David Duchovny: I Dropped Out of a PhD Program to Pursue Acting on "Gut Instinct”

Key Takeaway

Use “gut instinct” as a prompt for disciplined experimentation, not blind certainty. David Duchovny left a secure PhD path because he felt starved for collaboration, emotion, and aliveness—but he kept learning through regular acting classes and accepted small roles that kept him afloat. Today, identify one creative or career impulse you keep postponing, schedule a low-risk practice session, and create conditions that make follow-through more likely: accountability, a class, or a financial commitment.

Episode Overview

David Duchovny traces his unconventional path from Princeton and Yale’s English PhD program to acting, writing, music, directing, and podcasting. He explains how restlessness, persistent practice, and an internal sense of purpose guided major career pivots, then reflects on failure as a source of empathy, meaning, and redirection.

Full Transcript

Transcript of David Duchovny: I Dropped Out of a PhD Program to Pursue Acting on "Gut Instinct” from How I Built This. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Hello everyone, it's Guy Raz here with The Great Creators. This is where I have conversations with some of the most incredible actors, musicians, and performers of our time. And today on the show, the one and only David Duchovny. Going from X-Files as Agent Mulder to writing music, novels, and now creating his own podcast. At one time, as Agent Mulder on The X-Files, David Duchovny was quite possibly the most famous actor on Earth. Recognized everywhere, people asked him about aliens and about lizard people. But he went on to create another iconic character, Hank Moody, on the TV show Californication.

But what makes David Duchovny so unique is all of the different creative things he does. He makes music, he writes novels and poetry, he writes screenplays, directs films. He's a remarkably creative person, and his creative output is incredibly impressive. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with actor, writer, director, musician, and podcaster David Duchovny. David Duchovny, welcome to the show. Thank you. Um uh if you would indulge me for a moment, I want to ask you about um your your kind of childhood, cuz I think it it's relevant.

Your dad um you've described your dad as this kind of anti-establishment character. Yeah, he did have a 9-to-5 job. I think he was a copywriter or a writer. Yeah, it's hard for me to know exactly cuz I was just a kid. I didn't really know what jobs were, but um I I think he worked in public relations for the American Jewish Committee, uh which meant that he may have written speeches, he may have written copy. Yeah, so I I think a copywriter is pretty pretty appropriate there.

Was he Was he political? Uh only in sense that he hated all politicians. Uh but uh no, he wasn't. I mean, I have a picture of him uh actually uh standing off to the side when uh Bobby Kennedy is giving a speech. So, you know, because because the AJC was was political in in some ways. We Your parents split when you were you were a kid, right? 12. 12, yeah. And and your dad, I think, was kind of out of the picture for a while, right?

Yeah, my dad he he moved out of New York. He moved to Boston. Where he worked for the Boston Jewish Committee, and then he was the vice president of Brandeis University, a Jewish uh college. Wow. Uh uh so uh he kind of stayed in in in that area. Uh but and as vice president, he wasn't he wasn't an academic. He was he was working in PR. Yeah, an administrator. And then he moved to Paris. So, I didn't really see him that much after that. And your mother um was Your mother was not Jewish, right?

Your mother was Scottish, right? Yeah, which is which Yeah, there are some Scottish Jews, I'm sure, somewhere. But she was a Lutheran. And so, how did you How were you raised? Were you raised with religion at all? Confused, very confused. We just celebrated all the uh all all the holidays we could. We took the best holidays from each religion. We always had a Christmas tree. You know, my father was not that kind of an observant Jew. He was more of what I'd call a cultural Jew, a New York cultural Jew.

And you grew up in the city in Manhattan. And what did your What did your mom do? How did she support your family? Uh after my dad left, uh my mom went back to night school. Uh she had a a uh she had a grad an undergraduate degree from a from University of Aberdeen, I believe. And but that wasn't uh she had started substitute teaching where I went to grade school, which was a real gauntlet I had to run through. Like if my mother was ever teaching a class I was in, it was rough.

But she had only substituted while my while while my dad was still with the family, and then she needed to make money. She went back to Hunter, which is a school in uh New York City. She went to night school. So, she took care of us three youngish kids and went to night school and got her teaching degree, and then embarked upon a storied and legendary teaching career at Grace Church School. And she became the head of the lower school at a certain time. head of the lower school.

She has a learning center named after her. I walk around um the Lower East Side. If I go back to my home neighborhood, it's rare that I don't get stopped by somebody whom my mother either taught or taught their kids or taught their grandkids. And um she was really one of the most special teachers that you hope you get for your kids. I thought you were going to say it's rare when somebody doesn't stop me and ask about X-Files, but that's not what they're doing. They're asking about your mom or and I much much prefer it.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. I I love I love when they do. Yeah. I mean, it's something to be proud of. It's amazing. Yeah. Um you were a good I think good student is is an understatement. You were really good student in high school. Um and and um was it I mean, was it just something that came easy for you or you just yeah? I mean, I don't I don't know if it came so hard. I mean, certainly not math and science didn't come easy to me.

Um Um I I was just because my mother came from uh a small town in Scotland and and the and she came from a class society where she was in the the underclass uh fishing village. Long line of fishmongers and fishermen. She was the first person, let alone woman, to get a college degree from her family. So, for a person like that who grew up in Great Britain when she did, which is, you know, she was born in 1930, the only way to advance uh was through education.

That was the only way to to solidify your place in a society, in a way, to get out of where she was. And she put the she put that into me, and that that my education was going to be paramount, and that I was Not only that, but because we didn't have money, I was going to have to continue to get scholarships, and therefore I had to continue to produce. So, it was expected. I mean, not just expected, but there was a self-expectation that that Not so much expected, but it was like I had to, you know.

Whether or not it was expected was one thing, but if uh it was part it was my end of the deal was uh you know, I was I was to do that. I was to earn the scholarships, which, you know, I did through high school, college, and then graduate school were all uh fellowship and scholarships. Um you end up going to Princeton. You study English and um the title of your your your senior thesis is The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's early novels, uh which is which is a a weighty um thesis.

