E-mail a friendDavid Duchovny
airdate September 23, 2009
The X-Files made David Duchovny an international celebrity. What began as a lark on the way to a Ph.D. at Yale became his calling, and the Golden Globe-winning actor brings that intense intellect to his roles. Before stardom, he had a recurring role on the series Twin Peaks and made guest appearances on The Larry Sanders Show. Crossing over to the big screen, Duchovny's film credits include House of D—his film directorial and writing debut—and The Joneses. He now stars in the Showtime series, Californication.
Duchovny describes being both an actor and a director in his series, Californication. (:55)
Full interview (11:49)
David Duchovny
Tavis: Pleased to welcome David Duchovny back to this program. The three-time Emmy-nominated actor is back this Sunday night for a new season of his latest project, "Californication." The show premieres Sunday night at 10:00 on Showtime. Here now, a sneak preview of the new season of "Californication."
[Clip]
Tavis: (Laughter) So I was just about to make a little smart-alek remark, which is that I heard that the first episode is really good because there's a really great director.
David Duchovny: Oh, yes, that's true. (Laughter)
Tavis: The inside joke is David directs the first episode of the new season. I was about to make that little smart-alek comment and then while I'm thinking about this you say to me that the actor in the scene is literally your oldest and dearest friend from high school.
Duchovny: Yeah, yeah, Jason Beghe.
Tavis: So how cool is it to have you and your best friend in a scene of the first show of your third season that you're directing?
Duchovny: Well, it's really - it's the kind of thing where we would sit at lunch while we're working and I'd say, "I just can't believe that I get paid to do this." We're just having fun and we're doing work that we enjoy and we're reconnecting as friends. We had a wonderful week together, but at this point in the show all the other actors and the people that I work with are really friends too, so we really enjoy working together.
And when I get to direct, I get to watch these actors that I normally am like this with, and I get to watch them from behind the camera and it's really weird, because I kind of fall in love with them as actors. You see it written on the page, and as an actor you go and you do it, but when you're directing you see it written on the page and then you see the actors do it, and then you just go, "Oh, my god, that's why they work. They really did something."
And Peter Gallagher, who is one of the guest stars of this season, said, "It's an impossible job because we're all together in it, but then there's one point where it's just you and the lights are on you and it's your close-up and you're completely alone."
It's impossible, and that's why we all have kind of a fraternity and this love comes out where you're just doing an impossible job and you're doing it really well, and I appreciate.
Tavis: This begs the obvious question, which is how does one direct oneself?
Duchovny: Not well. (Laughter) I've done it a few times. I did it in a movie. You tend to give yourself short shrift. You tend to just look at the script supervisor and say, "Did I get the lines approximately right? And if I did, let's move on."
Yeah, I like to have somebody else nearby, like Tom Kapinos, the show runner and creator of the show, who's also watching from behind the monitor to say, "That was good," or "I think you should go again," like that. Sometimes it's hard when you're acting in a scene and you're directing - you're acting opposite an actor or actress and I would start to think oh my God, they're doing really well, this is terrific, this is really good. And they say, "No, no, you can't think that."
Tavis: You forget you're on.
Duchovny: Yeah, yeah, you can't think that right now. You become an audience rather than somebody inside the scene.
Tavis: I don't mean to make you spiritual unless you want to go there, but what do you make of the fact that you now have another series that has been fortunate to go into multiple seasons? That's everybody's dream in this business.
Duchovny: Yes.
Tavis: What do you make of that?
Duchovny: I just feel grateful, and I think it is - spiritual's a good word for it. I think what happens sometimes is that it's got a synchronicity and timing and what happens if you're lucky and if you pay attention - I'll take some credit for it - but I just think it's paying attention and growing and maturing.
Tavis: Paying attention to what?
Duchovny: Yourself, really, and what you're able to do as you go along in this business, in this art, in this show business. You pay attention to your own growth and your own openings. Because I feel like I'm - I've always felt like I've been a slow learner, but I learn well. I learn slowly, but well. And so I feel like I get access to more of myself as I go along, whereas I look at somebody like my wife and I see somebody who's just been fantastic from the beginning. But that wasn't me.
And so getting back to your question, it's really a matter of people coming together at the right time with the right material to do their best work, and the right time of the culture that it hits in a certain way.
So it's all these kind of little tumblers in a lock that have to come together, and then the lock opens and you get to go multiple seasons. But I would just take credit for being sensitive to what resonates with me, and then I go for that and then you can exist successfully in that because you're doing something that means something to you.
Tavis: Without giving too much away, which I know you wouldn't do anyway as the star of the show, what can you tell me about where we're going to find you, the show, in season 3?
Duchovny: It's difficult - the show is very much a balancing act because it's really about - it's not really about anything. It's really about this guy's character and -
Tavis: That's a great concept for a show - three seasons and it ain't about nothing. (Laughs)
Duchovny: Well, traditionally that was the joke about "Seinfeld," it wasn't about nothing.
Tavis: Exactly, yeah.
