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Exert from Juice magazine November 1997
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This is the set of The X Files feature film. Most of the people on the set have no idea what will be projected onto the blue screen and how it will act. The truth of what is happening on the set of TXF film is indeed out there, but is under security so tight it would make the Cancer Man proud. Sitting in a hotel lobby between scenes, DD is wearing the usual satirical attire of his FBI character, Fox Mulder. He considers the confidentiality issue, takes a sip of water and looks up. Although never comfortable in interviews, he is, as usual, charming. "Chris is paranoid," he says, summing up the issue with one of those impossibly wry smiles. Referring to the secrecy agreement that Stanley Kubrick made Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise sign for their latest movie 'Eyes Wide Shut', he says: "I don't think he's quite reached the level of Kubrick yet, but give him a couple of years." There's a lot riding on the first XF movie. With one more series to go, the players - Duchovny, Anderson and writer/producer Carter - are hoping to transform the cult TV series of the '90s into a movie franchise, to go boldly where Star Trek has gone before. If they want it to work, they have to make sure the surprises stay under wraps. Although he calls the TV success of TXF miraculous, Carter has held the vision of an XF feature film in his head for a long, long time. And while it's daunting to be playing with big budgets, Carter isn't too overawed: "I don't think it's that audacious to be making a movie because XF lends itself to a movie format. What we do is little movies each week. So making a movie wasn't such a big leap because you're just working on a broader canvas. It was just coming up with a story big enough so that it seemed like a part of the TV series but added to the show rather than taking away its energy. With a film you have an opportunity to explode the mythology in a way, to answer questions that you wouldn't normally get to in the run of a series. In a series you're giving and taking back and you're posing as many questions as answers. Here we're giving a lot more answers I think." Filming began on a closed set in June in Hollywood and Bakersfield, California, and finished at the end of August in order to leave the actors free to shoot the fifth television series in Vancouver. That's a year of working at least 16 hour days so that the fifth series will serve as a build up to the movie. Secrecy is everything here. Even the stars didn't get the script until about two weeks before shooting was due to begin and all the cast and crew have signed strict confidentiality agreements that carry heavy fines if they reveal anything. Further, they work from scripts printed on red paper which can't be photocopied or faxed. "I think Chris's presence is enough to keep everybody's mouth shut," laughs Anderson. These precautions are merely an extension of the paranoia surrounding all things X. Lawyers working for 20th Century Fox have mineswept the Internet for sites containing anything and everything from the show - images, logos, sound grabs, the lot. Meanwhile, many on the bulletin boards are cynical and believe the sites have been used. As long as the program needed the publicity, the sites were tolerated. As soon as they were deemed unnecessary, even the non-profit-making sites were shut down. The story of the XF movie has been written by CC and the film is directed by Rob Bowman, who has done many of the best TV eopisodes. The cast also includes many of the TV regulars aong with cameos from Armin Mueller-Stahl (David Helfgott's father in Shine) and Martin Landau (as Oscar winner in Ed Wood). So the storyline remains one of the most closely guarded secrets in Hollywood and it's not for the lack of people trying to find out. US tabloid The National Enquirier published an edition in late June that included their mostly erroneous version of the complete story. Sounding like an episode of Scooby Doo on acid, it concerned a group of alien lizard-humanoids who crashed on Earth 20,000 years ago and are set free in the present by the standard bunch of kids in the wrong place at the wrong time, going on to attack people with black goo which makes them mutate into lizards themselves. What Carter will reveal is that the movie answers a lot of questions thrown up in the TV show. Mulder's sister, Samantha, and the government conspiracy to hide the truth about her abduction are in there and the question of Mulder and Scully as a working unit - their role in the FBI - is under scrutiny. Then there are the 20 FBI agents and a mysterious group called the Elders who meet whenever trouble arises, as it does in the film. Scully's brain cancer is also dealt with. Carter says this is something that won't be trivialised with a miracle cure by aliens, as the show's plot has hinted. "There's a lot of information out there on progressive treatments," Carter has said, "and there have been complete turnarounds. However we deal with this, we want it to be scientifically viable and accurate." In addition to this information, rumors say there's a new character, a new conspiracy, a new religion and a different angle to Mulder