a scholarship to a big-money prep school, then a place at Princeton, and studied under Harold Bloom at Yale for his masters – “I knew the work of Derrida and Paul de Man,” he smiles. “It’s like surgical text-books: I know how to read them.” Then, suddenly, he won the lead role in an ad for Löwenbräu beer.

“I would understand a serious novelist like this guy selling his book to be made into a movie and hoping it would resemble it, or be different or better,” he smiles. “There are times you do something and thought you were doing something else. But I think if you really checked yourself, you would know you’d had a feeling that it might not be exactly what you were telling yourself it was. I don’t think there are any huge surprises in life, like there are in this show, where a guy gets completely blind-sided by the triviali-sation of his work. I think we all make compromises little by little, then one day turn around and say, ‘Oh, I’m a hack.’ ” Does he feel he’s made those hack compromises? He pauses, shrugs. “Sure, yeah. I wouldn’t want to name them, because that would belittle the people who made them with me, and I don’t know if they were making compromises.”

He clearly no longer feels the X Files role was a compromise, though he spared no scorn for his character’s gullibility in interviews at the time, describing Mulder as the worst FBI agent ever. He’s just signed up for the second X Files movie, along with Anderson and the show’s creator, Chris Carter. He’s seen and loves the script. What brought him back into the fold?

“There has not been a show that has made it as long as we did, at as high a level of achievement as we did, ever,” he says with pride. “Alias went for five seasons, Lost has done four – I mean, come to me when you’ve done eight and are still one of the best shows on television. And there was so much interest in it. So . . .” He shrugs again. Is there a craving for that global fame again? Does he want to go back to the days of X Files Beatle-mania? “I wish,” he laughs. “I don’t think you could ever feel like a Beatle. They knew they were doing something great, I think. Although . . .” The thought trips mischievously across his face. “Maybe they didn’t, because they weren’t together as long as we were. In fact, we were better than the Beatles. I mean, come on, 1962 to 1970? They couldn’t even make it to a ninth year.”

Californication is on Five from October 11

Thanks to The Sunday Times!