From Movieline Magazine, archived March 5, 2000. "Coming & Going" by Lawrence Grobel — an in-depth interview with David Duchovny as his final season on The X-Files began to wind down.
Coming & Going – Movieline Interview with David Duchovny
With his final season on The X-Files beginning to wane, David Duchovny's mind was not really on playing Fox Mulder. But it was on the script he had just written and would direct for the show that spring. He had performed writer and director duties for The X-Files once before — the previous year's episode "The Unnatural," which was widely praised by both critics and the show's devoted fan base.
In this candid Movieline interview, Duchovny spoke with characteristic thoughtfulness about his dual role as actor and writer-director, the challenge of inhabiting Fox Mulder for seven seasons, and his creative ambitions beyond the world of the paranormal.
On Writing and Directing
Duchovny described the experience of writing for The X-Files as an opportunity to inject his own sensibility into a show he had lived with for years. "The Unnatural" was a deeply personal episode — a love letter to baseball and to the idea that human connection can transcend even the most extraordinary circumstances. The episode was shot with warmth and humour distinctly his own.
His interest in writing and directing signalled an ambition that would eventually lead him beyond television acting. In the years following The X-Files, Duchovny would go on to write and direct the film House of D (2004) and continue to develop his voice as a storyteller in multiple forms, including fiction writing.
On Leaving The X-Files
By the time this interview was conducted, Duchovny had already filed a lawsuit against Fox over syndication revenues — a legal action that signalled the beginning of the end of his full-time involvement with the show. The seventh season would be his last as a series regular, though he would return for reduced appearances in subsequent seasons and for the 2008 feature film I Want to Believe.
The interview captures Duchovny at a pivotal moment — still committed to Mulder, but clearly ready to explore new creative territory and define himself as something more than the brooding FBI agent he had played for nearly a decade.