David Duchovny remembers calling out character inconsistencies on ‘X-Files’

It’s been seven years since David Duchovny donned a suit for his iconic role as FBI special agent Fox Mulder, but he hasn’t forgotten his biggest pet peeves during his time on the beloved Fox series.

During a recent episode of Duchovny’s Fail Better podcast, a series that spotlights how failures shape a person’s personal and professional trajectory, the host recalled to guest Emily Deschanel how he sometimes had to correct episodic directors on character inconsistencies.

“It was a bit of a pet peeve of mine when I was doing X-Files — not so much the other shows that I’ve done — but, as with Bonesit’s episodic, but every episode is pretty high drama. It can be life and death,” Duchovny explained.

“Sometimes the directors would come on and they’d know they had a great script and (since) this was on the X-Filesthis could happen, you know? Like, ‘Holy s***, this is a great script,’ and they really wanted to kill it. Those guys were dangerous,” the actor quipped. “So often they would say, ‘We’ve never seen Mulder like this before,’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, like 10 other times we’ve seen Mulder like this before.'”

Duchovny recalled a particular instance while shooting the season one episode “Fire,” in which Mulder reveals a deep-seated fear of fire stemming from a childhood trauma.

“I remember like in the middle of the episode, I had this thought. I I think I went up to (director) Chris Carter — who wrote that episode I believe — and I said, ‘Didn’t Mulder and Scully watch a building burn down in the pilot? I think Moulder was fairly cool with it, you know, it didn’t bother him,'” Duchovny told a laughing Deschanel.

“It’s like this kind of stuff, you know where you’re going, you’re kind of the curator of the character and sometimes you have to go, ‘I can’t actually do that,'” the Californication star mused.

Being a stickler for consistency obviously worked out in the end; over the 11-season run of the sci-fi drama, both cast and crew picked up accolades, including Duchovny and costar Gillian Anderson at the SAG Awards, where Anderson took home two of those heavy trophies and both raked in several nominations. She was up for the award five more times, while Duchovny was nominated a total of five times. As a cast — with William B. Davis, Chris Owens, James Pickens Jr., Mitch Pileggi, and Steven Williams — they were nominated three times for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.

Duchovny and Anderson starred in the Fox series from 1993 to 2002, as well as in two films. The two reprised their roles as Agents Mulder and Dana Scully in revivals of the series years later, including a tenth season in 2016 and an 11th in 2018.

A treasured classic, the series has made recent headlines thanks to Ryan Coogler‘s upcoming reboot.

The Sinners director was reported to be developing an X-Files series back in 2023, when original creator Chris Carter revealed that a reboot from the filmmaker was in its early stages. In the wake of the success of his Michael B. Jordan-led vampire thrillerCoogler has opened up about his plans for the X-Files reboot now that he can focus on a new project.

“I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f—ing scary,” Coogler told The Last Podcast on the Left in May. “We’re gonna try to make something really great, bro, and really be something for the real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”

Coogler also revealed that he’d spoken to Anderson about the reboot, saying, “She’s incredible, and fingers crossed there.”

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Duchovny has only addressed the reboot briefly, telling Screen Rant last year, “I don’t really have any thoughts on it… I wish them luck.”

Anderson, on the other hand, has softened to the idea of returning to the franchise. While promoting her new film The Salt Path on ITV1’s This Morning in May, Anderson said: “At some point, if the phone rings and it’s good and it feels like the right time, perhaps.”

Watch Duchovny and Deschanel chat on the Fail Better podcast above.