David Duchovny may have found television success again on Showtime’s Californication, but he will always be Fox Mulder to sci-fi fans. For movie goers, he hasn’t played his trademark role in a decade, but anticipation continues to build for X-Files: I Want to Believe, which hits theaters on July 25th, 2008. As more and more information about the movie has leaked out and fans start checking off already-released flicks like Iron Man and Indy 4, you can expect the X-Files buzz to become deafening. Duchovny sat down for a press conference recently to talk about his decision to come back, what we can expect from the movie, and even address the controversial final seasons of the show and, yes, the potential for yet another film. As the brilliantly simple tagline for X-Files 2 says, “Believe again.”

David Duchovny on his decision to come back as Agent Fox Mulder:

Coming back had always been my desire. I wanted to play this guy in a movie. I thought it would be natural to take this to cinema and turn it into a movie franchise. I would have done it sooner, maybe two years after the TV-show ended.

Duchovny on the last time he was in a real fight:

You mean a fist fight? ¬ Well, I box, but that’s a controlled fight. I haven’t been in an uncontrolled fight for a long time. I’ve been punched by my mom, but that doesn’t really count, does it?

On what we can expect from The X-Files movie:

Well, it’s very dark and frightening. It’s very much like how our TV show was in the beginning; very scary.

On whether the TV series lost its direction towards the end:

We forgot as we grew older and the show became so big that the show got so popular because it was that scary. This movie goes back to the original impetus of The X-Files, which is to scare the pants off people.

David Duchovny on playing Mulder differently this time:

Yeah, it was a little different. I had this fear that I looked different. Older Mulder was the term that was used on the set (laughs). But I wanted him to look more matured, psychically as well as physically. I mean, come on, this guy lost every battle. He is beaten down by life. That leaves some scars. I wanted to make sure we bring that across in this film. He’s the same guy, but he is “older Mulder”.

Duchovny on what he likes about Mulder:

I like that he doesn’t give up. His heroism is that he believes he will uncover the truth, and he is going to unmask the lies. I like that about him. I will share a little secret about this movie with you: Mulder’s quest is to rediscover the energy from the beginning. By the end of this movie he’s more like the original Mulder that started out in 1993.

On why The X-Files was so tremendously popular:

It probably has to do with this Holy Grail quest. It’s the idea that Mulder can actually bring the evidence in; that he can prove we are not alone, that paranormal activity does exist, that life after death does exist. It’s not just solving the murder mystery. In our show, you have the chance to solve one of the eternal questions in life.

On life after death:

I don’t think much about life after death so much. But I do have suspicions that we are not alone out there. It just makes more sense that there is more forms of life than just us. That makes intuitive sense to me.

David Duchovny Wants To Believe Page 2