Once and future X-Files star David Duchovny “started crying reading the first page” of the new X-Files script, the actor told Entertainment Weekly, just from seeing the names of the show’s characters written down on the page. The tears were of joy; the revival is really happening.
Here was Duchovny’s full response to EW:
“I just read it about an hour ago and I started crying reading the first page. It was just so strange to see the names on the page. It had nothing to do with the script itself. It was just like, I’d been talking about this for a long time. We’d been planning it for a long time. It took a long time to get all the people in the same place and get the deal with Fox. So let’s say two years we’ve been talking about doing it. Now it’s the fun part. Now we actually get to do it. That was nice and strangely emotional for me, and I’ll have to figure out how to use that [in the performance].
“I can tell you absolutely nothing — and it’s fantastic,” Duchovny said of the new script.
Duchovny, along with co-star Gillian Anderson, appear to be hyping the show’s revival by more or less embodying the dreams of the X-Files’s enthusiastic Tumblr fan community. The pair sang a song together and kissed on stage earlier this month. (In case you’re just catching up, Duchovny has gone full “cool dad” in the past year and is now in a band, too.)
Duchovny later tweeted to Anderson that the two should maybe sing together again in the summer while they will both be shooting the six-episode revival in Vancouver. She responded with a reference to a famous line from their show:
“I’ll follow you anywhere my little legs will carry me Double D. Within reason.”
We do know a little bit about the revival, which is set to air on Fox in January. Show creator Chris Carter told the Daily Beast that he planned a “balance of mythology to stand-alone episodes” for the six-episode arc. Duchovny confirmed as much to EW, adding “It’s not really The X-Files without the mythology.”
The original series aired from 1993-2002.