Best Known As: F.B.I. Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files
David Duchovny starred in TV's The X-Files as Fox Mulder, an oddball F.B.I. agent obsessed with government conspiracies and paranormal happenings. The show was a ratings winner and pop culture favorite during its run from 1993 to 2001, and it made stars of Duchovny and his sidekick, Gillian Anderson). Duchovny played Mulder in The X-Files: The Movie (1998) and went on to star in the romantic comedies Return to Me (2000) and Trust the Man (2006, with Eva Mendes). Duchovny also had a small but memorable role in the Ben Stiller comedy Zoolander (2001). Showtime cable television subscribers also knew Duchovny for his appearances throughout the 1990s in sexy series The Red Shoe Diaries. He returned to series television in 2007, playing novelist and hedonist Hank Moody in the cable show Californication). Duchovny and Anderson starred in another X-Files movie, X-Files: I Want to Believe, in 2008.
Duchovny married actress Téa Leoni in 1997. They have a daughter, Madelaine (b. 1999) and a son, Kyd (b. 2002)... Duchovny graduated from Yale University with a degree in English Literature... He had a recurring role in the David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks... Duchovny entered a rehab facility to be treated for sex addiction in 2008.
"Sometimes when I'm swimming, I think that maybe someday I'll put my red Speedo up for auction. Or maybe I'll donate it to the Smithsonian. They can stuff it with two plums and a gherkin and put it on display."
Career Highlights: Return to Me, Red Shoe Diaries, Kalifornia
First Major Screen Credit: New Year's Day (1989)
Biography
Rocketing from obscure bit player to TV's resident über-sex god thanks to his role as FBI agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files, David Duchovny can claim to have had one of the 1990s' more remarkable career metamorphoses. Although his initial attempts to translate his TV stardom into celluloid success proved less than memorable, the tall, classically handsome actor has continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, evidenced in particular by the countless estrogen-drenched internet shrines erected in his honor.
Born in Manhattan on August 7, 1960, to a Jewish father and a Scottish mother, Duchovny did his undergraduate work at Princeton and then went on to pursue a Master's degree in English Literature at Yale. While working toward his degree, he began commuting to New York to study acting, and he was soon appearing in a few off-Broadway plays. His interest in acting ultimately eclipsed his dedication toward earning his degree, and Duchovny dropped out of Yale to pursue a career as a performer. He got his first break starring in a beer commercial, and in 1988, he made his film debut with a breathtakingly abbreviated appearance as a party guest in Mike Nichols's Working Girl. Work in a number of diverse and usually obscure films, including starring roles in Julia Has Two Lovers (1991), The Rapture (1991), and Kalifornia (1993), followed, but the actor was able to command a more steady paycheck from his TV work. Before The X-Files debuted in 1993, Duchovny was best-known to TV viewers as Dennis/Denise, Twin Peaks' resident transvestite detective.
As The X-Files steadily grew from cult favorite to mainstream success, becoming recognized as one of the most groundbreaking shows of the decade, Duchovny also began to enjoy both industry respect and huge audience popularity. Dubbed as the latest in a long line of thinking women's sex symbols, it was only a matter of time before he returned to the big screen, and with the 1997 thriller Playing God he did just that. Unfortunately, the film, which also starred Timothy Hutton and Angelina Jolie, was a huge flop, and aside from starring in the successful 1998 X-Files movie, Duchovny re-focused his energies on portraying his television alter ego. He returned to the screen in 2000 in the romantic comedy Return to Me, starring as a devastated widower who finds himself falling in love with the woman (Minnie Driver) who received his wife's heart in a transplant. Later that same year, Duchovny announced that he would be greatly diminishing his involvement with The X-Files, dismaying both fans and any number of 20th Century Fox executives; fortunately for all interested parties, he subsequently reached a settlement with Fox and announced he was returning full-time to the show. Lamenting the X-Files departure from storylines based on his popular character and citing respect for his fans, Duchovny vowed never to return to The X-Files in early 2001, though he did not rule out appearing in future features based on the popular series. That same year Duchovny appeared as a humorous varation on his "Spooky" persona in director Ivan Reitman's sci-fi comedy Evolution. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
Duchovny was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret "Meg" (née Miller), a school administrator and teacher, and Amram Ducovny (1927-2003),[2] a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee.[3][4][5] David Duchovny's paternal grandparents, Morris Duchovny and Hannah Fishoff, were Jews from Minsk, Belarus, and Warsaw, Poland,[citation needed] respectively, his mother is a Lutheran immigrant from Scotland.[6][7] His father dropped the h in his last name to escape the sort of mispronunciations he suffered at the hands of sergeants while serving in the Army.[3] The surname "Duchovny" (also frequently spelt as "Duchowny") is clearly Slavic in origin, with the meaning 'spiritual; clergyman; priest', cf. Russian духовный, Belorussian духоўны, Ukrainian духовний, Polishduchowny.[8] However, the children of Amran Ducovny have usually kept the original spelling, not only David but also Daniel and Laurie Duchovny, although the legal spelling of their surname is unknown to the general public.
