David Duchovny (born August 7, 1960 in New York, New York) is an American actor, writer, director, and producer known best for his role as Agent Fox Mulder on the hit Fox sci-fi show The X-Files. Other notable roles Duchovny has taken are Hank Moody in Californication and Sam Hodiak in the Period Drama Aquarius, the latter of which he also produces.
After an infamous contractual dispute, Duchovny was responsible for moving the filming location of The X-Files from Vancouver to Los Angeles from the show's sixth season on. Duchovny cited being closer to his then-wife actress Téa Leoni as the reason for this move, though after a rocky marriage into the Turn of the Millennium, the couple later divorced in 2014.
He kicked off something of a musical career in 2015 with the release of his first studio album Hell or Highwater, as well as a book-writing career. He has published (to date) five novels: Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale (2015), Bucky F*cking Dent (2016), Miss Subways (2018), Truly Like Lightning (2021), and The Reservoir (2022), as well as a graphic novel, Kepler (2022), drawn by Phillip Sevy.
Notable roles by Duchovny:
- Twin Peaks: Denise/Dennis Bryson (1990-1991; 2017)
- The X-Files: Special Agent Fox Mulder (1993-2002; 2008; 2016; 2018)
- Connie and Carla: Jeff
- The TV Set: Mike Klein
- Californication: Hank Moody (2007-2014)
- Aquarius: Sam Hodiak (2015-2016)
- Evolution: Dr. Ira Kane
- Zoolander: JP McInry
- Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead: Bruce
- Kalifornia: Brian Kessler
- The Rapture: Randy
- Area 51 (FPS): Ethan Cole
- The Craft: Legacy: Adam.
- The Bubble (2022): Sean Knox
- You People: Arnold
- History of the World Part II
Tropes:
- Actor Shipping: Some fans ship him with his X-Files co-star Gillian Anderson.
- Deadpan Snarker: His default mode. Just try to find a scene with Mulder or Hank where he isn't throwing out deadpan one-liners.
- Dull Surprise: Sometimes his acting is emotionless and deadpan. The X-Files: Fight the Future lampshades and mocks it in a scene.
- I Am Not Spock: "I am not Agent Mulder." Mulder is his most famous role. Even when the show was in its third season and was getting huge, people hinted it could continue with a film series a la Star Trek. He did not wish it, not even then, fearing he would be typecast. He later said he would be OK with playing Fox Mulder forever, if the audience wanted to see it.
- Silver Fox: The years and resulting grey hairs have not detracted from his good looks at all and he still has many fangirls eager to say as much.
- Special Guest: Duchovny was the very first guest alongside Nicole Sullivan on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.
- Star-Making Role: He was known before, but Agent Fox Mulder of The X-Files turned him into a household name.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: As Mulder, he absolutely personified this trope, being tall with dark hair and brooding good looks and an astonishing capacity for snark.
- Written by Cast Member: He wrote and directed two episodes of The X-Files, "The Unnatural" and "Hollywood A.D.". He also shares writing credits for several Myth Arc episodes.
Duchovny's fiction includes:
- All Myths Are True: In Miss Subways, various magical beings from around the world, including Ireland and Africa, have found themselves transplanted to America via the immigration (voluntary or not) of the people from those regions.
- Amplified Animal Aptitude: Holy Cow is about a cow, a pig, and a turkey who are capable of using a smartphone, impersonating people, boarding an airplane, and various other feats. (They can’t talk to people, though, only each other.)
- Boring Return Journey: In Holy Cow, the journey around the world takes up the bulk of the story. The return home is barely touched on.
- Dying Dream: The Reservoir is about a man experiencing this as he dies from COVID-19, although where reality leaves off and the dream begins is hard to say.
- Enemy of My Enemy: In Holy Cow, Joe Camel manages to achieve peace in the Middle East by uniting Jews and Arabs in hatred of their common foe, pigs. Shalom, the pig, is less than wild about this.
- Grass is Greener: Each of the animals in Holy Cow believes life must be better someplace else. Tom the turkey assumes Turkey must be a good place to live because of the name. Shalom the pig figures Israel would be good for him because they don’t eat pigs there, and Elsie wants to go to India because they worship cows.
- I Just Want to Be Free: In Holy Cow, some farm animals realize what their future holds (that is, not much) and decide to escape to find a better life.
- Little People Are Surreal: In Miss Subways, Emer is visited in the middle of the night by a little person. This combined with having been woken up suddenly leaves her rather disoriented.
- Only One Name: Anansi in Miss Subways.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Sidney, Emer’s principal in Miss Subways, is a decent guy who is sympathetic to the difficulties teachers have in navigating the fraught political climate of the twenty-first century, and shields her from trouble when he can.
- Urban Fantasy: Miss Subways has elements of this, though given the difficulty in figuring out what is really going on in the story (both for the reader and the main character), it could also be considered Magic Realism or All Just a Dream.