and Scully's relationship. The story reportedly has the working title of Blackwood, although this may change. Scully, the story goes, uncovers a plot by anti-government terrorists to wipe out those in power with a deadly alien seed that grows inside humans, until they burst out of their host bodies as grotesque extraterrestrial reptiles. The alien seed is spread through bee stings, a familiar XF plot twist. One report teases that Scully and Mulder have a kissing scene in the film, but before they can actually lock lips, poor Scully is stung by one of the alien infected bees. Mind you, all this should be taken with a pinch of salt because Carter also says that the first thing he did for the film was to hire a propaganda department to spread false rumours. While it has a bigger budget than the TV servies XF blackwood is pretty low key - a plus for Fox after the financial fiascos of Volcano and Speed 2. While it's more action packed than the series, don't expect the reinvention of the wheel. "If it were something where I was playing a complete different character, it would have been insane," says Anderson, referring to the short time the actors had to prepare. "But the fact that we already knew who we were just made it a matter of what we were going to do. It was still a bit frustrating because if you have any issues with a script you can go back and forth with it - say you don't agree with something, and work it out. But with the amount of time between receiving the script and shooting there was no time to come up with something else, so in that situation, you gotta do what you gotta do. "To expand or change the character at this point would be dishonest," adds Duchovny. "It is what it is and this is just another form. I think it's the right story to do for the movie. It's got a difficult balancing act to achieve - to satisy die-hard fans who know more about the show than I do *and* to satisfy people who have never heard of TXF. So it has to stand on its own as a movie. You have to spend time with the story and I think that's what this does - I think it'll be a really fun, engaging movie. My influence over the character was in the second and third year when by necessity we were creating a back story that did not exist," he adds. "When the pilot was done, this Mulder guy had a sister abducted by aliens when he was a kid but that's all he knows, really. And then the back story was created as we went on. So I was very happy to be involved in developing this character." "I think the movie is more about the story and less about the characters because you have a television show that spans 25 hours a year; some episodes are about the show, some are about the monster and some are about the characters, and that kind of cyclical thing is necessary. In the movie, expecially when you're introducing the show to people that might not know it, it's less important to have a character-driven piece. Which is one of the disappointing things about acting in it, although I don't think it should be any other way. I don't think it should be a character-driven piece because it's a thriller, an action movie. The great thing about the TV show is that it's an action thriller, but it's also character driven." Getting from the small screen to the multiplex has been a long and arduous journey. The show, which began as a quirky TV series, has become part of the popular culture and is arguably the most important television program of its time, so the transition to cinema was an obvious move. Carter adds that Blackwood will follow on from the fifth series. And thought the fifth series was intended to be the last, this may no longer be the case. After all, you don't get off the gravy train until it stops. "It's all part of a big plan," he says, although there is the problem of territories outside the US (like Australia), which lag behind. "Yes," Carter laughs, "I'm just going to have to ask everybody overseas who hasn't seen the fifth series not to watch the movie." If it was obvious to 20th Century Fox execs that movies were the obvious next move, the stars were less enthusiastic. Neither Duchovny nor Anderson were initially keen to take on the film. "The big problem was timing," says Duchovny. "I had a couple of other things I was thinking of doing but it was very important to Chris because it was the culmination of the fifth year. And at that point I thought the fifth year would be the last of the show. I saw it as a good chance to go out with a bang. So rather than do these other projects I thought I should do this. But now it doesn't seem like this really is the end, so I was misled and screwed, basically. I was well paid for it, but still misled and screwed." Well paid indeed. Duchovny is said to be on a fat $4 million cheque for Blackwood, plus royalties. In the series he's on around $120,00 per episode, while Anderson has to struggle by on just $50,000 - a sore point. Anderson refused to sign on for the picture for some time and it was rumoured that she was holding out for equal pay with Duchovny, which she finally won. Anderson, who claims she "would rather sit down to a Mike Leigh film than Alien 3 any day," also disagreed about making the movie altogether. "I don't know," she muses. "There's something very unique about this kind of series being on TV. It's the