David and Gillian: Return to The X-Files

A few years ago, maybe when you were a kid, a spooky TV show ruled the airwaves. "The X-Files" dealt the two FBI agents; one a believer in aliens and all things supernatural, the other, a science-based skeptic. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson played Mulder and Scully and fans loved it when these two diverse characters fell in love and...after several seasons on TV, finally hooked up! Now, the duo is back on the big screen in The X-Files: I Want To Believe dealing with ghoulish killers, Scully and Mulder's difficult relationship and shooting back in Vancouver, where it all started.

We met with Gillian and David, who have both gone on to several other projects. David is currently starring in and producing Showtime TV's irreverent "Californication" series. Gillian made a splash on stage and films playing diverse characters and will next be seen in How to Win Friends and Alienate People alongside Kirsten Dunst and Simon Pegg. Picture tall, lanky David in black suit and white shirt and red-haired Gillian in a gorgeous rust-colored Jersey dress in an Empire style that showed off her small baby bump. She's expecting her second child with businessman Mark Griffiths. Gillian and David have that ease together that happens with old pals....

TeenHollywood: Who is the dress by? It's beautiful.

Gillian: I don't know. Don't have a clue. You'll have to check the label [to David] Is it on the back?

David: I've got to put my glasses on.

Gillian: Are you serious?

David: Yeah. I can't read that. [he puts on glasses and starts digging down the back of her dress for the label]. Rachel Pally.

TeenHollywood: Can you talk about getting back into these familiar characters after a five or six year period?

David: Gillian and I started working on it after Christmas break. The first two weeks I felt a little awkward and I didn't really feel like I wanted to do longer scenes. I was just fine running around [chasing a bad guy in the film]. Then as soon as Gillian and I started working and it was Mulder and Scully, then I kind of remembered what it was all about and that relationship kind of anchored my performance just as I think the relationship anchors this film.

Gillian: I didn't have all the running around that David had to do, but I did have my own unfortunate beginning starting with one of the most difficult scenes for Scully in the film. It's later on in the script and she goes through a range of emotions in confronting Billy Connolly's character. I had a really hard time just finding her, finding her voice. I think I must've gone through ten other characters in the process of trying to get to her. I had assumed that I would be able to show up on the first day and it would just be there. It wasn't until I think day three when we got to work together and that kind of felt natural and familiar and I felt like I'd landed this time.

TeenHollywood: Did the story bring you back?

David: My only concern was that it should be a stand alone and not something that you needed specific knowledge of 'The X-Files' to enjoy. When I read the script I saw that it was that. Other than that I had no hopes or plans for what this would be. I just knew that the world we'd made and the world that [creator] Chris [Carter] and [writer] Frank [Spotnitz] would remake was going to be satisfying to me.

Gillian: I had stated my interest in being onboard sometime ago as well and by the time I read the script it was kind of a given that this was something that we were going to do. So I don't think there was ever a point where I jumped more onboard or had an opportunity to back out of it...

David: [joking] She wanted a musical.

Gillian: Where I'm not allowed to sing.

TeenHollywood: During the TV series and two films, because of the weird cases Mulder and Scully handled, did you ever experience any real paranormal happenings either on the set or off?

Gillian: At Riverview. There was a place that we shot during the series and also during the film that was an abandoned insane asylum...

David: But not so abandoned. It was like half abandoned and half not. There were some crazy people wandering around.

Gillian: It was miles and miles of institution and insanity.

David: It was also where we did the photos for this movie.

Gillian: That was really creepy.

David: We went into these tiny little rooms, that only had loops on the floor where you would hook someone's retraining irons onto.

Gillian: There's paint peeling and all of that stuff.

TeenHollywood: That sounds soooo creepy.

David: But I've never really had a paranormal experience parse in my life. I believe in the spirit and the energy, but I've never seen it. I've felt it, but not seen it.

TeenHollywood: What do you think the secret is to your chemistry when you two play these characters as actors?

Gillian: We've actually been having a fifteen year affair [she's teasing as she points to her tummy].

David: I don't know why. Maybe just luck in the beginning. But after this long we actually do have a history and so when I look over at Gillian or I'm Mulder looking over at Scully, there's a lot of s**t that I can call on. We have a lot between us and so you don't really have to make it up. I think that just as people, now fifteen years later, we have just shared so much regardless of how much we speak to one another. I expect to see Gillian even if I haven't seen her for a year.

Gillian: Whatever it is that's between us was there from the second that we started working together and it's not quantifiable. I think it's something that is unique and yes, they got lucky, but it was something that Chris had seen which is why he fought so hard, specifically, to cast me over someone else. He saw something between the two of us that was unique. Whether it's luck or that we were meant to be with each other all along, I don't know.

David: I mean, there's chemistry in life and there's acting chemistry. I'm not saying they're the same thing, but they're as mysterious.

TeenHollywood: When you play characters this deep for so long and then it stops, how much of that stays with you for life? Does it impact your personality somehow?

David: It impacts your life because strangers can see you that way. I'll sit here and I'll answer questions about this fictional person and so it stays with me in that way. I wouldn't say that I ever get up and think of Mulder unless I'm working on it. I think that I liked a lot about the guy. When I played him, I liked his courage and I liked his energy to get to the truth and to the quest and I think, at one point, I'd learned a little from that, like a fan might. I was a fan of the guy. So that's as far as I go in terms of saying that he lives in me.

Gillian: It's the same for me. I don't do things, mannerisms or something and think, 'Oh, that was kind of like Scully.' But by the same token I don't know how much of me today wasn't influenced by the fact that I got to play her for such a long time. It's possible that there are aspects of my seriousness or my independence or my inquisitiveness about the medical profession or science that are directly related to the fact that I lived with her for such a long time. But that's hard to qualify and hard to say.

TeenHollywood: Gillian, Scully was always rocking a cell phone way before everyone else on TV. She was always on one.

Anderson: I think I only talked to Mulder on that cell phone. I don't think that there was any conversation that was ever had with anyone else except for Mulder, if you remember.

David: You were in my fave five [we laugh].

Gillian: Was I number one or number two? [he holds up a finger indicating #1] Remember how big our cell phones were [in the late-1990's]? We just happened to have them in our pockets. [she indicates lifting up a very heavy item to her ear].

David: Yeah. You had to have like a trench coat to have them in the pocket. 'Hello? I'm talking to you on a phone that's not attached to anything.'[we laugh]. The cell phone question is interesting because I think that it extended the life of the series because Gillian and I were so fatigued and the advent of the cell phone was instrumental in us being able to have time off because we could split up and we didn't have to be in the same room to have a conversation. I'm being totally serious. I could have some time off and Gillian could have some time off and we'd just talk on the phone to one another rather than being in every scene together. So if not for the cell phone no second half of 'The X-Files'.

TeenHollywood: Gillian, how do you think that the Scully character has effected women over the years?