"My challenges as an actor are different from my challenges as a viewer" ... David Duchovny, whose latest challenge was to bare his backside for his art. Photo: Steven Siewert.By Bernard Zuel
Sometimes the truth really is out there. You just have to ask.
David Duchovny, The X Files's former Fox Mulder, is in town to promote his new film, Evolution.
It's a science fiction comedy by Ivan Reitman, a director whose "oeuvre" [Ghostbusters, Meat- balls and Twins to name but three] was described by Duchovny yesterday as "infantile ... broad school of college humour". For example, in Evolution, Duchovny saves the world by shooting dandruff shampoo up the aliens' back passage.
It's not the style you would automatically associate with Duchovny, a man with an MA in English (he taught briefly at Yale), who writes poetry, pens screenplays and, shockingly for a Hollywood actor, reads books. Even ones he hasn't written.
Would Duchovny see this film if he wasn't in it?
"No," confessed the actor to a large press conference as his marketing people went white. "But it is the kind of movie I wanted to act in. My challenges as an actor are different from my challenges as a viewer."
Honesty? That's not in the script. But then again, neither is a dry sense of humour and an intelligent manner that rarely accompanies the Hollywood star on these brief promotional visits.
Faced with the same inane questions ["tell us about the practical jokes on the set"], you too might choose Duchovny's method: don't get mad, get comic.
He promised us we wouldn't see his poems in print, unlike lightweight contributions from the pop star Jewel recently, until he was certain they would be more than "the deeper thoughts of David Duchovny".
But we could see his bum in the film. Several times actually. And did he demand $1million to bare his cheeks (as rumour has it Halle Berry asked before baring her breasts in the film Swordfish)? No, $12.
The only time Duchovny's good humour dried up was at the mention of David Caruso. Who's David Caruso? Exactly.The red-haired Caruso was a big name for five minutes last decade as the star of the first series of the TV cop show NYPD Blue. But Caruso left the show for a series of increasingly mediocre films before eventually returning to a low-profile TV legal drama.
After eight years on The X Files, Duchovny quit to devote himself full-time to film.
He has a longer track record both in TV and film than Caruso (he has appeared in Kalifornia, The Rapture and the X Files movie) but you have to wonder if he has been waking up recently in a sweat wondering if he had "done a Caruso".
"The differences are huge," a defensive Duchovny said. "David Caruso left NYPD Blue after one year.
"He probably left NYPD Blue because he wasn't creatively challenged and went on to pursue whatever would challenge him." As Mulder no doubt would say: I want to believe.