Duchovny: But we're about nothing and we don't have - it's not about the jokes, either. It's about the characters. So we're really doing it with smoke and mirrors, which is fun as well, but this year my character's beloved mother of his child is in another city, is in New York, and we're trying to make it work in the way that we do on the show, which is insane.
But I'm also a single dad with my daughter on this coast, and I've run out of money so I take a job in a local Southern California university. And that's not a good place for an anti-authoritarian character who's now a figure of authority, and for somebody who's tempted like he is to be amongst the young coeds. It's the fox in the -
Tavis: Guarding the chicken coop. (Laughter)
Duchovny: The fox guarding the chicken coop, yeah.
Tavis: I want to come back to the show itself in just a second, but I'm still marinating on this point you made a moment ago, seriously, about the fact that it's a show about nothing, and obviously Seinfeld's show, famously, was about nothing and did awfully well for Jerry Seinfeld.
This is inside baseball, but help me understand what you guys mean when you say it's a show about nothing, and how does a show about nothing, as to a show that's very specific about something, work? What does that mean in Hollywood talk?
Duchovny: That's a really good question. I'm not going to say that I speak for Hollywood but I'll just say what I meant is that say a show like the "X-Files," it's about these two agents who are investigating unsolved mysteries, leaning towards the paranormal and the FBI. That's what the show is about.
When the show plays out it becomes more about the character and the character is important as well as the story. Procedurals are about solving the case, medical shows are about healing the sick, and then the characters come to the fore.
This show is really just a situation in which you have a character that is completely self-destructive and speaks his mind. He's a loose cannon, he's a bowling ball with a bunch of pins. So he doesn't have to go to work, there's no workplace he goes to. He doesn't have to do anything. There's nothing that he does. He's a writer. There's nothing harder to dramatize in film or television than being an artist or writing.
Writing is the most boring thing that you can imagine to look at. It's wonderful to read when it's written, but -
Tavis: It pays well in this town.
Duchovny: Yeah. But this is not interesting to look at. (Laughter) Especially because most of writing is not writing, so it really is just that. So that's what I mean when it's not - you can't rely on a fantastic event happening to propel the show or to get your interest. Really, all you can rely on are the characters and kind of the pop of the writing and the interplay of the characters.
Tavis: Now back to those characters. The show has got a lot of fans, obviously. If it didn't, you would have won awards for it and nominated for others and back for a third season. As every show does, it has its critics as well.
One of the critics is that the show is oversexed, the characters are oversexed and sexist - not just oversexed, but sexist. There's a new character on the show this season, Kathleen Turner, who happens to be, obviously, a woman, and who is sexist in the role that she plays. Was that by design or did that just kind of happen?
Duchovny: I don't know. It would be something that Tom Kapinos, the creator of the show - I don't think it would have been by design, because of that sexist criticism, once we - early in the show's run we were sitting around and they were talking to us about the numbers and who was watching, and they said it seems that more women are watching the show than men, and that was surprising to the people that were giving us the numbers.
And then we sat around and we were talking about it, and somebody made the point that that made total sense because women really run the world of this show. Hank, my character, is desperately in love with his woman. He wants to make it work. The show is really about making it work between him.
He'll do anything for his daughter; he's desperately in love with his daughter. She has him wrapped around her finger. In the first season there was the daughter of his wife's fiancé that she was going to marry who has a secret over him and therefore can manipulate him in any direction she wants.
So we realized that the world of the show is completely run by the women of the show, even though the shenanigans and the stuff like that that the men are going through seem to be - well, could be seen as sexist in a certain light, of course, because there's a lot of kind of casual sex going on and objectification of women, whatnot, and of men. But the world, the heart of the show is run by women.
Tavis: What is it, then, that makes us connect to Hank, to your character?
Duchovny: Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes, again, when you're doing a character and it's working to a certain point you don't want to look behind the curtain. Because if I start to think about it logically I'm going to just step on my own feet.
But I think always from the beginning it was about how - I didn't want to make this guy likable consciously. It was just like, just play him. But it was about finding a character, finding this character as somebody who always tells the truth, and that's always an interesting thing to watch.
Tavis: That can make you not likeable, too, sometimes.
Duchovny: Well, it makes you not likeable to the people around you.
Tavis: Precisely, yeah.
Duchovny: But to somebody watching at home who is not directly affected by this guy's outrageousness, it's really a wish fulfillment fantasy that we all have that we could say exactly what's on our mind and speak truth to power or whatever it is.
Tavis: Finally, three seasons into it, do you enjoy it; you're liking playing a guy that isn't likable all the time?
Duchovny: (Laughs) Yeah. I like it because that same freedom that he has, there's a certain freedom in playing him that I can pretty much do, and at this point feel my way honestly and naturally through a scene, and I can kind of follow my instincts within this character and do whatever I want.
We play it with a lot of freedom and we shoot it with a lot of freedom, so as an actor that's a real joy, to be trusted like that and be trusted with something like this.
Tavis: Well, it's a joy to watch you work, as always.
Duchovny: Thank you, Tavis.
Tavis: David Duchovny, star of "Californication," back for season three on Showtime. Good to see you, David.
Duchovny: Nice to see you too.
Back to September 23, 2009