Entrevista sobre Um Elenco do Barulho e Californication

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

After nine years of facing twisted conspiracies and alien behavior on The X-Files, David Duchovny could relate to his latest role: as a writer for network TV.

In The TV Set, which opened in theaters Friday, that writer is Mike, who tries selling an earnest drama called The Wexler Chronicles to a network whose big hit is called Slut Wars. Mike's tortures are told with cutting humor and company-town insights that Duchovny knows too well.

"Everybody's got a different angle: the actors, writers, directors, producers and network execs," he said. "Is TV that bad? No, but it is crowded, with too many people coming from different places to make a show popular. That's a ripe situation for comedy."

Launched on Fox in 1993, The X-Files also had to run the gauntlet of test audiences and meddlesome network types.

"We had a pilot that had to be tested and approved," Duchovny said. "I wasn't privy to that, but (creator) Chris Carter, when he came to the set of The TV Set, said it reminded him of when he screened X-Files for approval — and it was terrifying."

TV's blessing and curse is having so much time to fill. Success breeds repetition which breeds failure. But with so much going on the air, "fresh things can slip in under the radar, Duchovny said.

"That's why TV can be better than movies. The truth is, there's very little difference in making a TV show and a movie. Just as many execs and producers are involved."

He's getting his own taste by developing a series for Showtime called Californication, due in August. Having sold the pilot, Duchovny got an order for 11 more episodes, which he's about to start shooting.

Californication also is the title of a 1999 album and song by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band didn't exactly coin the term. "Don't Californicate Oregon" was a '70s slogan as more Californians began moving north. California struck back several years ago when a "don't Oreganize San Diego" slogan bubbled up.

He'll also star, again playing a Hollywood writer. But this series will focus more on personal lives.

"It's not plowing the same field as Entourage," Duchovny said. "It's more of a family drama-comedy that happens to be in L.A. Besides, my character is on the periphery. He's a writer, for God's sake."

With Showtime, Duchovny returns to the network that aired his glossy sex series Red Shoe Diaries starting in 1992. Californication, he says, also will be "naughty."

"One virtue of cable is you don't have to reach the broadest audience," he said. "You really are going for the clippings, because the only thing that drives cable is attention. It's almost reversed. It's a smaller outfit with less people involved and no advertisers."

By contrast, he felt creative pressures while doing The X-Files, especially as the seasons wore on.

"I'd get in a rut where I'd feel like we should pull the plug," Duchovny said. "And then we'd do a great show. It was cyclical — and moody — in that way. But on TV, you can't have all great shows. Everything can't be art."

Duchovny, 46, hopes to make a second X-Files film, following a 1998 hit.

"It's in the works for real," he said. "It's as go as go can be, and I want to do it. I always loved the idea of turning the TV show into a film franchise."

He's also developing another series for Showtime — a half-hour comedy called Yoga Man — and he has a "tearjerker" called Things We Lost in the Fire set for theaters this fall.

Meanwhile, Duchovny hopes people get the "funny-sad" nature of The TV Set. Though his character suffers, on the funny side is Sigourney Weaver as a bullying network chief.

"When Sigourney asks, 'What's wrong with broad (appeal)?,' she has a point," Duchovny said. "She doesn't care about art. She's just in it to get rich.

"Does that make the film more funny than sad? You can't really know," he said. "But it's human and real, and to me that's what funny and sad are — that's life. It's funny and then gets really sad."

Not that his own life is bad. While working steadily on the big and small screens, Duchov-ny has been married for 10 years to actress Tea Leoni, with whom he has two kids.

"It's all good," he said. "We still live in L.A., and I don't think it's for us, but that's where we are now."

At least the company town is rich in irony, as shown by The TV Set — and reactions to it.

"I had a guy tell me, 'I want to see Slut Wars!,' and what can you say to that?" Duchovny asked. "Let's face it: The stuff that works can be grotesquely irresistible."

bruce.westbrook@chron.com

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