Was What What was your plan? Did you think that you were going to become an academic? I think so. I didn't really have a plan. I was kind of going along and and succeeding in this small world of academia. And um I think if I had a plan, it was I my fantasy was that I was going to be a novelist, which weirdly was my father's fantasy. My father published his first novel when he was 75, so uh talk about a late bloomer, but he did it, you know.

And so, for me, uh kind of seeing how my father struggled to write uh but with supporting a family, I thought that uh on some level, I thought I'm I'm I'm making a a way to make a living where I can also be in that world of letters and have enough time off, summer times, to write my stuff, to write my novels or to write whatever I was going to write, poems, I didn't know. But that was kind of it was shaping up to be uh that looks like a decent strategy.

Mm. Yeah, obviously you were you were reading Beckett. Who Who Who are the writers you kind of shaped you at that time? I mean, were you reading like the post-war American novelists, the Roths and Updikes and and Saul Bellows and uh You know, it's different now, I think. Back then, you kind of didn't get into contemporary stuff so much. Right. You almost had to be canonized. It was rare to canonize a living author, you know, and to teach to teach there. Uh I think I think more so now they teach living writers.

But uh I I don't think Roth would have been taught. I mean, he he should be. He's one of my favorite authors, but I discovered him since I left graduate school. But no, I'd say that the authors that were uh influential on me were the the the modern period and uh romantic period, 19th century and 20th century. Like did Like Mary Shelley or like Herman Melville or Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake. Blake is still one of my favorites. Um 19th century philosophers, Nietzsche, um Schopenhauer. And then and then 20th century modernism, you know, Joyce, uh Woolf.

I wrote a junior paper on Virginia Woolf. And then I wrote the senior thesis on Beckett. So, it was really those would be my two kind of focuses, I think. So, you went on to do um to pursue master's uh in English at Yale. And and the idea, I guess, in your mind was this will really help me to sort of figure out how to become a novelist, a professional novelist. No. No. I was in the PhD program, so I was going to get a doctorate, and then teach at the college level, and then I was going to hopefully get tenure.

And then I would have time and the ability to focus on my writing while I taught. Uh Uh whether or not I had had it in the in my mind that these great authors would influence me, no doubt they did. No doubt they were always. But there's also there's also a certain weight that one of my professors Harold Bloom would have called the anxiety of influence, right? Where Yeah. The Harold Bloom was your one of It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Um you know, it's it's a it's a difficult dance when you dance with the best, you know, and then you want to go dance on your own.

You know, that in some ways ignorance is bliss. Uh so there's a fine line between being molded and influenced and then being weighted down and overshadowed and despairing that you'll ever create anything nearly as good as that. I'm curious when you were an undergraduate and graduate, did anybody I mean I have to assume that you had some professors who were like you should really pursue this. You've got talent. Did anybody at that time ever say, you know, you're you're pretty good looking guy. You should get into acting or theater or you Anybody ever say anything like that to you?

No. No. But I think my students thought that cuz I was a teaching assistant. Yeah. Right. When you're when you're at Yale getting PhD, you you run a lot of the classroom stuff. And I think I I've run into occasionally I run into a person who had been a student of mine. And they'll say, oh, you were very entertaining. You know, they're not they don't say I was good. They they say you were you're entertaining. So there was part of me that was entertaining, you know, was leaning in that direction.

I mean as a as a lecturer like you knew how to command a classroom. It's just something that came easy to you. Yeah, I didn't lecture, but when I when I ran the section, you know, Yeah. Yeah, I did. I I did. And and in fact like doing a podcast is a little like that except you only have one one student. That's true. Which is what you're We'll talk about that cuz I know you're you're launching one. I know one of your students was Chang-rae Lee who's who I I met before and is an amazing novelist and it's kind of crazy that he he's like a professor at Stanford now.

Um Yeah, I ran into Chang-rae not too long ago. And it's funny cuz I had him of all things in expository writing. I didn't have him in a section. One of the things that they saddle beleaguered grad students with is expository writing which is also called daily themes where they just kind of journal. And you critique their their writing. So Chang-rae and we never had a class for that. It was just assignments and meetings. Yeah. I remember Chang-rae Lee well. So I I will say that all out of all the conversations I've had on the Great Creators at this point there's not been a single one that has reached this point which was say master's degree in English.

Yeah, we've had Sigourney Weaver on and she went to the drama school Yale and you know, that's but there is nothing at this point in your life that says this person's going to be an actor. This person's going to go into acting. No, not at all. Um I never knew an actor. I didn't know somebody who made their living as an actor. I None of my friends were actors. You weren't like a theater kid in high school. You didn't go to Broadway shows. Didn't go to Broadway shows.

Barely went to movies. Yeah. Um I played one of the wise men in the Christmas procession. That would be my first role. Yeah. All right. That's not speaking lines. I brought I brought myrrh. You brought myrrh. Okay. I I I I carried the myrrh. So so what happens? You're you're you're you've got this promising career to be an become an academic. What happens? How What what Yeah, what happens? Well, I was restless. Um the most alive I've I've felt up until that point was playing sports probably.

Um You played soccer, right? Or basketball, right? Yeah. And um I missed that collaboration. I missed that tension. I missed that excitement. And then I was at Yale and there were all these drama students running around and um I just remember thinking, Jesus, I I just sit in the library and read all day and I'm 22 years old, you know. I I want a little more life. You know, if I'm going to devote my entire life to this institution or an institution like it, at least I want to get out there a little bit.

And I thought, okay, well, maybe I'll try to write plays because at least they get to hang out. You know, at least they they get to play with other people. So Yale was a good place to do that. And their drama school was very porous. They allowed me to just sit in on writing classes. Guy named Dennis Scott was the teacher. They didn't care that I wasn't in the school. I'd just kind of drift in and drift out. I met a lot of interesting people. And then a couple of people asked me to be in their productions cuz there's all productions around.

I said, well, I'm not really an actor, but you know, I'll try it. And um I thought if I'm going to write plays or screenplays or whatever I imagine I might be doing, I should probably uh say the words. See what it's like to say the words. So I mean and I mean obviously storied drama school probably around the time you were there. Like Ed Norton may have been a student there. I don't know. I didn't know him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean obviously Sigourney Weaver, Jodie Foster I I mean I just off the top of my head but tons of people have but you were not in the program.

