David Duchovny

Actor David Duchovny zooms in to talk new book, TV projects and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario Lopez. It's Mario Lopez joining me
now on Zoom. Four time Any nominated actor Mr David Dikovny.
Welcome to the show, David, How you been You mean
four time loser? Is that what you mean? Hey man?
You've gotten recognized in a climate where it's all right,
it's all right. Always nice to see you on those

(00:21):
red carpets. I know it's been a minute. You've got
a lot going on right now. Let's start with your
new book, The Reservoir. Um. Where did this idea come from? Well,
just during the lockdown like everybody else, but I was
in New York and I was lucky enough to have
this amazing view of the reservoir there. Um, and I
used to take these like time lapse photos on my
phone of just of just sunrises coming up with the reservoir,

(00:44):
and I just started thinking about this guy, uh, you know,
like a Wall Street dude, retired who thinks he's some
kind of an artist, kind of curating these time lapse photos,
thinking he's got something to say and then just kind
of spinning off into the isolation and the conspiratorial madness
of the time. And does that mean who keeps beeping
like that. I don't know how to stop it. Oh,

(01:05):
I can't hear it. Good, I'm glad, okay, But yeah,
it just kind of spun out from there, kind of
the loneliness and the isolation, and also, you know, it's
such a was such a weird time. It is such
a weird time to be kind of cute into the
world through your screen and you're seeing all this stuff happening.

(01:27):
The world seems to be changing every day, and yet
life was so unchanging down. So it is this real
vertigo of every day is exactly the same, and yet
out there in the world things are changing fast. So
it's kind of like my processing of that feeling, I imagine. Yeah,
it provides a lot of inspiration to to sit down

(01:49):
and put pen to paper. There. Are you going to
be doing a book tour to promote it? Yeah, A
little one, A little one. Uh, I'll be at the
grove next week and then I'll be in like Portland's
out Old New York, Chicago, Boston kind of a thing.
That's cool. I'm just curious, Um, when you write, do
you need inspiration to necessarily strike first? You just sit

(02:09):
down and yes, yeah, I do I mean, I if
it's if I'm lucky enough to have an idea. So
I've written like five books now, so if I'm lucky
enough to have an idea, I write it. It's you know,
it's not like I I don't have writer's block. I
guess I have idea block. You know, once I have
an idea, I just go, Yeah, I don't because I

(02:31):
feel like that first inspiration. I don't know how you
feel in your life, but it's like that initial inspiration
is so pure and joyful. I try to just ride
that as far as I can. You're exactly right. You
get excited and you're passionate about you and you just
want to go, Well, it's funny that you mentioned one
of your other books. I know it's becoming a movie.
Congratulations on that, Bucky effing Dent. It's a great title. Um,

(02:53):
what's that about? Well, that's uh. It kind of takes
historical press sent in in the in the Yankees Red
Sox of seventy eight, and it's like a father son's story.
Father is dying, doesn't father doesn't think he can die
until the Red Sox win everything. And of course seventy
eight is where they fell disastrously short. So it's kind

(03:15):
of a magical thinking father's son reconciliation and also just
kind of a meditation on the fact that it was
Bucky Dent, who you know, most people don't know, but
he was a light hitting shortstop who hit a home run.
You know, he had four all year, and he hit
one that beat the Red Sox in a one game playoffs.
So the kind of moral of the story is, you know,

(03:36):
you prepare for Willie may as, you prepare for Mickey Mantle,
you prepare for Barry Bonds, but it's Bucky effing Dent
that gets you in the end. That sounds like a great,
great story, and I'm sure it's gonna be a great movie.
I look forward to checking that out. Man. That's awesome. Um.
Also in the works and Netflix comedy with Eddie Murphy.
You people, what can you tell us about that? Um,

(03:58):
it's it's it's it's Jonah Hill wrote it with Keny
Barris who directed it. Eddie Murphy and Julia, Louis Dreyfuss
and myself are in it, and it was a great
time filming. And hold on a second, my brother is
just coming in. I gotta stop and I'm just I'm

(04:18):
doing an interview. Oh, nice moment of the year. Yes,
is that your older brother or your younger brother? Older older?
How many brothers and sisters you got? I got an
older brother and younger sister, the middle child. Yeah, okay,
I'm the peacemaker. Supposedly got it, got it? Got it? Uh?

(04:42):
And just recently announced Meg Ryan's big return to rom comes. Um,
what happens later? Had you two worked together before? Never,
we didn't even know each other. She sent me the
script which was out of the blue, which was such
a wonderful surprise, and she's directing it. Yeah, I mean,
I think, you know, Megan is just the terrific talent,
and I think we all we all miss her, you know,

(05:03):
So I'll ride that, you know, I'll just attach myself
to her cotails anytime. That's awesome, right there. That's great
to see you keep them busy. Um. X file still
has a huge fan base. Well, what's the future of
that property? So many properties? I don't know. You know,
it's like you think that the most the most important

(05:25):
thing in the world is like a true intellectual property,
you know, the the I P right and that X
files is this amazing. I p so I would imagine
at some point, you know, Fox will say, you know, hey,
let's do something about this. I don't know if I'm
involved in that or whether it's another generation or whatever.
It's not that important to me. I mean, I feel

(05:45):
like we did so much. We did so many episodes,
two movies. It's like, I'm fine, I'm happy with what
we did. If if I never did another thing with
X Files, that would be okay. And I think I
I'm just great old for all that. But you know,
who knows. It seems like now though there's more real
life content available and now with the government and it

(06:07):
seems like you guys were way ahead of your time,
but they're actually having hearings now, right, It's like the
craziest thing ever, Like now, it seemed like would be
more appropriate than you know now, molders screaming you know,
they're aliens and everybody's like, no ship, David. Is there
is there an episode of the X Files that stands
out to you is like the creepiest or the weirdest
or any of that from was historically one that was

(06:29):
dropped from, like the rotation when there used to be
syndication you know, that was like the holy grail of
your television show. We hit syndication and there was a
show called Home uh that was written by Glenn Morrigan
and James Long Uh that was taken off that rotation.
It was kind of this family. Uh. They were in

(06:50):
red right exactly. I'm still haunted by that episode. Very good.
I saw that. I saw that episode as a kid,
and I'm still haunted by that. Oh, Fox had to
protect you. I would like to watch it now to
see if it affects me the same way. But it's
it's a pretty it's a pretty creepy one. You know,
the mom and the son end up getting in the

(07:11):
trunk together at the end. It's just at the beginning
of that when I believe like they beat the sheriff
to death or something, and I just remember being like,
what the hell to Johnny mathis Yes, yes, heavy duty
stuff right there. So so nice to catch up with you,
David again. Congrats on everything and listen pick up the
Reservoir wherever you purchase books. Thanks so much for hanging out.

(07:34):
Tell your brother we said what's up. Well, Thanks Mario,
al right, take care on with Mario Lopez