The first time I watched the premiere of FOX’s new X-Files mini-series, it was among a few hundred die-hard X-fans collected inside a New York Comic Con auditorium. The moment I remember most vividly was the audible gasp of horror that rippled throughout the entire crowd when David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder ripped the iconic “I Want To Believe” poster– the decoration adorning many a dorm room wall in the mid-1990s–right in half.
As it turns out, the person in that auditorium least affected was Fox Mulder himself. When we caught up with Mr. Duchovny following the Comic-Con screening to get his feelings on Mulder’s boot-induced sacrilege, he laughed. “This will give you an insight into how different it is to do a show, as opposed to see a show.”
Mr. Duchovny went on:
“I felt nothing about doing it. All I wanted was for it to rip correctly. How many posters do I have a shot at ripping? I had no thought about kicking the actual, sacred poster. It was just like, ‘Let’s fucking get it right before we run out of posters, because then it’ll look like shit and I’ll feel bad.’
Maybe when I read it, I was like ‘oh nice move, nice writing, nice idea.’ But really on the day it was like ‘yeah, yeah, let’s make sure this thing works.'”
The truth is indeed still out there. Just don’t expect to get all sentimental once you find it.