You were just kind of shadowing the Yeah, they wouldn't they wouldn't they would have known that I existed. I became friends with a guy named Wesley Fata who was the movement teacher at Yale. He was kind of not quite a dance teacher. He had been a dancer but he he taught the grad students in the drama department movement. And we were just buddies. And uh he didn't teach me movement or anything like that but we would talk about performance and acting and and he was a very interesting cat.

What appealed to you about acting? I mean here you are in the library focused on on you know, the an intellectual pursuit. Not that acting isn't but it's a different kind of pursuit. What what spoke to you about standing up in front of people and acting things out? Well, first of all, as I as I said before, I wanted to recapture the joy I had playing sports. And part of that was playing in front of people. I did like that pressure of I mean I love the game but I also liked playing a game in front of a packed house.

That was fun. I liked that intensity. And I felt like this was coming close. You know, and you know, and the words were balls were the ball, you know. And we're just tossing it back and forth. And in terms of intellect versus emotion, it it I I had spent however many years I was in school at that point 24 or 25 years old really just cultivating my intellect and and that part of my brain and I was hungry for um a less intellectual pursuit and not in an denigrating way but one that that put the emphasis on reactivity and emotions and expressions rather than pondering or brooding.

Analysis and critical thinking and yeah, well I mean I'm thinking about you in 1988 or 87. You and you decide to move to California to pursue an acting career after just a brief spell of learning about acting. I mean was there somebody who who said to you, David, I think you have something. Cuz it it does seem kind of crazy, right? Like here you are. You're throwing this whole career away. I mean your mother was probably really proud of you. She was an academic and and and you're like, yeah, I'm going to go to LA.

And I have to imagine people like, you're what? Acting? Yeah. Yeah, that's very much what the reaction was. And my mother was not not pleased. Never never was pleased. To the day she died asked me when I was going to finish my dissertation. Right. Um And uh in fact the last time I saw her with my kids, she she asked me and she she she had dementia by then and my kids said, why don't you just lie to her? Just tell her that you finished it.

And I was like, you know what? Maybe I should. It's a little bit like the Bucky Dent movie where you get there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um so yeah. So nobody nobody said, hey, you know, yeah, you're making the right choice, buddy. And did any Did anybody say you have talent? Um I mean I had an agent. I'm sure she said I had talent. But I certainly didn't I would get feedback you know, that was not always great. You know, it wasn't it wasn't uh that apparent.

But I had a sense within myself that I was on a road that I could thrive on. And I didn't have the tools yet but I had the gut instinct that that I was on an honorable pursuit for myself. So you get out to LA in 87 and um I I searched for this. I couldn't find it but you were in a Lowenbrau beer commercial. It's probably it's probably on YouTube. I don't know. Is it maybe not? I don't know. I haven't I haven't seen it.

Um but that's a gig. So that's not you know, a bad start. But still I I mean it would be another six years before of X-Files which we'll talk about in a moment. But in that first 6-year period, you did get some roles. I mean, you got a couple of recurring parts on Twin Peaks, and you were in a in a Showtime series called Red Shoe Diaries. So, during that period of time, did you feel like you were progressively moving towards a bigger career, or did you have periods of during that time where you had anxiety and you were and and you thought, "I think I might have made a mistake in in throwing away that other life"?

had anxiety about the career. Um I still do to a certain extent, but and I think that's healthy, but um yeah, I mean, there were moments where uh there there are still there is always moments where I think uh I'm spending my time in the wrong place. But, I I I think that I was so overjoyed first of all, to get a Löwenbräu commercial. I remember that. I was It's a good beer, by the way. the moon. The German version, by the way. Very good. today.

Uh I was just happy, you know, that I was going to make a little money. And then to to get the Twin Peaks job was a big deal. Uh and to get Red Shoe Diaries was a big deal. And I could pay my rent, and I could put a little money in the bank, and felt like a a working actor, and that was important. That was important to me, and it was um Yeah, so I I I was just overjoyed that that uh I I was above water.

At least I had my head above water. How did you hone start to hone your craft? I mean, you you'd come from a world with almost no experience in a into a world where so many actors in Hollywood are like children or grandchildren of actors. They grew up in it, or they grew up in the theater. I mean, just from the time they were three, they were hams. They were in front of people singing. Yeah. You're like kind of an introverted, serious guy who just came out of a PhD program at Yale.

Yeah. How were you first of all, how are you just honing your craft? What were you doing to get better? I mean, I I I was always in some kind of a class when I even when I was teaching at Yale, I was going to acting class uh twice a week. I'd I'd ride my bike to the New Haven train station. I'd get off at Penn Station, and I'd cycle up to my acting class, and then I'd cycle back to Penn Station, and I'd go back to New Haven, and they didn't know or didn't care what I was doing.

I mean, as long as I graded my papers and and did what I needed to do, they didn't care what I was doing with my free time. So, I was in class with a woman named Marsha Haufrecht, who taught the method, which is a Strasberg technique that people know about and misidentify all the time. And then, I also studied with a guy named Robert Modica, who taught the Meisner technique, which is the another offshoot of the Strasberg technique. Um and I feel like between those two and other people that I've come across uh in my journeys, Gary Shanley was into the Sky Royal London, who was a wonderful uh teacher.

I've I've gotten bits and pieces all along the way, but I've been in a lot of class, you know, and I went to a lot of class from the age of like 25 to 28 when I was at Yale and kind of commuting back and forth to class. I was in acting class quite a bit, and I was learning. I did I can't tell you what I learned, but I but I learned, and I learned how to how to do my thing. What what was it like to be in that world?

And not just not just in in those first years, but but but eventually, you know, as you got bigger roles in the X-Files. Did you feel like a I don't know, did you have to kind of modify your behavior or the things you talked about because your background is so different from 99% of the people you were around. Not to say that actors aren't intelligent. I mean, some of the most Tom Hanks is one of the most intelligent people I've ever talked to in my life.

I mean, he's so well-read, and he's a writer. But, a lot of actors never went to college because they went straight from high school, or maybe they took the the GED, and went to acting. And here you are like having come from these, you know, weighty Yeah. schools with this and and so how did you navigate the culture of Hollywood? Uh it's funny cuz I remember, you know, some couple times my manager said, you know, don't you know, when you talk to them, don't talk about Princeton or Yale.

