David Duchovny shares how he almost passed on X-Files pilot

News
By published

We almost had a world without David Duchovny's Mulder

Mulder in X-Files.
(Image credit: 20th Century Fox)

The X-Files and David Duchnovy fan base are still going strong some three decades after the series debuted. In a recent podcast episode, Duchovny shared how he wasn’t sold on the X-Files becoming the huge success we know it as today. 

Earlier this week on an episode of Literally! With Rob Lowe podcast, the guy who made Mulder a household name admitted that he almost turned down the sci-fi drama’s pilot. "I had gotten… a couple of scenes in this movie of the week, and it was a director who I was friendly with, and I was going to have to…pull out of that part to do The X-Files pilot,” Duchnovy shared with Lowe. 

He went on to explain his conversations with his agent, “I said to my agents, ‘I don’t want to do that. You know, she’s a friend, and I don’t want to pull out.’”

"I wasn’t interested in conspiracy theories," he added, "and I was perfectly willing to just say, ‘I’m going to have to pass on that pilot, because I said I’d do this other project.'"

Thankfully for the entire X-Files and Mulder fanbase, Duchovny’s agents managed to convince him that turning down the pilot may not be a wise move. "It’s scary to think back on, if you didn’t open this door, or you took that left instead of that right. It’s like, none of it had to happen," he said of his career.

It sounds like Duchovny’s agent deserves a gift basket. It’s hard to imagine a world without Duchovny giving us the Mulder performances many still talk about today. Plus, the chemistry between him and co-star Gillian Anderson was a huge part of the X-Files – the mere thought that it almost didn’t exist is horrifying. 

X-Files is currently available to stream along with some of our picks for the best shows on Hulu. 

TOPICS
Stephanie Williams

Stephanie is a comic book historian and pop culture critic for publications including SYFYFANGRRLS, Marvel, The A.V. Club, Nerdist, Den of Geek, and Rotten Tomatoes. Stephanie is also a comic creator with three ongoing webcomics, Parenthood Activate!, But What If Though?, and Living Heroes. She made her Marvel debut with a short story featuring Monica Rambeau in Marvel’s Voices: Legacy. She recently made her DC Comics debut in Wonder Woman Black and Gold #2 and is co-writing the Nubia and the Amazons miniseries.