David Duchovny

David Duchovny
David Duchovny in 2009
Born	David William Duchovny August 7, 1960 (1960-08-07) (age 50) , U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1987–present
Spouse	Téa Leoni (1997–present)

David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.^[1]

Early life

Duchovny was born in New York, the son of Margaret "Meg" (née Miller), a school administrator and teacher, and Amran Ducovny (1927–2003),^[2] a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee.^[3][4][5] David Duchovny's paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, and his mother is a Lutheran immigrant from Scotland.^[6][7] His father dropped the h in his last name to avoid the sort of mispronunciations he encountered while serving in the Army.^[3]

Education

Duchovny first attended Grace Church School, and for high school attended The Collegiate School For Boys; both are in Manhattan. He graduated from Princeton University^[4] in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. He was a member of the Charter Club, one of the university's eating clubs. In 1982 his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets. The title of his senior thesis was The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels.^[8] Duchovny played a season of junior varsity basketball as a shooting guard and center field for the varsity baseball team.

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 transvestite DEA 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 had been abducted by aliens.^[4] The show emerged as a cult hit and quickly became one of The Fox Network's first major hits. Also in 1993, Duchovny was cast alongside Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis, in the Dominic Sena-directed thriller, Kalifornia.

During The X-Files run, in between the fifth and sixth seasons, Duchovny costarred 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 because of a contract dispute that occurred after season seven finished filming.^[9] 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, titled The Springfield Files.

Duchovny caused controversy when it became public that he was the primary reason for which 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, "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."^[10] 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 to the $250,000 question, but answered his $500,000 question incorrectly and lost $218,000, leaving him with $32,000.

Duchovny and Gillian Anderson at The X-Files: I Want to Believe premiere

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^[11] 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 Connecticut mental 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^[12] and little box office success.^[13] Duchovny also directed an episode of Bones (Episode 211, "Judas on a Pole") during its second season.

Duchovny currently plays Hank Moody, a troubled novelist in Showtime's series Californication. The portrayal landed him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical in 2007.^[14]

Personal life

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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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".^[17] In June 2009, Duchovny and Leoni were seen together again and in interviews in September 2009, it was revealed that they had reconciled.

Duchovny is a former vegetarian, and a current pescatarian.^[18]

In 1996, People Magazine named him one of its 50 Most Beautiful People ^[19]

On August 28, 2008, Duchovny announced that he had checked himself into a rehabilitation facility for treating sex addiction.^[20]

In December 2009, Duchovny and his wife appeared together at the Unicef Snowflake ball and looked to be firmly back together as a couple.^[21]

Duchovny has also remained close friends with his The X-Files costar Gillian Anderson, remarking that "it's always very easy and natural to work with her."

Other

Chris Carter, executive producer and creator of "The X-Files", has called him "frighteningly smart" while co-star Gillian Anderson has described him as 'hysterically funny'. A fellow actor once described him as "humourous, witty, friendly, supportive, generous and very, very normal". When Duchovny was auditioning for the part of Fox Mulder, he made a "terrific" audition, but talked rather slow. Chris Carter thought that he was a "good judge of character", and thought that Duchovny wasn't rather "bright". So he went and talked to Duchovny and asked him if he could "please" imagine himself as an FBI agent for the "future" weeks. Paul Ruffino the studio executive in charge of casting the show and later Duchovny's role model for the Hank Moody character on Californication, was very positive towards him. According to Carter, Duchovny turned out to be one of the best-read people he knew.^[22] After getting the role, Duchovny thought the show wouldn't last for long or that it wouldn't make as much impact as it did. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz called portraying actor Duchovny "amazingly smart". He further stated that Duchovny was behind some of the main characteristic ideas behind Mulder.^[23]

Awards and nominations

Emmy Award

• 1997 – Nominated – Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series – The Larry Sanders Show
• 1997 – Nominated – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series – The X-Files
• 1998 – Nominated – Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series – The X-Files
• 2003 – Nominated – Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series – Life with Bonnie

Golden Globe

• 1996 – Nominated – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama – The X-Files
• 1997 – Winner – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama – The X-Files
• 1998 – Nominated – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama – The X-Files
• 2008 – Winner – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy – Californication
• 2009 – Nominated – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy – Californication
• 2010 – Nominated – Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy – Californication

Filmography

References

External links

• David Duchovny at the Internet Movie Database
• David Duchovny at TV.com
• Washington Post Interview with David Duchovny, April 2007 David Duchovny and the Drama of Television