Not like that not like that was what I was, you know, that wasn't my it's not what I go around talking about anyway, but she was like yeah, because they don't think you're serious, you know, they don't think you're serious about acting. And I'd say, I don't see how they're mutually exclusive, but sure, I don't I certainly don't have to talk about that. And um I think in terms of navigating it, um you know what? I just never I I didn't give that much thought to it because I I've always felt that uh intelligence comes in all shapes and sizes and and, you know, I'm just open to any kind of intelligence coming at me, whether it's intellectual or emotional or spiritual.

So, uh there's plenty of that going on, you know, if if there wasn't, you know, book clubs like there are now, there there was there was plenty of intelligent people, just all different kinds of intelligences in Hollywood like that. When you got the role as Agent Mulder, um in X-Files, did you have any sense were you able to anticipate how that show would do, or I mean, did you have no idea? No, I had no idea. In fact, I thought I was making a safe bet because at that point um I don't know.

That's 1990 93. three. Yeah. There was a big distinction between television acting and film acting, which no longer exists. And I can't tell you how many rejections I got for television where they'd say, "He's a movie star. He's not he's not a television actor." And I'd say, "Well, [ __ ] I can't pay the rent. So, this movie star would would love your shitty little guest spot on Charles in Charge, or whatever it was, you know, I'd love it." Like So, that was always it was always like, "Yeah, he's more like a movie actor.

He's a movie actor." And then, the X-Files came along, and I was like, "Okay, this is a cool pilot script, but it can't have legs because, first of all, I'm not interested in aliens. I doubt there are a lot of people who are. And secondly, uh once you see the either there are or there aren't, and once you give away that game, I mean, what's I I didn't see where it could go. And so, I thought, "Okay, I'll shoot the pilot, and that'll be, you know, I'll have some money in the bank again.

I'm just kind of treading water." And I'd done The Rapture, and I'd done I'd done a number of movies, but The Rapture was probably the biggest of those, and I thought, "You know, I'll I'd done California with a K, you know, so I was I was getting close to, you know, having a career in movies that I had wanted. And um so, I thought, "Ah, do I really want to do TV? Like, that's sending the wrong message, you know, that I'm a TV actor, not a movie actor." Which no longer exists.

Yeah. Now, it's all very fluid. But, at that point, it wasn't. In fact, shows like The X-Files, NYPD Blue, Homicide, those were the TV shows that actually showed that TV could handle, you know, quote unquote movie acting, movie-type showmaking. And it would prove to be one of those rare TV shows that has a long lifespan, even to to this day. Yeah. It went went longer than the pilot. But, Randy Stone, who was the casting director, he's he's uh he's no longer with us. He had he had had me in on a couple of other projects that I can't remember.

But, he said to me, um cuz I was like, "Ah, I don't know if I want to do it." You know, the balls on me to say, "I don't know if I want to do it." Uh I didn't really have a pot to piss in at that point, but I was like, "Yeah, I'm holding out. What am I holding out for? I don't know." And he said, um "If you do this job," he goes, "I've only said this once before." Longtime casting director. He said, "I said it to Woody Harrelson uh when when he was doing when he came and auditioned for Cheers.

I said, 'If you do this, you will never have to work again.'" And I said, "You're insane. But, uh I understand your passion." And he was right. He was right, and that show became one of the biggest, most popular TV like like Star Trek level obsession, right? And were you I mean, in a very short period of time, you and Gillian Anderson become two of the most famous actors in the world. Mhm. I mean, how did did How did you deal with that? I mean, was it I mean, on one on one side, it must have been pretty amazing and and nice, but on the other other side, overwhelming.

Yeah. I It's hard to recall, but it didn't happen quite as fast as it seems because I don't know if you recall, but Fox was kind of like the fourth network at that point. Didn't didn't didn't quite have the numbers. Didn't feel, at least the first season, you know, we stayed on the air. We were hit for Fox, but we weren't really a hit. We were probably, you know, in the in the 30s of the rankings and stuff like that. Um but, we didn't get the numbers that the the big networks did.

And then, all of a sudden, like after like somewhere between two and three years, it exploded, and it exploded like all over the world, which was weird. You know, it wasn't just an American phenomenon. It was it In some ways, it was bigger abroad than it was in America. And um at that point, yeah, I don't know. It it just became my life, you know, it's it's it's amazing how fast we acclimate to drastic change, you know, so I I I can't remember making the adjustment and for sure it it was crazy making.

Yeah, it there's a certain kind of insanity that happens when you're inside that juggernaut, but the other aspect was we were just shooting in Vancouver. We were working so hard. We were out of Hollywood. Um we were just kind of making the show. Yeah. We were doing our job. Um you eventually would write um some of that show as well. Yeah. They gave you a chance to do that um which must have been a real like I mean an interesting opportunity, right? Because that's what you had done as a as a graduate student.

Well, I said to well, Chris Carter kind of involved me early on. I think it even might have been the end of the first season. I had a story credit with him. So, we talked about stories. We talked about certain kind of vectors that we could go off on in the show. And so I I got a couple of story credits or partial story credits. And then I started to you know, think about directing. And I said to Chris if I write a script you know, I'd like to direct it.

Would that be okay? And that's it's a big ask. Writing a script is not the big ask. The big ask is directing because it it necessitates that you you need to prep that. So, that necessitates that you're not really much in either the episode before the one you're directing and the one after cuz you're doing post. So, if you're the star of a show and you're asking to direct and write, it's a big ask cuz you're saying basically two out of your 22 episodes I'm going to be light in.

And Chris was generous enough to say sure. You mentioned Woody Harrelson earlier and um he's a great example of an actor who was who able to emerge from a character that was so um I he was so identified with publicly. He was Woody on Cheers, right? And you couldn't and and probably at that time I I mean I remember you it was hard to imagine him as something else, but now I can't even imagine him as Woody. Like it's it's kind of remarkable cuz it's rare.

And you were able to do the same thing. I mean you were Agent Mulder and and I mean I think I read that like people would come up to you at conventions and like seriously ask you about lizard people and and and assume that you just had all this information about the I do by the way. I've always said that I don't, but I do. I have it all. Would you like to hear it? No, because then this is going to go on YouTube and it's going to be a conspiracy theory video.

