The following information is based on published interviews (references available on request), personal communications, and library research. We know that several journalists have used our material and quoted us in their articles; this is fine, but we would like to stress that media contacts should request the latest version from the Keepers of the FAQ. (We also wouldn't mind if you stopped portraying us as drooling groupies. It's gotten old, okay?) Corrections are made periodically based on new confirmed information. Any additions or corrections should be sent to one of the contact addresses; please provide your reference. We appreciate all new input.
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- David William Duchovny is the uncommonly gifted actor who plays Agent Fox Mulder on Fox Network's The X-Files on Friday nights.
He is also the host of the Showtime original anthology series, Zalman King's Red Shoe Diaries, where he plays Jake.
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- DAY-vid. Oh, you mean his last name? It's pronounced "doo-KUV-nee", and is derived from a Russian word meaning "spiritual". David says he doesn't care how his name is pronounced so long as people get the meaning right. In school he was sometimes called "Duke" or "Doggie".
David as "Randy" in "The Rapture".
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- David was born in New York City on August 7, 1960. His father is Amram Ducovny (yes, they spell their last names differently; Mr. Ducovny says he got tired of people misspelling/mispronouncing it), a former publicist for the American Jewish Committee. Amram Ducovny has written an off-Broadway play, The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, which ran in 1967 in New York. Amram Ducovny is also the author of several books: The Wisdom of Spiro T. Agnew and David Ben-Gurion In His Own Words. He now lives in Paris.
David's Scottish-born mother Margaret, a homemaker for many years, now runs a grade school in Manhattan. His younger sister Laurie, a schoolteacher, lives in New York and his older brother Daniel Ducovny, an award-winning director of commercials, lives in Los Angeles.
- David's parents divorced when he was eleven.
The divorce was probably the most important emotional moment in my growing up. I don't think you ever recover from something like that. You are forced into an adult world of emotions that you aren't prepared to deal with. Your parents are trying to explain to you what went wrong with adult love. You don't know what that is. They're talking about love that can go away. You're afraid it might go away from you. So it can define the way you deal with love for the rest of your life.
Seven-year-old David hugs his baby sister Laurie. Back to index
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- He was educated at a private school in Manhattan (Collegiate Prep.) , and then went to Princeton University where he earned a bachelor's (AB) degree. His senior thesis was entitled The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels. He holds a Master of Arts in English Literature degree from Yale University, and was working on his Ph.D. when he left Yale to pursue acting. He has been a teaching assistant, and his Ph.D. dissertation (never finished) was entitled Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose. (He still thinks it is a good subject for research.) He's been seen with copies of works by Norman Mailer, Elmore Leonard and Thomas Pynchon.
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- 6 feet tall, 170 pounds, brown hair, hazel eyes. Mole on right cheek. The rest is sheer poetry.
E! picked David as one of the "sexiest men alive".
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- No. No. No.
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- David played basketball throughout his school career, and also played baseball at Princeton. He has appeared in MTV's "Rock n' Jock" charity baseball game (he singled to right field and was batted in by David Justice) and in a recent MTV charity basketball game. He played basketball for the camera in Red Shoe Diaries. He keeps in shape with jogging and power workouts, and has been known to play raquetball with Chris Carter.
David's famous swimsuit appearance in The X-Files episode "Duane Barry" indicates that he is an excellent swimmer, and Chris Carter says David was a lifeguard once. David usually swims about a mile every day before going to work on the set. Sometimes he even wears the famous red Speedo.
He also practices "power" (Ayangar?) Yoga , and is "mostly" vegetarian. He does not eat sunflower seeds constantly. He also does not wear ties, so fans are discouraged from sending him either sunflower seeds or ties.
David as "Daniel" in Julia Has Two Lovers. This was his second movie, shot on a very small budget. During some takes, David says, you could hear the technicians snoring. Still, the film opened in art houses to some critical acclaim.
David enjoys acting for the theatre as well as film and television. He has described stage acting as "an hour and forty five minutes of pure bliss". He enjoys writing and has expressed regret for leaving LA, as he misses the live poetry readings he used to participate in at Largo's Pub. He says he still writes poetry, he just doesn't read it in public any more. In a CBC radio interview, Chris Carter revealed that David supplied part of the outline for an episode of The X-Files ("Colony") which aired in February, 1995. David also supplied part of the story for the 1994-1995 season finale, "Anasazi".
David models for Saks' Mens Catalog, Fall 1995.
David admires the playwright/actor Sam Shepard. He has been quoted as saying that his favorite musician is Keith Richards , and was spotted in the audience at the last date on the Rolling Stones' "Voodoo Lounge" 1995 tour .
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- A dog, Blue, (mixed Border Collie) daughter of the dog featured in the first season episode, "Ice" . According to David, Blue is a friendly, enthusiastic, affectionate animal. She does not lick feet.
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- He has publicly stated several times that he does not believe in UFOs or Beastwomen from New Jersey. He does not dismiss the possibility of extraterrestrial life, but would like more proof. He claims (perhaps facetiously?) that he may have seen a UFO while jogging on the beach in Ocean City, N.J., in 1982 .
David says: "Mulder thinks about UFO'S the way other men think about sex." (National College Magazine)
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- "I started acting to quit thinking." He began taking acting lessons from The Actor's Studio in order to improve his screenwriting abilities, and was cast in a few roles. He adapted Charles Bukowski's play, The Copulating Mermaid of Venice Beach, for the way-off Broadway stage. His first film role was in a Lowenbrau commercial (which he says he got after much auditioning), was later tapped for Henry Jaglom's New Year's Day in a role largely based on David himself, and never looked back.
