Joining the list of anticipated summer movies this year is “Evolution,” the new effort from director Ivan Reitman. The film follows the events of a meteor crash in a small Arizona town.
However, the meteor carries with it a hyper-evolutionary life form that quickly threatens all other life on our planet.
The film has attracted a very diverse pool of actors — including “American Pie’s” Seann William Scott; Orlando Jones, most likely remembered as our favorite 7-Up commercial personality; Julianne Moore; and David Duchovny.
Recently, I had the opportunity, with a group of other college journalists, to sit down and talk with Duchovny about his newest movie, his writing aspirations and what it’s like being pined for in a pop song.
Q: Was it scary for you to take a film where you actually had to be funny?
A: That’s a good question. My instinct is usually to try and draw what’s funny out of serious things and draw serious things out of what’s funny. The scary thing about making a comedy is that if you’re not going to laugh it doesn’t work. It’s not like you’re going to say, “I loved it but I didn’t laugh once — but I loved it.” You can come out of a drama and say “I didn’t cry but I loved it.” So when you have that kind of cut-and-dry response, it is scary — and you don’t want to be seen trying to be funny — there’s nothing worse than that.
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Q: What keeps you coming back to science fiction?
A: That was just chance. I mean for me, this movie couldn’t be further away from the “X-Files” even though there is this superficial resemblance of aliens and science fiction. What sets a project apart for an actor are the roles and also the tone of the movie. And the tone of this movie is probably the furthest away from the “X-Files” as you can get in that it doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I mean I could’ve done “Weekend at Porky’s 8” and it would have been more similar to the “X-Files” — well maybe not “Porky’s.”
Q: Do you enjoy doing movies better than television?
A: Not better — but it’s cyclical, I mean I did eight years of TV and now I’d like to try and do movies. The weird thing about having done the “X-Files” is that no matter what movie I do, people find a way to make it an “X-Files” film.
Q: Do you ever have a desire to return to the academic lifestyle?
A: Yeah, there are a lot of aspects to it that are attractive — teaching is a great job, I mean four months off a year is great. And to make your livelihood teaching, reading and writing is a great gift. There are parts of it that are attractive to me.
Q: It is in the news right now about how difficult it is for big stars to have a decent relationship, but how do you work at it as sort of a media thing?
A: There are many different aspects to that — I mean when I’m home and Tea (Leone) is home I don’t think of myself as Mulder, I don’t even think of myself as an actor. I think of myself as a guy who needs to get from the shower to his pants. Obviously there are other pressures involved in that we get undue attention from strangers, and there are certain vibrations in your life that are weird, but at the end of the day — literally and figuratively — you’re just trying to make a home life with a woman. I think it’s hard to keep marriages together all over, and I think there are pressures tearing people apart all over the country.
Q: Where do you want to go next in your career?
A: I don’t know — I’m interested in writing and directing, and I started to do some of that on the “X-Files,” and when I was at Princeton, I considered myself a writer. I guess I always had a heart and considered myself a writer, but I think now it’s put up or shut up time. I’ve cleared a space for myself and it’s really all of those clichÇs — put up or shut up. It’s gut check time.
Q: What was with that song about you? Something like David Duchovny why won’t you love me? What was it like having a pop lamentation just for you?
A: I thought it was a catchy song. If they had to do a song about me, I was happy it was that one. You know, it was better than “David Duchovny fuck off and die.” That really doesn’t rhyme.
