On Saturday, October 10th, the second press room at New York Comic Con I attended, directly following its panel, was for The X-Files on FOX. The X-Files returns for season ten January 24, 2016. As SciFi Vision intends to cover the series extensively, I have transcribed the majority of each of the roundtable interviews.

Following is a transcript of some highlights from the interview with David Duchovny, followed by the video. Don't forget to check out the full photo gallery and other interviews from the press room, as well as highlights and photos from the panel and premiere.


FOX Press Room
The X-Files
David Duchovny

On what is different and what is the same for him now compared to years ago

I find it a lot harder to work through the night. I don't know. I don't know what to say. Some of it's harder, and some of it's easier. The hours are harder. The acting is easier. I think we're all better. We've done a lot of work since we started that show. A lot of that work was that show; we got better. I can look I don't, but I could, look at like the first season of The X-Files as opposed to the sixth, seventh, or eighth, and I see different actors. I'm talking about Gillian [Anderson] and I. So that just continued on afterwards. We both, I believe, have gotten better, so that's kind of fun to bring that to the same characters. I mean, bring the ability to access maybe more than we could have back then.

On the idea of his children getting to see the series now as he makes it

No, you know, I'm not one of those parents - like I'm proud of my kids. I don't need them to be proud of me. I'm glad that they can't watch Californication; I'm glad they can't watch it, so that's good. But yeah, I want them to be proud of themselves. Dad's okay. Dad's got enough.

On being protective of his character

I'm very protective of the character. I feel like I'm the caretaker of that guy. You know, there are times when you get a script, and I'll talk to Chris [Carter] or whoever wrote the script, and I'll say, "This doesn't sound right; this doesn't feel right." You know, stuff like that. But at this point, it's really instinctive and intuitive, but, you know, every actor's like that; every actor's going to feel that way. And then Gillian and I, kind of when we have our scene together, we're both kind of care taking of our points of view. It can get a little tricky, but that's the fun part.

On how he felt ripping the iconic “I want to believe” poster

This will give you an insight into how different it is to do the show, as opposed to see the show. I felt nothing about doing it. All I wanted was for it to rip correctly, and how many posters do I have a shot at ripping through? So I had no thought about kicking the actual sacred poster. It's just like, "Let's fucking get it right," you know, because we're going to run out of posters, and then it's going to look like shit, and then I'm going to feel bad. So I genuinely - and maybe when I read it, I thought, "nice move, nice writing, nice idea," Chris wrote that part, but really, on the day, I was like, "Oh yeah, yeah, we've got to make sure this thing works."

On processing the idea of how important the series is to people

I don't process it. I don't think about it. It doesn't affect me; it doesn't occur to me.

On how the popularity has affected his life

It doesn't. I mean, it's affected my life in that it started my career. It gave me many opportunities. It gave me a lot of money, you know, it's all great things. Most of all, it gave me the opportunity to go to work every day and act for fourteen hours a day for eight years. So I got to create my own acting school for myself.

On how he feels being back

I'm always happy to work; I like working. Yes, I'm happy to do it. I enjoy the people that I work with, and I think the show is great. You know, I couldn't be prouder of the entire show, from the first season to what we've got now. So there's so much of it that I'm grateful for, but I don't think of it. It's such an interior thing for me. It's like if you play a sport. At some point you stop thinking about hitting the tennis ball; you just hit the tennis ball. So I just do The X-Files; I don't think about it.

On anything that still challenges him

Yes, it's all challenging. I mean it's challenging - I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't challenging. It's to come back at whatever age I am now, 55 - 54, when we started on it, and to know what's 54 year old Mulder? He's not thirty year old Mulder, because that's gross, you know, yet he's not a different guy. So now we're kind of in this place where we're all wondering like, yeah, he's kind of the same; let's challenge him, because it's not - I can't just go, "Okay, now I just wear black, and I've got a French accent." You know, I've got to make changes, but they can't be that obvious, and that’s challenging and interesting to an actor.

[crosstalk on not being in the series as much in the end]

On how he feels to see people dressed up as Mulder

Can I look at any guy in a suit and say he's dressed like Mulder? I'm walking around New York, I'm like, “Look at all these dudes;” I'm down on Wall Street; they're all dressed like Mulder. Jesus, you guys are big fans. There're a lot of Thor's hammers out there. I don't know.

It's nice that people love the show. I mean, I don't know how else to put it without sounding like an idiot, or without sounding ungrateful, because I am grateful, it's just, you know, without people still being interested, we wouldn't have gotten to do these six. So I'm grateful for that. It's amazing to me that we kind of ended the show right before, you know, phones and internet happened. And yet somehow we've kind of created a life in this internet world. I don't know how that happened, because we weren't really around for that.

On there being a lot of young fans that weren’t around originally

I don't know how that happens, because I haven't been able to get my kids to watch it. I don't know how anybody gets their kids to watch it (laughs). Yeah, it's amazing. A lot of people have very nostalgic feelings for it. I mean, I live here in New York, and there's a TV station, and I think it's called Me TV, and it shows programming from the 70s, and I sometimes watch it because that's nostalgic to me, but I want it to be more than that. You know, that's not why we just did these six. It has to be more than just an exercise in nostalgia, and I think we've made another good show, another good six shows.

On the possibility of the series continuing past the six episodes

I mean, you know, I try not to hope. If the opportunity presents itself, you know, a lot of it depends on Chris. If he thinks there're stories to tell, if we could sit down and figure out a way to go - it's my impression that the frame of the show is so very flexible that we could tell stories for a long, long time. So I'm probably being disingenuous when I say that I hope there're stories; I’m sure there are. It's just a question of Chris wanting to, Gillian wanting to, and me wanting to, and us all getting together in the same space to do it. You know, it took us a long time to do that. So I hope, you know, I don't want to hope, but, you know, it's possible that we could all find ourselves in the same city for three months again at some point.