"In that scene I told him he was full of shit. I see him all the time, and he's still full of shit, but he does it very well. He's a big star now. He's real cute. He deserves it." --Henry Jaglom, quoted in Toronto NOW Magazine. Jaglom directed David in his first movie, New Year's Day.
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He moved to Hollywood in 1987, and apparently had a dry spell for about a year and a half. During that time, he jokes, he "leeched off people" while writing for magazines and working for a caterer. (No true actor gets through life without being a waiter at least once...) His work in films drew him to the attention of Randy Stone at Twentieth Century Fox, who recommended him to Chris Carter.
David as the transvestite DEA agent Denise Brysson on "Twin Peaks". It's a good color on him....
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- Charming, moody, and very funny. Although he grants few interviews and is rather cagey when he does, his associates describe him as "hilarious", "smart", and "a regular guy". One fellow actor described him as "humourous, witty, friendly, supportive, generous and very, very normal".
- David seems to be very surprised, not only by the success of "The X-Files" but by his own personal popularity (does the man not own a mirror?). He can no longer walk the streets in peace. Chris Carter, executive producer and creator of "The X-Files", has called him "frighteningly smart". Gillian Anderson has described him as "hysterically funny" and says he consults often with the show's writers, going over the scripts with the minute care of a former English teacher . One of the show's writers, Glen Morgan (now producing Fox Network's new show Space: Above and Beyond), also describes him as very intelligent and notes that much of Fox Mulder's humor is either ad-libbed by David or part of an in-joke between him and the writers. Other actors who have worked with him describe him as humble, professional, and hard-working. He also has a good memory and remembers names and faces well. In person he is soft-spoken, polite, and somewhat reserved.
David as Brian Kessler in Kalifornia, in which he starred with Brad Pitt, Michelle Forbes, and Juliette Lewis. Nice earrings, dude!
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- Sorry, we can't give that out. However, you can write him care of:
- c/o The X-Files Production Office
110-555 Brooks Bank Avenue, Building 10
North Vancouver, BC
V7J 3S5 Canada
- E-mail can go to him care of Fox Broadcasting at Fox's Delphi address. Put The X-Files in the subject line to route it correctly.
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- Working Girl (1988) [Tess's Birthday Party Friend]
- New Year's Day (1989) [Billy]
- Twin Peaks (1990) [DEA Agent Dennis/Denise Bryson, Ep. 13-15]
- Bad Influence (1990)
- Julia Has
Two Lovers (1991) [Daniel]
- Denial (1991) [John] (aka Loon)
- Don't Tell Mom
the Babysitter's Dead (1991) [Bruce]
- Rapture, The (1991) [Randy]
- Beethoven (1992) [Brad]
- Baby Snatcher (1992) (TV) [David]
- Ruby (1992) [Officer J.D. Tippit]
- Chaplin (1992) [Rollie Totheroh]
- Red Shoe Diaries (1992- )(TV) [Jake]
- Venice/Venice (1992) [Dylan] (never released tovideo.)
- Kalifornia (1993) [Brian Kessler]
- The X-Files (1993- )(TV) [Fox Mulder]
- Playing God (TBA) [TBA]
- David also has appeared in several US television commercials, one for Lowenbrau Beer (1987), and one for AT&T (1993). His voice-over commercials for LaBatt's Beer are heard in Canada. He is also doing commercial voiceovers for NYNEX, a New York telephone company. David has appeared on David Letterman, having the distinction of being the only guest ever bumped (twice) on different continents. He has twice guested on Jay Leno, and in June 1995 appeared on Tom Snyder's talk show. He hosted the season finale of Saturday Night Live on May 20, 1995.
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David is currently filming a movie called "Playing God", to be released this fall. He will portray a surgeon who, having lost his license to practice, is recruited by the Mob and forced to operate on underworld figures. Rumor says he is negotiating another movie for 1997, based on the life of a well known Hollywood script writer. Definitely he is not letting the grass grow under his feet.
Other recent appearances include a cameo appearance on Space: Above and Beyond (the episode "R &R") as pool shark "Handsome Alvin". He voiced a character on Duckman recently, and was a caller to "Frasier" this spring who complained about getting too much sex.
The X-Files
Golden Globe Award winner for Best Dramatic Series, 1994
Emmy nominee for Best Dramatic Series, Best Individual Episode, 1995
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- Of first season episodes, David has said that he prefers "Fallen Angel", "Ice", and "The Erlenmayer Flask". He was less than complimentary about "Ghost in the Machine", "Lazarus", and "Born Again". In the second season, he has said that "One Breath" was his "Beyond the Sea", meaning the one that gave him the most character development to work with.
- Of the series itself, David says:
People are hungry for transcendence, they're looking for that feeling of mystery, that tingle you get when you feel God. I'm not making those kinds of claims for X-Files, but we're dealing with the same kinds of issues. We're dealing with the unexplainable.
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We made this!
The David Duchovny Frequently Asked Questions List is maintained by:
Kellie Matthews-Simmons
and
Sarah Stegall
Photos courtesy of The David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade 3
They have even more luscious pictures at their David Duchovny Photo Gallery
June, 1996
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