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The notion of notoriously undomestic FBI agent Fox Mulder changing diapers is,
of course, bizarre. The mysterious truth-seeking character that Duchovny
has played on The X-Files since the show began in 1993 is hardly the kind of man
to be hovering over a howling baby. Then again, a few years back, the
supersingle, always-courtside-at-the-Lakers, celebrity-dating bachelor Duchovny
didn’t exactly seem like the homey type either. His heavy-lidded good
looks have made him one of television’s hottest sex symbols. (Among the
Web sites devoted to him are the David Duchovny Page of Lust
and David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade.) There’s no doubt
that his strict vegetarian diet, hours of yoga, and games of basketball have
helped keep him in sex-symbol shape too.
But now, Duchovny is at a crossroads in his life and says it’s probably
about time to break away from The X-Files. His contract is up this year,
and Gillian Anderson, who plays his partner, Scully, is under contract through
next year. The Fox Network may squeeze another year out of Duchovny, but
either way, the series is nearing an end. Duchovny is embarking on
a leading-man film career, although the track record for television stars moving
into film stardom is uneven. Tom Hanks and George Clooney did it, but then
there are always the David Carusos, who never quite make the leap onto
the big screen. Duchovny is aware of the pressure - and the
question that faces him is, will he always be identified as Agent Fox Mulder or
can he break away? Even Duchovny doesn’t know the answer.
Whatever the outcome, leaving the show will allow him more time at home. Playing
Mulder has made Duchovny super wealthy (at a reported $200,000 an
episode), which affords him the luxury of doing what he wants: being with his
wife and daughter and being selective about projects. “Now,” he says,
“I want to go out and prove that I’m capable of doing *other* things.”
Begging to be Romanced
His new movie, Return to Me, a love story, is clearly an attempt by Duchovny
to prove that he’s romantic-comedy lead material. In Return to Me, which
is directed and coauthored by Bonnie Hunt, he plays a Chicago architect who
falls for a woman who, unbeknownst to him, has received the transplanted heart
of his dead wife. The film costars Hunt as well as Minnie Driver, who
plays the new object of his affection.
It’s no accident Duchovny ended up in the film. In fact, he
lobbied hard for the part. Duchovny first met Hunt in 1992 while
they were both acting in the family comedy Beethoven. About a year ago, he
heard that Hunt had written a script and was planning to direct the film
version. So Duchovny called his manager, got the script, and told
Hunt that he was the man for the job.
As for Hunt, she said that the romantic and vulnerable role was indeed a far cry
from Agent Mulder but totally right for Duchovny. “I could see David’s
potential,” Hunt says. “He’s great in The X-Files, of course, but I
had already seen a different side to David: funny, wry, charming, and
debonair.”
That Hate-Love Relationship
His charming, funny side comes through, especially when recounting the way he
met his wife. “We met in the worst showbiz way,” he recalls, grinning.
In 1993, still relatively unknown, Duchovny had completed the film Kalifornia, which starred Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis.
Duchovny’s
manager suggested that he appear on The Tonight Show to promote the film.
The hitch? He had to audition by meeting a producer of the show who wanted
to make sure that Duchovny was not a bore. “If you’re not
famous enough to be a guest, you have to audition. I told my manager,
‘Of all the terrible things to do, this is the worst.’”
Reluctantly, the actor went to a Los Angeles restaurant to meet the producer. To
Duchovny’s horror, the Tonight producer was not auditioning him alone -
he was auditioning actress Tea Leoni at the same time, and the pressure threw Duchovny
off.
“It was very awkward. She was amazing with the producer. She was
funny and smart, gracious and charming. And I hated her,” he says.
“I hated her because she put me totally in the shadow. I just started
sulking. I didn’t have anything to say. I knew I couldn’t
compete with this level of charm. And of course, I was rejected and she
got on the show. After that, whenever I’d hear her name, I was like
‘She’s a total loudmouth.’”
Three years later, while in Vancouver (where the The X-Files shot for several
seasons, Duchovny was talking on the phone to his agent who told him,
“Oh, there’s somebody in my office whom I think you know, Tea Leoni.”
Duchovny’s response? “Oh, that loudmouth, is she still
talking?” he asked. After his agent hung up, Leoni said, “I get the
feeling he doesn’t like me for some reason.”
While Duchovny was on the phone, he was staring at a magazine cover of Leoni, at the time the star of TV’s The Naked Truth. He recalls, “She
looked so good. I was like ‘Wow. Is she single?’” Duchovny
asked his agent about Tea, and Tea asked about him. A few weeks later, Duchovny
called up Leoni.