People are going to chop it up and then it's going to be a big mess. Um but did you I mean of course you you managed to kind of I don't even think of you as Agent Mulder, but did was there a point where at least initially after that that series ended where people were like, yeah, you're you're this guy. That's who you are. Uh well, I mean there's always that kind of discussion around a uh an indelible kind of a show with indelible characters. And you know, the discussion affected both Gillian and I would imagine just in the sense of well, jeez, is is there anything to that?

Because you know, as an actor you don't that's not your reality. You got you didn't get in it to play one role, one guy. So, you're you're just thinking well, this is just one guy that I've been doing for a while, but you know, I got other things in me and I can't wait. Um how do I use the opportunity that this is affording me to go out and show that that I can do more than this. And that's that's a weird kind of pressure. You know, that's not an authentic place to come from.

And so so to push against something that doesn't really exist was a trap I think that I fell into for a minute. Yeah. And and it's hard not to when you think about it cuz people ask you, you know, are you worried about being typecast? And I was like inside I'm thinking absolutely not, but then so many people are asking me this. Maybe it's something to think about. There's something there. Yeah. Yeah, I would just I just occurred to me like both you and Gillian Anderson have had incredible cuz I don't I I mean I saw her in The Crown playing Margaret Thatcher.

Yeah. And it was incredible. I mean it was unbelievable to see her play that she was Margaret Thatcher. Mhm. So, here you are um now we're going to we're jumping ahead a little bit, but but you get an another second major role on a show that is going to be also iconic public Californication where you play a novelist a little bit little bit closer to your real life background story. Um tell me about about about sort of personifying that character and and becoming Hank Moody. Well, um yeah, playing a novelist it's like the most boring uh job that you can play on a in a movie or a film.

3,000 words a day butt in chair. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And Tom Kapinos who's the who wrote after the first or second season wrote pretty much every word of that show. Um he said, you know, this is my fantasy. This is a this is a writer's fantasy show where there's a world that in which writers are considered like rock stars. You know, that's the world of Californication. Um to play a novelist, you know, I don't know how to do it. There's no activity that you can do to portray a novelist.

Like you said, it's just sitting down and typing. So, it's more of a mindset. It's more of a way the guy talks which is part of what Tom was able to do, but when I was in that spot in like 2000 I don't know, five or six and I I've been looking around for comedy to do partly as a push back against the X-Files, you know, still kind of like, oh, I don't feel like I've moved beyond it in some way in people's minds, you know, so I had those thoughts and I had wanted to to do comedy and it wasn't coming my way or the style of comedy in the movies was not something that people were going to think of me right away for.

Yeah. And Californication came by and it was it was really the kind of comedy that I loved when I started watching movies. You know, it was the 70s kind of adult adult situation sex farce comedies uh uh you know, the Woody Allen stuff or or or you know, What's Up, Doc? Or you know, just Warren Beatty kind of roles where you could have somebody like that in a comedian role. And I thought well, you know, it's not movies, but that this is where it is and I'm going to go do that here.

Why was comedy I know that cuz earlier in your career you done a guest stint on Garry Shandling's show The Larry Sanders Show and it was a you were actually nominated for uh I think I like Emmy or I can't remember Yeah, Emmy. Yeah, for that role and but you were playing I lost I lost to Mel Brooks, that hack. Um you were playing yourself. You were playing yourself, but it was a I was playing my name. Your name, but you had a crush on Garry Shandling.

Sort of this weird thing. But but the comedy you didn't have to be it wasn't like you were like Mel Brooks. You weren't like a slapstick comedian. It was a different kind of comedy that you Right. you were pursuing. It was the kind of comedy that I thought I could do. And the kind of comedy that I thought I could write also as well at some point. So, yeah, that's what I was looking for. And it was in many ways it was it was like Californication was very word heavy.

I mean Yeah. the evidence that he was a novelist was really in the way he spoke and the way the banter the banter even though it was heightened and sexualized, it was really a bantering kind of a show going harkening back to like screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s 50s. Is comedy acting harder for you than dramatic acting? Yeah, it's way harder for anybody. I mean because dramatic acting is I mean there's really no criteria for it. Like it moves you or it doesn't. You believe it or you don't.

But if you're not laughing at a comedy, it's not working. It didn't work. I don't care how believable you were or or whatever. This might be a tough question to answer, but how does how did trying to learn how to be a comedic actor help you help make you a better dramatic actor? Person. Person. I don't know. Whatever. Uh well, I was always trying to sneak comedy into the X-Files, you know, that was it was kind of my mission was to keep and and you know, Chris Carter was not not necessarily against that although sometimes we would bang bang heads, you know, if he was thinking I was pulling the the weight of the show in a wrong direction by trying to add moments of levity.

Um but we had writers who were very comedic like Darren Morgan, Glen Morgan, James Wong would would write dark comedies. Vince Gilligan would write obviously dark comedies. He did Breaking Bad afterwards. So, it was really always my impulse. My impulse has always been to look for what's funny. And real, but what's funny. So, um being able to like go for it wholeheartedly on Californication it made me a much better actor because I began to trust myself and trust my instincts, trust my comedic instincts. How important I mean how how much is sort of restlessness a part of your I don't know just just who you are because before we started this interview we're chatting a little bit about all the different things you do.

I mean we've just talked about your acting career, a little bit about your writing, but you've written novels. Um, you've just you've directed films, you've written music, um, and you're doing a podcast. All these things. So, I just want to talk about some of these things in detail. Do you like let's talk about music for for a moment. I know that you start you only started learning the guitar as an adult I think on the set of Californication. Well, I was one of the one of my it was a It was part of your character's role, right?

But I said that cuz I wanted guitar lessons. So, I said, "Hey, Hank Moody's going to learn how to play guitar so I could get free guitar lessons." And that's that's how I pulled that off. And did you did you just wanted to learn it because I'd always wanted to learn how to play guitar. Uh, I just wanted it to be part of my job so that I would have to. And then uh, I went and I bought a an expensive guitar for like $3,000 and that was I I would ensure that I'd practice it cuz I'd feel so guilty buying an expensive guitar and not practicing.