whole concept of television and how it is a very personal thing within somebody's home - I think the fact that it's a TV show has added to the obsession with it. I think the people who are going to respond to the film in the same way that they do TV show are already responding to the series. It's just another part of the layer of the insanity. I thought it would be more rewarding for the audience to have a film to go to after there was no more series left," she says. "So when they couldn't tune in every week to a new episode, they'd at least be able to anticipate a film every few years." Despite her initial reluctance to make the movie, Anderson says that it's created "other interesting rewards in itself - beginning with the Mulder/Scully relationship. There's a different dynamic between the two of us and there's another element to the story which brings an interest into our relationship - one that we haven't seen before. And besides, making the movie has been more fun. It feels like a little break because we shoot less pages per day and so the downtime between shots is considerably expanded and the hours are less. And I prefer working in Los Angeles to Vancouver because it't home and it's where my friends live." So is this the beginning of the end for TXF? Carter is contracted to stay for five series, and therefore will obviously be free by the time the movie is released. But he's talking about staying for a sixth, or even a seventh, "I have the option to leave but I'm not saying I will," he says. "I don't know. If I think the series has a life and if I'm interested in telling the stories, which I think I will be, I'll stay with it. There's no reason to leave unless it feels that it's just a matter of commerce. I don't want it just to be a matter of commerce. I really want to tell these stories. That's the reason I'd stay." After five years into making TXF, CC is now 30 years old. He is tall, thin, blond and fit. On the set few have seen him wear anything but jeans and a denim shirt. This, plus his jumpy, ultra-enthusiastic way of behaving makes him stand out next to the restraint of his characters. As much as they are cautious and reticent, Carter has the air of someone who can't quite believe his luck. And he has been lucky. After finishing a degree in journalism, Carter came to TXF via the unlikely path of writing about his passion - surfing. "I was looking for a way not to join the responsible adult world, so I went to work for a surfing magazine," he says. It was there that Carter travelled the world, learned about running a business and perfected the discipline of writing: "The hardest part is putting yout butt on a chair and keeping your fingers on the keyboard." It was Carter's driving ambition to write fiction that drove him to follow his idea of two lone FBI agents trying to understand the unexplained. Without him, both Anderson and Duchovny have said they would seriously reconsider continuing to play their Mulder and Scully roles. CC doesn't take any of this for granted; he calls the success story that is TXF "one of those miracles that surprises me every day." And what of the two stars? Duchovny is said to be cast as a lead in Men in Black II and a strong contender to play Batman in the next of the movie series. But while he admits he is ambitious, he also says he would like more time with wife Tea Leoni, and that he has no master plan. He recently moved to Vancouver, where TXF is filmed. "I like it in Vancouver. It's pretty, although I dread the weather changing and working out in the winter cold and the rain. I'd rather be with my wife. Even if I was working a hard scheudle it would be nice to have her in bed when I got home, or me in bed when she got home." As Leoni works in LA on The Naked Truth, does it make it more difficult for Duchovny to keep things together in Vancouver? To keep the momentum going? "How do I keep Mulder fresh? That's very difficult, that's the hardest thing. Do you fall back on technique. Or do a lot of drugs and kind of forget where you were and then everything seems fresh. Or yoga, which I haven't been doing enough of recently. I wouldn't mind being Agent Mulder once every two years because movies are four or five month projects. I think you know when you're done with it," he adds. "I want to do the best work I can, work with the best scripts, the best directors. The reason I've stayed with the television show for as long as I have if from a selfish point of view, because I have been able to get myself into a position where I can do that." Does he think there are enough fresh ideas to keep the TV series going for a couple of years yet? Or are we going to get sick of TXF? Is this like being let loose in a chocolate factory and gorging ourselves stupid? Duchovny says he's not sure of the answer to any of these questions, but Carter believes the movie will freshen the hole shebang. "Overdosing on XF?" he asks rhetorically in mock alarm. "I hope not. I'm trying to make it more exciting, to make it better. In fact I think the movie, if it works in the way I hope it works, should make the TV XF even more exciting. It will create a new path or new directions for the characters to go." Then again it may be best, as Fox Mulder would advise to "Trust No One."
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