“I was still in Vancouver and she was in L.A., so we began talking over the
phone,” says Duchovny. “We had this great conversation.
Then we just kept calling each other. All of a sudden we were talking
three or four times a day. There’s always a lot of pressure on a first date,
but we really had covered a lot of ground *before* that.” The two
finally had that first date at a Malibu restaurant after a three-week phone
courtship. Connecting in person was even better than doing so over the
phone.
It was more than just a Hollywood hookup - David and Tea jumped right in.
Two months later, on May 6, 1997, they were married in front of a handful of
family and friends in a courtyard at New York’s Grace Church, where Duchovny’s
mother was a teacher and school administrator.
David gushes about his wife’s unpretentious ways. “She’s very
unimpressed with Hollywood in the sense of going to parties or premieres or
openings or wearing the best clothes or having the highest-grossing movie,” he
says. “Tea’s just very funny and game and strong. And she’s
much more realistic than me. She has her head on straight.”
And now that they’re parents (West, as they call their tot, was born two years
after the wedding), it’s obvious their relationship is as strong as ever.
The couple has been spotted strolling arm in arm, pushing West in the carriage
and sipping Starbucks coffee. And while Duchovny was shooting
Return to Me in Chicago last summer, Leoni came along for company and kept her
husband busy on the tennis court on many hot afternoons.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy
Despite the afternoons out and about, the couple is, for the most part, very
private. They try to stay close to their $3 million four-bedroom home near
the beach in Malibu. Seems like being away from prying paparazzi eyes just
lets them be more themselves: Duchovny jokes that he and Tea are total
goofballs, especially when it comes to belting out tunes in the car. “She makes me sing that song ‘I’d Really Love to See You Tonight,’ and I
sing ‘Feel Like Making Love’ and she air-drums,” he has joked. “This is why we have tinted windows. A lot of people think it’s because we
don’t want people to see us and follow us home, but it’s really because we
make fools of ourselves.”
Rock ‘n’ roll antics aside, the huge success of The X-Files has had the
obvious drawback of making privacy hard to come by. Duchovny’s
not complaining. He admits that never in his wildest dreams did he believe
that he’d turn into a television star. At his first audition for The
X-Files in 1993, he was convinced that the show would fail after one season.
“Two F.B.I. agents investigating the paranormal? Sounds like nothing
could be worse,” he commented several years ago.
Despite what the tabloids like to report as “difficulty on the set” between Duchovny
and Anderson, he says they have a “comfortable working relationship” and
believes that viewers and journalists are fascinated with them because of the
complicated relationship they’ve had on-screen. “We’ve worked
together closely for seven years,” he says. “There’s definitely a
friendship.”
That bond between Mulder and Scully will probably be broken soon. Besides
trying to follow the big-screen success story of TV stars like George Clooney,
he says he’ll try his hand at writing and directing (he’s done both for
several episodes of the show). But another television series, he admits, is
probably not in the cards, partly because he wants to spend more time with his
wife and daughter. “You go from being a child to being a parent,” he
says, grinning. “I can’t just run off anymore and take a yoga class.
Now I have to call in and ask, ‘Do you think you can spare me for two
hours?’”
He smiles. It seems that having to make that call is a small price to pay
for what he gets in return. #
The Cosmo List
* What is the real secret to your success?
It’s really just luck and guts. Doing what interests you.
* Are you ready for a break?
Well, let’s put it this way, by the time I finish X-Files, there will be 160
hours of episodes, which is more hours of on-screen work than Jimmy Stewart did
in his whole career.
* Worst fan encounter?
I was riding in an elevator at a hospital to visit a sick relative and this
idiot says to me, ‘Hey, you going to see Scully?’ He never even
bothered to think that Gee, I’m at the hospital, maybe something’s wrong.
Maybe he shouldn’t be bothering me.
* Do you watch TV?
I’ve seen a few episodes of The Sopranos. I love the wife, Edie Falco.
And I think James Gandolfini is great. It’s a great show.
* What was the worst job you’ve ever had?
I was subletting an apartment in Manhattan from a woman who had a pet tarantula,
and my job - to get a cheap rent - was to put 10 crickets in the tarantula’s
cage every month. You’d hear this lush cricket song at the beginning of
the month, and by the end, it would get thinner until there would be one little
cricket chirping in there. I always thought of it as a metaphor for my
chances as an actor.
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