He then received a Master of Arts, also in English Literature, from Yale University and subsequently began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished.[4] The title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis was Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose.
Career
Duchovny appeared in an advertisement for Löwenbräu beer in 1987. He appears in two scenes in Working Girl (1988). He had a recurring role as a transvestiteDEA agent on the series Twin Peaks and played the narrator/host in the long-running Showtime erotica/softcore TV series Red Shoe Diaries. In 1993, Duchovny began starring in the sci-fi series The X-Files as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, a conspiracy theorist who believed his sister was abducted by aliens.[4] The show emerged as a cult hit and quickly became one of The FOX Network's first major hits. During the show's run, in between the fifth and sixth seasons, Duchovny co-starred alongside Gillian Anderson in a 1998 motion picture that continued the X-Files storyline, titled The X-Files: Fight the Future.[4] He remained with the series until quitting in 2001, partly due to a contract dispute that occurred after season seven finished filming.[10] Duchovny appeared in half of the season eight episodes, but did not appear in season nine until the series finale in 2002. He also provided the voice for a parody of his Fox Mulder character in an episode of The Simpsons, entitled The Springfield Files.
Duchovny caused controversy when it became public that he was the primary reason that filming of The X-Files series was moved from Vancouver, British Columbia to Los Angeles in 1998. Many residents of Vancouver were upset with Duchovny over scripted jokes on Conan O'Brien's late night show about the city's heavy rainfall; he joked that "Vancouver is a very nice place, if you like 400 inches of rainfall a day." He also stated, "Of course, I'm tired of the rain. But if I wasn't married to a woman that lives in L.A. I'd stay in Vancouver. It's a lovely city."[11] During the run of The X-Files, he also made several guest appearances in the cult TV satire The Larry Sanders Show, playing himself, but adding a strong attraction to Sanders. In the final episode of the series, he performed a parody of Sharon Stone's 'flashing' scene from Basic Instinct and a parody of "Dr. Hannibal Lecter" being introduced to Agent "Clarice Starling" in The Silence of the Lambs.
Duchovny has guest hosted Saturday Night Live twice (May 13, 1995 and May 9, 1998). Both shows were season finales. In 2000, he starred in the feature film Return to Me, a romantic comedy/drama. Return to Me was directed by Bonnie Hunt and co-starred Minnie Driver and Carroll O'Connor. In 2001, Duchovny played a hand model in the Ben Stiller comedy, Zoolander. He also played the role of Ira Kane in the movie Evolution alongside Seann William Scott that same year.
He also appeared in a celebrity edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in May 2000. He got up to $250,000, but answered his $500,000 question incorrectly and lost $218,000, leaving him with $32,000.
Duchovny provided the voice of Ethan Cole in the 2005 video game, Area 51, as well as that of the title character "XIII" in the 2003 video game XIII. In 2003, Duchovny starred in the 84th[12] episode of the HBO show Sex And The City. He played the role of Jeremy, Carrie Bradshaw's high-school ex-boyfriend, who has committed himself to a Connecticutmental health facility. In 2005, Duchovny, who had already made his directorial debut with an episode of The X-Files, wrote, directed and appeared in the feature film House of D.[4] The film starred Anton Yelchin, Robin Williams and Duchovny's wife Tea Leoni in a coming-of-age tale.[4] It received mostly poor reviews[13] and little box office success.[14] Duchovny also directed an episode of Bones (Episode 211, "Judas on a Pole") during its second season.
Duchovny married actress Téa Leoni on May 6, 1997. In April 1999, Leoni gave birth to a daughter, Madelaine West Duchovny. Their second child, a son, Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born in June 2002. On October 15, 2008, Duchovny's and Leoni's representatives issued a statement that they had separated and had been for several months prior to this announcement.[16] On October 21, 2008, Duchovny’s lawyer said that he plans to sue the U.K.'s ‘’Daily Mail’’ over an article it ran that claimed he had an affair with Hungarian tennis instructor Edit Pakay while still married to Leoni, a claim that Duchovny has denied.[17] On November 15, 2008, the Daily Mail printed a retraction stating that the story "is inaccurate and Ms. Pakay and Mr. Duchovny are only friends who used to play tennis occasionally".[18] In June 2009, Duchovny and Leoni were seen together again and in interviews in September 2009, it was revealed that they had reconciled.
Extended Interview with David Duchovny: on The X-Files and Writing/Directing the Episodes "The Unnatural" and "Hollywood A.D.", Cinefantastique, April 2002.
