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Duchovny's D X Files alum David Duchovny on writing and directing "House of D" Written by [ Richard Sharp ] You'd think maybe, just maybe, somebody would cut David Duchovny a little slack. He's a likable, hard-working, well-educated man (he has an ABD from Yale - more on that later) who made a massive impression on popular culture during the 90's playing the inimitable Fox Mulder in X Files. He has a gorgeous and talented wife (Tea Leoni), does a solid Jeff Goldblum impression and has graced the sleazy soft-core cable-waves of Skinemax for over a decade as Jake Winters in The Red Shoe Diaries. Sure there have been some big misses. Evolution and Connie and Carla weren't exactly Citizen Kane or anything, but nothing (I mean nothing) Duchovny's done has put the actor under such scrutiny as his latest film "House of D." Telling the story of a young man growing up in Greenwich Village with his mother in the 70's, the film was written and directed by Duchovny, who also acts in the film alongside his wife and Robin Williams. The film's script suffers from a bit of overt sappiness, and the general consensus among critics seems to be that having Robin Williams play a retarded janitor was probably not the best idea. Nonetheless, the brutal reception the film and Duchovny have received over the past few weeks seems a bit out of hand. Rebecca Murray of About.com, for example, breathlessly exclaims that "David Duchovny's misguided House of D is now the barometer I use to judge how bad other films are." Duchovny clearly didn't need to make this film for the money, and though it suffers from a willfully extreme schmaltz factor, House of D has moments of genuine emotional poignancy and does a nice job of portraying New York's neighborhoods. Duchovny also manages to get some fine performances from Tea Leoni, Anton Yelchin and neo-soul goddess Erykah Badu. We sat down with Duchovny to discuss the film, working with his wife and the risks of going it alone. I see you on the talk circuit a lot on this film, probably more than on any other film you've made. This is a low-budget film that you wrote and directed and maybe doesn't have the type of promotional budget you're used to. How have your promotional efforts been different on this picture? Well, they're more varied and widespread. I'm here, where normally, I'd probably only do New York and LA as an actor. But there aren't a lot of dollars behind the movie. I'm cheap. I mean, it's a nice hotel room, but that's all I cost. And then I go out and I talk. I just try and cut through all the noise out there. There's a lot of noise, a lot of thing competing for your dollar. It's hard. I don't know if it'll have any effect, but I'm what it's got, so I've got to try. Can you talk to me a little bit about how making this project your baby - handling the writing, the directing - has been different than work you've done in the past… I feel like whenever I work I always try to make it personal. Whenever you're acting, whatever you're dealing with inside is personal. You have other words to say and you have to say them, but you try and make it personal to yourself. This, because it's set in a time and a place where I grew up, people assume it's more autobiographical, more personal than it is. It's personal because everything I do is personal and I wanted to tell a universal story and I thought that the way I could tell that was by being very specific. In terms of autobiography, it has very little to do with me. My mother is not like that, I didn't run away to Paris when I was 13, I didn't know a woman in the Women's House of Detention, I didn't know a woman who was retarded. It's the stuff of fiction and it had to be a more dramatic story than mine. Mine was real and therefore not universal. What was your story? What was it like for you growing up in New York in that time, in that place? Well I think what informs the movie from my own personal story is a sense of a New York, a smaller New York, a neighborhood New York. I think that people who grow up in a city like Chicago or New York have a different perception of a city than people that come to it or film it, where it's always "the big cold city." But New York is a city of neighborhoods and I wanted to capture that. It was a village, Greenwich Village, and it was a small little chunk of a big city. And I wanted to capture that time, when people could talk to women that were prisoners from the street, which was very weird to me. Then you know, just the sense that I'd had a delivery boy job. I knew what that looked like and felt like. There's a lot of stuff, not in the sense of an emotional free-line, that's almost like research I just didn't have to do. When I think of the House of Detention in your film, I think of Erykah Baddu. I don't think we see enough of her in general. Talk to me a little about how you hooked up with her. Erykah's agent gave me a call and introduced me to her and I didn't know here work as a singer. I thought she had a cool name. So I went and she was recording somewhere in New York while I was prepping and we talked. She thought the character was funny, which was a key to the character. Was the scene