Laughing His Fox Off
by Katherine Hassell

Despite his poker-faced TV persona, comedy isn't completely alien territory for David Duchovny...

If there's something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Fox Mulder....even though the recently resurrected FBI agent is finally taken off the X Files in this week's episode Three Words.

But a familiar face - David Duchovny - will continue his action against alien assimilation in a film from Ghostbusters' director Ivan Reitman that's predicted to be a summer smash. Which just goes to show that, even if Duchovny is sceptical of the existence of little green men in real life, fighting such fictional foes has certainly done his career no harm. In fact, despite wanting to move on from the world of The X Files, it's getting to be a habit.

Duchovny's forthcoming film Evolution sees a meteor crash unleash extraterrestrial organisms which rapidly mature into a species bent on world domination. Duchovny teams up with Orlando Jones, playing two college professors called in to assist a scientist (Julianne Moore) in arresting their development.

'It's a sci-fi comedy with lots of special effects,' explains 40-year-old Duchovny. 'And, like Ghostbusters, even though we're the experts, we're still goofy.'

Evolution is expected to send Duchovny's movie career into orbit just as his X Files' role put him 'out there' on TV. But only last year he tried to take off the alien anorak by stepping onto the big screen in the romantic comedy Return to Me. So did Evolution's subject matter give him pause for thought?

'When I found it had aliens in it, I wasn't overjoyed,' admits Duchovny. 'But it was Ivan's movie and I wanted to work with him. I wanted to experience what it was like to make a comedy blockbuster. It just happened to be about aliens.'

Already an American Comedy Award winner for a guest spot on The Larry Sanders Show in which he feigned a crush on the host, Duchovny nevertheless admits he might never shake off Mulder's poker-faced image.

'People are always going to be surprised that I'm funny,' sighs the star who is also soon to appear in Ben Stiller's fashion spoof Zoolander. 'It happens to certain actors. The first impression they make is the one they have to fight against. Tom Cruise is forever going to have people say "I didn't know you could act" because he started as a teen idol. I know I'm funny. I don't have to prove it.'

What hasn't been confirmed is whether Duchovny, who'll be appearing in every episode from now until the end of The X Files run, will be back for a ninth series. But one part he won't turn his back on is that of doting dad - a role Mulder himself is coming to terms with.

'It's easy to get swept away in Hollywood,' says the actor who has a two-year-old daughter Madelaine West, with Tea Leoni - star of the summer release Jurassic Park III. 'But I want to do my own thing: be a good husband, a good dad, yet get some good work done. Now I've time to go swimming with my daughter. That's all I'm asking for these days.'

"Three Words" airs in the UK on May 24 (Sky 1, 9pm) and "Evolution" opens on June 22.

Source: TV and Satellite Week, thanks london connection! (you can link to this article)