So, those were the two guidelines that I put up for myself. And then I just started, you know, teaching myself, too. When the show I think wait a minute I think the same year that the show ended its run you released a record. Your first record. No, it wasn't it was a couple years after that I think. Um, I was I was doing Aquarius which was a couple years after that. Uh, when we released the record and and the first novel. Hell Hell or High Water 2015.

2015, yeah. And Holy Cow came out 2015, too. And and were you tell me about tell me just about that. I mean it's it's like kind of a all of a sudden there's David Duchovny Yeah, I know. I know it's annoying. Um, I think uh, it was terrifying because I'm not like, you know, you asked like were people saying, "Hey, you know, you're onto something. Go be an actor, yeah." I I certain I got I got way more encouragement to be an actor than I ever had to be a singer.

Uh, I'm not I'm not a singer. I've worked I've worked fairly hard at at being decent or trying to trying to figure that out. But I don't have the natural gift. Doesn't doesn't necessarily matter to me as a listener when I my some of my favorite singers don't have the natural gift either, but uh, for me it was terrifying to think about, well, first of all, it was weird that I heard melodies that I couldn't sing. I thought, "What's that about? I must be able to sing them if I'm hearing them.

Or I need help. I can get help to sing them. And then uh, I hear melodies at all. That was so strange to me. I'd strum a guitar and I'd hear melodies. That was weird. I never thought that was going to be part of my life. So, it was all quite exciting and then terrifying because I just didn't think uh, you know, I had the pipes to go out there and do that. And then I just thought, "Well, you know, the songs are going to have to stand up on their own.

I believe in them. I like listening to them. Somebody's going to like listening to them. I'm going to sing them the best I can. And I think they're worthwhile. You know, that's that's what I thought. I think this is worthwhile music. I'm trying to express something. I'm trying to reach somebody. Where where does that ability if it is an ability that kind of fearlessness to do that come from because it is risky. You do open yourself up to criticism, ridicule. People might say, "Oh, stay in your lane." Sure, yeah.

They do. So, how do you get the the I don't know courage or the motivation to just say "The hell with it. I'm going to do it." Yeah. I don't know because I'm not, you know, I'm not like uh, fearless guy for sure. And I'm sensitive. Criticism hurts. I I see it. I'll I take it in. So, it's not like I'm impervious. Uh, but again, I guess going back to when you were asking me about why I thought I could be an actor, I just I just had a sense that I guess where I'm coming from was real for me.

It wasn't it wasn't like, "Hey, I'm going to be a rock and roll star now." It wasn't like that. It was like I'm a poet. I'm going to put my poet I'm going to put my poems to music. Um, I'm going to be like Homer. I'm going to sing these poems. Whatever, you know, it's like it's not it's not about you know, being a rock and roll guy. It was about yeah, I can I can paint with words in a in a miniature landscape of a of a song.

And if I can come up with decent melodies and find musicians who can play it well with me then why wouldn't those songs be decent? Why wouldn't they be worthwhile? Why wouldn't somebody get something out of it? Yeah, I I read that you wrote a lot of poetry in college and so and maybe even after and so you must have a lot of it. And and I it's it sounds to me like for you it didn't matter necessarily not matter, but it the the stakes of whether or not it was received well didn't matter as much as it being a creative outlet that you had to just get out there no matter what.

Yeah, I think in a way I had a wonderful safety net which was I had a good career as an actor, you know, and I I didn't have to worry um, if people hated it so much it it wouldn't affect my life. It would affect my head or my heart or whatever. The criticism would hurt, but it wasn't as dangerous as it would seem as like if if that's if that's what I decided to do out of graduate school, you know, they would have said, "No, that's crazy." You know.

Um, like Hank Moody you actually became a real life novelist Yeah. As well. Um, I think you've written four novels now, right? Four novels, one novella, and one uh, graphic novel. Can you can you sort of walk me through how you compartmentalize all these different things? Like do you work on these things you know, concurrently or do you just say right now I'm just going to focus on the novel and I'm not going to do acting and I'm not going to do music or or do you just do bits and pieces of everything?

Uh, well, music can happen at any time. Um, uh, I just have to sit down, you know, with a guitar and see if there's a song out there that wants to be written. But writing a novel really it demands an idea. Um, if I have the idea and I have the time then I'll just dive in and do it. Uh, that's what I learned is that I had when I have the time. And probably what I need is like a good 3 months to focus completely on it.

I can't. I mean I'm trying to do this podcast while I'm working here in London. And it's tough even just to do the research and do the podcast. This is an interview podcast you're going to you're launching on fail it's on failure basically. Yeah, it's called Fail Better. So, there's and and that's collaborative. So, I have other people doing work while I'm while I'm not working. Uh, but with a novel it's just all you. Nobody else there's no little there's nobody else writing when you're not writing.

So, um, if I'm lucky enough to have an idea that that is so compelling to me uh, that I want to take time off or that I'll turn down a job then I'll do that. But I haven't had one in a year or so and I'm worried that I won't have another one, but who knows. What is it like right now you mentioned you're in London and you're filming a show uh, a forthcoming show for Amazon. What can you tell us a little bit about the premise of that show?

It's called Malice and uh, I guess it's in the world of like a Ripley of like a which which oddly is is just out now as well. Um, Tom Ripley. What? Yeah, Tom Ripley. Yeah. Um, and you're the main character. Uh, Jack Whitehall who's an English comedian and actor is is the main character and I I'm one of the other main characters I would say. So, when you're when you're doing something like that at the end of the day do you just I mean it's a long day.

Do you just crash out and have some dinner and go to sleep or do you like pick up your guitar and start writing some some chords? That that would be great if I did. Um, Or do you write? I mean yeah, I'm curious. I'm I'm doing the podcast. That's taking up all my free time, but to be honest, I mean uh, I'm every everybody on set makes fun of me because I I come home and I watch the British have these game shows that we don't have and they're all for charity and they're they're these I think they've been going on for 20 30 years.

They're just so small and wonderful. And I watch shows like uh, Catchphrase and Tipping Point. And it's the exact kind of mindless thing I need at the end of the day. Yeah. You were on a game show once. You were on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. I was. Yeah. I didn't make it. Well, you almost made half a million. I did okay. You did okay. Got 32,000. Yeah, but I I I think I if I'd have stopped, you know, I would have made a lot more money for the charity.

