BIOGRAPHY

• If someone had asked David Duchovny in the early eighties what his probable career was, he answer would have been a professor in English Literature. When he was thirteen, he had won a scholarship for New York’s Collegiate School, an elite private boy’s school attended by such notables as John F Kennedy Jr. In 1982, Duchovny, now 22, graduated from Princeton with a degree in English Literature. His senior thesis was "The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels". Two years later, he earned his masters degree from Yale and began work on his doctorate.
  
  During his time at Yale, he discovered another calling, acting. He began commuting between Yale and New York and soon began appearing in off-Broadway plays. He quit his doctoral studies in order to concentrate on his acting career. In 1987, he made his television debut in an ad for Lowenbrau Beer. Starting with 1988’s Working Girl, he had several small roles in movies and TV series. In one notable early role, he played a transvestite DEA agent for three episodes of Twin Peaks.
  
  Another one of Duchovny’s notable early roles was in The Rapture. This movie was written and directed by Michael Tolkin, who would later write/direct The New Age and write Deep Impact. Mimi Rogers starred as a woman who works at a boring job as a phone operator during the day. At night, she cruised the bars with her boyfriend Randy (Duchovny) looking for couples to participate in group sex. After a vision involving the Apocalypse, she joins a group of fanatical Christians and convinces Randy to also join. She eventually does meet God, and what she did next was the subject of much debate among critics and moviegoers. Produced on a shoestring budget, the movie was critically acclaimed but only drew a small reception at the box-office.
  
  Duchovny’s other early work of note was in the ‘Red Shoe Diaries’ ShowTime TV series. Duchovny played Jake, a man whose fiancée has just died. After reading her diary, he discovers that she was having an affair with a construction worker. To cope with his loss, he pays women who have been through similar situations for their story. Each episode was based on one of these stories, with Duchovny appearing at the beginning and the end as a host. He also starred in the series premiere. The show spawned several made-for-television movies.
  
  After playing more big parts in small movies and small parts in big movies, Duchovny received his big break by being cast in ‘The X-Files’. He played Special Agent Fox Mulder, an FBI agent obsessed with his sister’s disappearance and the possible role of aliens in the abduction. He is working on the X Files, a group of unsolved cases involving the paranormal, but has had trouble gaining credibility. Fearing that his work will reveal too much, top members of the government assign Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) to be his partner. They believe her skeptical nature will hold back Mulder. Instead, it provides him with focus and a firm scientific basis for his investigations. He soon learnt about a vast government conspiracy whose scope continues to increase as the show progresses through the seasons.
  
  Because the show was science fiction, most people did not expect it to last more than a season or two, if that. To everyone’s surprise, the show was a runaway hit. It managed to tap into an undercurrent of concern about the coming millenium and a growing belief that the government is not telling the whole truth about UFOs and extra-terrestrial life. For his part, Duchovny was nominated for the Best Performance by an Actor in a TV-Series -Drama Golden Globe in 1996, 97, 98, and 99. He won in 1997. He was also nominated for the Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Emmy in 1997 and 1998.
  
  Around the time that he was cast in ‘The X-Files’, Duchovny also acted in Kalifornia. He played Brian Kessler, a journalist who travels to crime scenes around the country with his photographer girlfriend Carrie Laughlin (Michelle Forbes, who played Ensign Roe on Star Trek: TNG). They intended to write a book and get rich, but needed passengers to chip in for gas money. They place an ad, which is answered by Early Grace (Brad Pitt) and his girlfriend Adele Corners (Juliette Lewis). Early is a paroled criminal who becomes more unstable as the movie progresses. In spite of this, him and Brian become friends. The critics gave the movie good reviews, but it didn’t do as well at the box office.
  
  Working on ‘The X-Files’ kept Duchovny busy for all but six weeks of each year. Consequently, he did have time to do another movie until 1997. He tried out for the role of Batman in Batman & Robin, but the role was given to George Clooney. This proved fortunate, as that movie became a major debacle. Instead, he starred in Playing God. He starred as Eugene Sands, a drug-addicted surgeon who had lost his license after a patient he was operating on died while he was high on amphetamines. While at a bar, one of the customers is shot and he manages to save his life. This brings him to the attention of Raymond Blossom (Timothy Hutton), a prominent smuggler. He needs someone to treat gunshot victims who can’t risk going to a hospital for ‘legal reasons’. He is lured further into the criminal underworld and then falls in love with Raymond’s girlfriend, played by Angelina Jolie. This results in numerous complications. Nearly every critic who reviewed this movie had a vastly different opinion on it. Unfortunately, the movie slipped through the cracks at the box office.
  
  1998 brought The X-Files, the movie version of the TV show. This was one of the few movies based on a television show to be made while the television was still running. The movie was shot in Los Angeles, as were all of the subsequent TV episodes. This fulfilled a promise made to Duchovny, who lives in LA, at the outset of the show. The movie revealed more about the ongoing government conspiracy that Scully and Mulder were investigating. Some controversy was caused by Duchovny being paid $6 million, twice what Gillian Anderson was paid. The movie was a critical success, since it was possible to follow if one didn’t watch the TV show. Many of the fans of the TV show were disappointed because not enough was revealed. The movie cost $66 million to make and brought in more than $180 million worldwide. Duchovny capped of his successful year by marrying Tea Leoni, star of ‘The Naked Truth’.
  
  It has recently been announced that the 1999-2000 season will probably be the last for the X-Files. After that, another movie is expected. What comes after that is still up in the air for Duchovny. Like Anderson, he won’t do another television show. He has already complained bitterly about the amount of time that ‘The X-Files’ takes out of his year. This leaves movies. It will be interesting to see how well he does, since his only successful major movie so far has been The X Files. In a few years, we will see if his penchant for deadpan acting will make him a bona-fida superstar or if he will disappear like many of the television stars before him.