There is a scene near the beginning of David Duchovny's new movie in which the actor is seen applying a hairdryer to his trousers in the moments before an important ceremony. He is goofing about on one foot while his wife, played by Joely Richardson, looks on in an "isn't my husband adorable?" reverie and the dog huffs and puffs on the floor between them. For those whose knowledge of Duchovny derives solely from his role as agent Fox Mulder in the X-Files, a man to whom the concepts of romance and comedy are the most alien he'll ever encounter, it is an uncomfortable moment. The very act of smiling seems undignified on the lips of an actor whose emotional range has come to be characterised by various shades of the unamused.
Once over the initial shock, however, Return to Me is a surprisingly likeable film. Written and directed by Bonnie Hunt, it is the story of a woman who receives a heart transplant from the dead wife of the man she comes to fall in love with. Duchovny is the widower, Minnie Driver the post-op sweetheart and, if you can stomach the dodgy symbolism and the sentimental portrait of Chicago's ethnic communities, it is a witty and old-fashioned fairy tale that leaves you feeling well disposed towards them both. For Duchovny, it is a chance to prove that he has more expressions in his repertoire than scepticism, although he insists that's not why he did it. "I know I'm funny, I don't have to go out and prove it. I don't understand why I would have to prove that I'm funny. I do what I do and I'll do what's interesting to me. But the idea of proving anything to anyone is just weird to me. I don't give a shit."
This is delivered deadpan, like a well-buried joke, although he doesn't appear to be joking. While unfailingly courteous, his professional manner has the unfortunate effect of hanging somewhere between arrogance and conceit. When we return to the subject of him not having to prove himself, he mutters that it's "bullshit", as if it were a line he has grown weary of. He retains the faintly superior air of one whose inner life is beyond the reach of the people that surround him.
Duchovny, who is 40 this year, was born in New York to a Scottish, working-class mother and a father whose family originally came from Russia. He was as American as the next kid, he says, but unlike many of his friends, was able to perceive his culture with a certain amount of detached interest. "My mother was definitely an outsider and not shy about speaking about that. I felt like a New Yorker, but I knew there was another way of life."
It is a perspective he values. When Duchovny won a scholarship to a prestigious prep school, he didn't establish himself as the loud kid or the show-off. He had skill on the sports field and, up until the end of high school his ambition was to become a professional athlete. But he was happier in the role of observer and it' i something he worries that success is denying him. "As an actor and as a writer, I like to watch. But people become watchful when they come into contact with somebody famous. They don't act like themselves any more. It's sad. I can't complain about it, but I kind of miss... it is what it is."
His watchfulness did not translate into infatuation or groupie-dom or any of the props of teenage identity crisis. The portrait Duchovny paints of his teenage self is of a boy as measured in his emotions as he is now, self-possessed, straightforward, so that you wonder where his private self is or what it would take to shake him out of composure. "I kind of dreamed about being a famous athlete; not wanting to be famous but wanting to be good enough so that everybody knew who I was. But it wasn't fame for fame's sake. I didn't know what fame was really. I didn't know anyone famous; I didn't know any actors when I was growing up; I didn't understand what acting was. When I watched television I didn't think, I wonder what they do when they go home. I didn't want to read about them. I just watched TV. I never dreamed of shaking anyone's hand. Even with sports heroes, I liked watching them, I loved them from afar, but I didn't want to get to know them."
When the X-Files became popular, its creator, Chris Carter, wanted to be photographed alongside the stars. Duchovny advised against it. "I just said, you're so lucky, you're making money and you're creatively challenged, and you're doing what you want to do. Don't let go of your anonymity. People think that it's fun, but then there are repercussions."
When he left school, Duchovny won a place at Princeton, and later a place to study for a masters degree in English literature at Yale, where he was taught by Harold Bloom. ("I knew the work of Derrida and Paul de Man. It's like reading surgical text books. I know how to read them.") He was a short way into a PhD thesis on magic and technology in contemporary poetry and prose, when he began acting to help fund his studies. At a friend's suggestion, he auditioned for and won the lead role in an advert for Lowenbrau beer. An agent spotted him and his career began.
Writing is still a major interest. After years of making the X-Files, Duchovny was virtually on autopilot and revived his interest in the show by asking if he could have a go at writing an episode and if it was any good, directing it. To date, he has done two. His other passion, athletics, is something he still draws on as a metaphor for the challenges in his career. Of acting, he has said: "It is not thinking, it is feeling. It is athletic, in the sense that it is instinctual. You can lose your self-consciousness, you become like an animal without notions of the past or the future. And that feels good."
Minnie Driver is like a "good tennis partner", he says, always returning the ball. "She is real quick and funny and game and she's real respectful. We got on really well." Appearing on confrontational US talk shows is like revving up for a football game: "At first, when I did Letterman, it was like sports, it was terrifying and you'd come out of it and it was OK, it was a great achievement."
Like a professional sportsman, articulating his personality is not a great priority. Near the end of the interview, however, a flash of something more interesting appears, calculated as a reward. "My fear was that this could be a slushy movie," Duchovny says about Return to Me. "There was a lot of anxiety. Even though I believed in it, it doesn't mean anything. It could still have been a piece of shit. It wasn't like I knew all along that this was the right tone. There were days when I thought, oh my god, I don't know whether what I'm doing is right or wrong for this movie, and I just agonised." Then, just as quickly, he is gone.
Return to Me is out on Friday.