That's right. Um, let let let me ask you about Bucky Dent. Bucky effing Dent. Um, for people who don't know, I think that a lot of people know that if you're a Red Sox or a Yankees fan, you know Bucky Dent. He he he de- de- destroyed the Red Sox opportunity to make it to the World Series in 19 78. 78, right? And uh and so he's is this name is legendary. Red Sox fans hate the guy. It's like Bucky Dent, Bill Buckner, there's all these, right, names that are cursed names.

Yeah. Um, tell me the premise of the film. On the screen because it was a novel first, then you turned it into a film, yeah. Um, well, I first heard the the phrase Bucky effing Dent um in in the Northeast cuz we don't know him as that in New York City. In New York City, he's a hero. He's just Bucky. Right. And I heard I heard the phrase Bucky effing Dent. I was like, it just made me laugh. I just loved the phrase so much. And then um, as this idea occurred to me, he just became a symbol of uh and in many ways the podcast is similar, you know, my my my interest in failure or in loss or disappointment Yeah.

as being, you know, on the one hand something that people become ashamed of and that can fester and screw up your life or on the other hand it's like some of the richest experiences we have as humans is to lose. And I think we've lost sight of that in many ways and what I what I'm interested in on the podcast is talking to people who have failed and succeeded and what is their stance towards both, you know? Because I think if you can embrace failure, you can you can know what it is to be human.

And it also increases empathy and sympathy and Mhm. kinship. So, Bucky Dent is of a piece with that because um Bucky Dent was not supposed to hit that home run. He he had three home runs all year. That was his fourth home run. And um you know, the fact it's like the Tom Petty song, even the losers get lucky sometimes. And the this is a fa- this is it's a movie a book about a father and son. The father is dying of cancer and he's a big Red Sox fan and he's got this fantasy that he can't die until the Red Sox win it all and the Sox are going to win in '78.

They're way ahead. Um, the son comes back to live with the father and take care of him and and as the Yankees son is a is a failed writer. He's a failed writer and and he and he throws peanuts at Yankee Stadium. He's a peanut guy at Yankee Stadium. While he tries to write. And uh he realizes he sees that his father's health deteriorates with uh with with every game that the Yankees are making up. So, he decides to kind of fake the outcomes so that his father stays healthy.

Uh and at some point his father finds out, his health takes a dive and um they get to that ultimate game. They get tickets to the ultimate game. But of course, cuz it's a low-budget film, I could never recreate Fenway or anything like that. So, In '78. Yeah, '78. Uh so, I have them on the road listening, you know, they get lost on the way to Boston and they have to listen to the the game on the radio. But in the end, before the father dies, he he he basically leaves his son with the benediction of, you know, God bless Bucky [ __ ] Dent.

God bless the losers. God bless Mhm. the people that surprise us. And he's like he says the Yankees with their rings and champagne, they don't know about life, but Boston Boston knows what life is. It's so great. I mean, it's so true, right? And of course, eventually Boston became a a winner's town. I know. Yeah, right. They they screwed up my my I started writing that, you know, before 2004, which is when they won. And I was like, "Ah, you guys, you ruined my story." They ruined it, didn't they?

But it becomes like a coda. And it's my it's my actual true belief and this is not just a marketing strategy that they they miss being the underdogs. They don't like being winners in Boston. They miss They miss the curse. I think that's true. I mean, you know, with all those Patriots and Celtics and and and Red Sox and then Bruins victories, it just you can't feel bad for them. No, and they want to feel bad. Secretly, I know they want to feel bad cuz feeling bad is feeling human.

Yeah. Um, what is it about failure cuz your show is about failure? What is it about I mean, you mentioned this idea that it builds empathy and and it it also helps us learn, which I agree. I think that's absolutely critical. But what is it about failure that you identify with? Because I think from the outside people looking at you would say, "Where has he failed? I mean, look at his incredible career. It's just been, you know, fleeting from success to success." Now, that's obviously you know, simplistic, but still like people might have that perception of you.

I I you know, like intellectually, well, we could talk about my failures as a as a spouse, as a as a father. We all have that. Yeah. That's universal. Um I have that as well. Yeah. Um failures of expression. Um For me, and this is the intellectual part and you know, I don't expect people to like glom onto this as a reason why they listen to the podcast, but every time I'm trying to go out there and and and and and be a character in a in a movie or a TV show or or write a song and sing that song to you or to an audience or write a novel and try to pull off a story uh pull off a world, you know, that's whole and complete.

I'm relying on First of all, I'm relying on words that people believe in to be true and that actually means something when I'm very in tune with the disconnect between feeling experience life, the world on the inside and putting it into the words that we we've chosen to speak. There's already a failure from my vision on the inside, which is wordless, just kind of a feeling thing, Mhm. to okay, now I have to incorporate it into words. There's already been a failure. So, that's where I'm coming from.

Everything to me feels like and I'm not a perfectionist either. So, it's not like I'm living in a hell of like, "Oh, nothing's ever good enough." Yeah. But I'm aware that nothing will ever be quite like I thought it was going to be. Could be better, ultimately. But there's never that feeling of yes, that was it. Do you think fit cuz I think about this a lot in in my life and my career and I and I appreciate you talking about some of your, you know, what what you would regard as personal failures.

And and failure is a tough word because it has, I think, a negative connotation, but and it's hard to shake that, but there are really important necessary things about it. Like like you we were talking about the about the Red Sox. Their victories wouldn't have as much meaning if it didn't come from decades of failure. And I feel like it's the same with like anyone's life, right? That if your life isn't isn't inculcated with failure, then it is just not as much meaning. No. No. Uh well, I mean, we're all heading to the ultimate failure.

We're all heading to death. Um but we can we can embrace each other on that, you know, that's an important thing to know. Nobody gets out of here alive, right? So, I feel like you're talking about the Sox, it not only made them deeper and more human, but it made them lovable. Yeah. And I think and and I also look at the world we're in now where we have a a presidential candidate who who's entire um strategy is the denial of failure. And what does that say about us?

