That said, how important are the tips of the hat to people who do know the mythology and can recite every line in every episode?

DUCHOVNY: I think it’s just like sprinkles on the top in this movie. You know there’s a bunch of kind of winks at the audience. And Chris was very kind of into, you know, having these winks. Not so much me because I always feel like that’s not part of the realism or the drama, you know. You don’t know we’re winking at anybody, but it’s something that fans, I think, enjoy. And I can’t remember any that are actually in it.

ANDERSON: Well, I think the impression was, you were saying yesterday, that the previous movie was winking. But in fact, it was mooning. You know, there was an attempt to hint at little areas of stuff that had to do with the mythology to get people involved enough who were previous fans but still attract people who weren’t. And it was actually much further in that balance than this one is by any stretch.

If there is another one - and supposedly 2012 is the year the world ends according to the Mayan calendar. Would you like to see a further film go back to the black oil and the aliens?

DUCHOVNY: Sure, I mean I think that’s like the bread and butter of the series, and it’s kind of a natural for 2012. And I think that’s what Chris and Frank are thinking of. Yeah, bring on the aliens.

Going back, it’s one thing to read the script. It’s another thing to be in front of the cameras that first day. Was it a little surreal?

DUCHOVNY: It felt like, in a way, I was there two weeks before Gillian just running my ass off and pulling a muscle. And none of it is in the film, which is fantastic.

ANDERSON: Is that - really?

DUCHOVNY: A little bit, you know, it’s just ridiculous. But then after, then we broke for Christmas and then came back and I started working with Gillian almost immediately, and, you know, in a weird way it felt like absolutely no time had past because we were in Vancouver. It was-- it just seemed like we’d come back from summer hiatus or something, which was kind of terrifying sometimes to think about. But for me, in terms of getting back into the character it really was - when I started working with Gillian was when I started to discover Mulder again, for real instead of kind of faking it. I was running so it doesn’t matter how Mulder runs, really.

ANDERSON: But even for me, the first couple of days that I worked were, were in a particular scene with Billy Connolly and, you know, 6 years on and never addressing, you know, having an experience with that character before and jumping into some big emotions on the first day that have nothing to do with the grounding of the show, which is the relationship between Mulder and Scully was kind of hard and really disconcerting. And I felt like I had nothing to grab onto, that I was, I kept trying to hang my coat on something that felt familiar, and there wasn’t. It felt really odd. And it wasn’t, again, until, I think it was day 3 that we got to work together that I was kind of like, "Oh, I forgot. This is what it is."

DUCHOVNY: It was a real relief.

You were talking about working with Billy Connolly whose sense of humor is so infectious. Were there moments between takes where that would come out?

DUCHOVNY: Oh, yeah. There were no moments when it didn’t.

ANDERSON: Well, just the few seconds when he was on camera.

DUCHOVNY: No he’s a really - he’s a really talented actor. And he goes back and forth very quickly, and, you know, he’s a restless mind and if he wants to talk... He doesn’t really want to entertain so much. He really wants to have a conversation, but wide ranging and odd and interesting, always.

In the interim you’ve obviously you’ve grown as people but presumably grown as actors, too. And I’m wondering were you able to bring experience to the roles now that you couldn’t back then?

DUCHOVNY: Oh, yeah. When I have the misfortune of catching one of the early shows, like from 1993 or something, and I see myself or that version of myself, I just think, "Thank God that I got the chance to continue to work and figure out what kind of an actor I am." Because the guy that I see up there in ‘93 is just barely hanging on. And that gives it a certain kind of tension and earnestness and eagerness to please, which kind of works, but it was not intentional. It was just panic. So yes, I mean, now, 15 years on, it’s a whole different ball game, completely. It’s night and day the way that I work and the kind of things that I want to do. But still you have to honor the character and you can’t just change him. So it was interesting to have the same box and to fill it up with different stuff.

It seems like there was a rowboat scene at the end of credits. How did that come about?

ANDERSON: Not ours.

DUCHOVNY: Well, you know we were sitting in a tank in a lot in Vancouver.

ANDERSON: With a crew around us.

DUCHOVNY: And towards the tail end of winter, and I was shirtless, and Gillian was--

ANDERSON: --in a bikini.

DUCHOVNY: In a bikini, and it was really silly. But it was very important for Chris that that be. Because to him the movie is about the relationship that the final image be, you know, two people together alone on the wide open sea. And that’s his image of this relationship, you know.

You’ve said, "Vancouver is one of my favorite places."

DUCHOVNY: Vancouver is one of my favorite places. Unfortunately, yeah, no one believes.

Can I ask you a couple of Hank Moody questions, cause "Californication" has become a real guilty pleasure. . .

DUCHOVNY: Don’t be guilty. Don’t be guilty.

How much of a reflection is it of the reality, or is it just pure satire?

DUCHOVNY: Well, it’s not satire so much as it’s really a character study. And it’s not, it’s our goal on the show is not realism. It’s, you know, we’re making a comedy, and that’s always what we’re trying to do. And we’re trying to make the comedy real, and we’re trying to make the real comic. So that’s always what we’re thinking about. It’s not really satire in that way. It’s really just an extreme character sketch of a guy who has no censor.

Gillian are you working on anything right now?

ANDERSON: Well, the first thing actually is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which is with Simon Pegg and Kirsten Dunst. And that’s about a book, or it’s an adaptation of a book by Toby Young about his experience as a writer at Vanity Fair, as a Brit writer at Vanity Fair and his inappropriateness in the world and also not having any censors. And Boogie Woogie is a satire about the art world. It takes place in London, and I think it’s very funny.