where she's singing written before you cast her for the part? Yes. I didn't really care if the character could sing. I would have had looped a voice that was similar that was nice if I needed to, but it just so happens that I had a professional singer, which was great. I remember I wrote this X File and I had this guy and he was supposed to sing a spiritual and he was supposed to be a horrible singer. It was supposed to go against the stereotype that he's a black guy so he should be able to sing well. But I hired this guy Jesse Martin who had a beautiful singing voice and when I heard it, I said "ya know, fuck it." He's got a great voice, let him sing. Do you find that, years later, you're followed by the X-Files everywhere you go? Yes and no. It seems like most strangers know me as that first and foremost, but it's not like I'm not doing other things. It's not like it's a terrible thing. It's not like people are telling me "no, no, no, you can't do anything else. I must see you only as Mulder. I must or I will be very upset and I will not go to the theater." It just seems like a part of my life really. It doesn't feel odd and I don't dwell on it. I'm just doing what I'm doing. I was watching a Q&A on your "video blog" on the House of D website, where you were being interviewed at a school in New York. In it you mentioned that you envisioned the New York of your childhood the way you imagined Truffaut thought about Paris… Well people bring up 400 Blows sometimes when they talk about this movie because it's a coming of age story. I don't know what kind of parallels I'd draw except that I really tried to make it real - what it's like to live in a small apartment. For instance, the mother coming into the apartment bathroom. People may gasp and think that it's an invasion of space or whatever, but if you live in a city, if you live in an apartment like that, you have one bathroom. Nobody's going to hold their pee just because you're in the shower. I mean, you're the son. You're all together. You've all seen each other naked. So I liked being able to do that in a way that I knew was going to make people uncomfortable, but in a way that I knew was also going to be real. Truffaut has these parent/kid relationships where this is love but there are complications as well. Speaking of challenges, was there anything particularly challenging or difficult about directing your wife (Tea Leoni) in this picture? Not really for me, because I was a fan. It was nice for me to see her work. She was nervous because she didn't want to screw it up for me. When I'm looking at an actor, unless they're like a day player who I don't really know, then I'm not really worried because I know what they're going to be doing. I know that they're right, so I'm just looking forward to it. She was great. It was great to see. It's like watching somebody you like doing something they're good at. It was like watching a lion stalk a gazelle. I'm sure she'll appreciate the analogy. (Laughs) Well she works hard like that, she's powerful. One of the distinguishing characteristics as an actor and a film professional is that you've certainly gone farther in academics than most, having come quite close from getting your doctorate from Yale. I'd never heard of the initials ABD (for all but dissertation) used to describe a level of academic achievement. Have you thought about going back at any point in time? Would it have any value for you? It would have the value of getting ABD off my neck (laughs). It wouldn't have value in the sense of having the sheepskin. It would have value in the process of writing the dissertation, because it sure as hell would take a lot of work and I'd probably learn a lot from it. But it terms of how it would effect my life. I don't take it lightly. If I'd had the time to write a dissertation, I would have. It takes 2 or 3 years to write one. It's like making a movie. So at this point I'd just rather make movies than write dissertations. The critics have been less than kind about this movie, at times really going over the top in dismissing the film. How do you deal with that? Do you care? Of course I care. You have to. But I didn't make the film necessarily to be criticized. I made it to be watched. And for every attack there's a positive review and I hope they balance out in the end. There are some things I can't explain. I can't explain the audience's reaction to the film and certain critical reaction. That puzzles me. If I was to try to come up with an answer, it would be like defending myself or psychologizing about the critics and I don't have any interest in doing that. (At this point, Duchovny's personal publicist comes in to let us know that he needs to go right away.) It strikes me that anytime anyone as accomplished as you puts themselves out there as a writer and director after making such an indelible mark of the pop psyche, you are taking a different type of risk, putting yourself out in a new way. Do you see yourself doing more work like this? Well yeah, I'd like to. If I can. If I can write something that I think is really a great movie like I think this one is. Written by [ Richard Sharp ] [ Home ] |
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