Denial of a loss. Trump lost the election. He won't admit it. He can't accept failure. He's a person that cannot fail. So, I look at the country and I see there's a significant amount of people that dig this guy. And I think this is a major reason that he won't take an L. And there's something about that that is attractive to people in a way that I feel if they could embrace failure, their eyes would be opened. And we could communicate better through that. You know, it's this denial of failure that is creating like a a smoke screen in this country.

What what's been a failure of yours that has taught you more than anything else? That has made you a better version of you. Well, I mean, I go back to uh the the the inspiration for the story of of Bucky [ __ ] Dent was I mean, there were there were different kind of strands that come together like they do in any kind of full story. Like there's it's not like a one-pointed thing, but it's as I said, you know, I heard Bucky effing Dent and then this thing happened with my daughter when she was 9 months old, she got very ill.

And I was working uh on the X-Files in Los Angeles, 1999. And um you know, we they they didn't really know what it was and she was in the hospital and they thought maybe she had meningitis and they couldn't figure it out but she was very very ill and and I felt like I had failed her. I hadn't protected her. I know it's irrational but a parent this is what a parent feels. I have been there. And I couldn't save her. I am not a doctor.

I didn't know what to do. Um and I began to think about losing her. And it was so intolerable to me uh to realize that I would I I I just had this vision that I would never feel joy again. And I would never not be thinking of it ever again. And um that was really the inspiration for the father-son relationship in Bucky because that's what happens. That's that's the rupture in their relationship is and I felt this to a certain degree when my when my daughter um made it out of the hospital and she's a healthy almost 25-year-old wonderful person now.

Happy ending. But I was aware I was scared of her. I was scared of the power that her absence had on me. And I was aware of having initial trouble of reattaching. So important now I know so important between the ages of 0 and 3 to be feeling the attachment from your parent, you know, both parents. And I think I had trouble for a while after that because I was afraid for whatever whatever scars I had in my own upbringing were somehow pulled off. And that's the heart of Bucky Dent is repairing that rupture that happened inside the parent's mind.

Did did it change the way you um approached fatherhood when your second child was born a few years later? I don't know. I didn't really think of that. I mean the second child is always like it's short shrift, right? It's like Fewer photos in the photo album and yeah, right. Yeah, but uh he was also a boy and for some reason I'm I'm able to be tougher on a boy than than I ever could be on a girl, you know, it's just it's just a thing.

Um I don't know. It it was more like it wasn't something that I brought to another child. It was something that was between me and this child, me and my daughter and um obviously I've been I've been working on it since, you know. I've I've often said to friends of mine who have their first child I've said being a parent is the most terrifying job I've ever had in my life and I covered wars. I went to Iraq and Afghanistan back in the day. I was a war correspondent 20 years ago for NPR.

Being a parent of a child and who's sick and has in the hospital. I just had a kid who had a appendix removed. Mhm. 15-year-old. It's just scary. Mhm. The idea of something happening to your child is it's so weird how it it just it can paralyze you. Well, the weird thing it too is that we can be brave people in our own lives like you're obviously brave. You covered these wars. You probably would be very cool getting your appendix out. But you're not cool when it's your son.

No. what I mean? Like you're you wouldn't be worried about getting an appendix out. Maybe you'd have a thought like I hope this doctor's good, whatever. But you wouldn't freak out the way you are probably looking at your watch like he's under the knife right now. They got to get him out of anesthesia, you know, this kind of stuff. And that's that's something that I look at as a parent because I don't think that's necessarily great for the kid, you know, I don't think the kid needs to see his dad freaking out, you know?

So it's something that I go what is it about me that I I can't I don't want my kid to suffer. But I know that suffering is going to make that kid a richer person. And it's a part of life. Yes. It's unavoidable. So what's my problem? You know, it's my problem. Yes. Yes. It's your problem. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Do you do you think that cuz I I think on this idea of failure a lot. I think that every failure I've had has been a gift and a blessing and I know that word blessing is overused #blessing or blessed but it is it's the best word I can think of because had I not had those failures, my life would have been so different and and not as rich and not as you know, fulfilling.

And I wonder whether that's something that you've come across in in maybe not only in your life but in the conversations you've been having. Absolutely. That's that's a through line. Um where you know, um I think it I think uh I think the word Satan Mhm. Actually means like obstacle. And but in the sense of like if the road is bad, the obstacle is good. You know. So an obstacle is a can be seen as a failure. Like I'm I'm walking down this road. I think I this is the road I want to go on.

Oh, [ __ ] you obstacle. God damn it. Yeah. Then go over here and now all of a sudden I'm on a better road. So yeah, and I think I was talking to uh Gabor Mate and uh he actually goes so far as to say that we create our own failures. That's part of ourselves. The part that loves us more than anything creates a failure to get us off of a bad place. To get us into a new place. Um you've got um I mean you've you've had a really long career so far and and you've got a long career ahead of you.

Um I mean 40 years if you live to 100. Uh and so what what are see a lot of good things happening at 100. You never know. I mean Norman Lear was Yeah. He was kicking it until the very end. Brooks? Mel Brooks? Brooks. Yeah, and you were in History of the World Part II. Yes, I was. Howard Cosell. Howard Howard Cosell. Um what what is what is something that you have not yet been able to do because of time or you just didn't feel like you were ready or that you maybe that you can try.

I mean Is there something to maybe write a play or direct a play. Yeah. Sounds like a very doable plan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's really nothing I creative that I that I think I want to do that I haven't done or that I have any kind of aptitude for. So um you know, um yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm fulfilled. I'm happy with the lanes that I have at my disposal, you know? I'm happy with the media that I can try my stuff out in. I'm happy to have expanded it in the last 10 years.

So I don't feel the need to expand it anymore. I'm I'm pretty uh I'm pretty optimistic that I'll find some area that I can express something in. David Duchovny, thanks so much. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for watching my conversation with actor David Duchovny. His new podcast is called Fail Better. It's out now and he's got a movie and an album out later this year. If you want to see more videos like this one, please subscribe to our channel. We post a new video every week and of course we're an audio podcast as well.

So if you want to hear the great creators, look for us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast and please also check us out at the great creators.com to see all of our past episodes. We'll be back here next week with a new show. Thanks for watching.