Has Fox Mulder been taken off the X-Files? A return to the show that made him a star does not seem imminent for David Duchovny, at least based on the tenor of comments he made today regarding Ryan Coogler’s highly anticipated reboot.
“I wish them well,” Duchovny told Gold Derby exclusively. “You know, it’s a great frame, it’s a great show. Chris Carter came up with a frame that is endlessly generative of story ideas — with a believer and a non-believer.
“I have no doubt they’ve got a good shot at making a great show. I just hope their writers’ room is stocked with great writers, because that’s really the key to making that show great.”
Duchovny, who earned two Emmy nominations for starring as FBI Special Agent Fox “Spooky” Mulder on The X-Files, knows a thing or two about the show’s writers’ room. He wrote and/or received story credit on eight episodes, including the three he directed: “The Unnatural” (Season 6), “Hollywood A.D.” (Season 7), and “William” (Season 9). He is also a published author of several books, including Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale (2015), Kepler (2022), and About Time: Poems (2025).
The actor separately told The Hollywood Reporter that he has not spoken to Coogler about the new version of The X-Files and has not read the script, unlike his former co-star Gillian Anderson. As for whether he’ll guest-star on the revival: “There have been talks about certain things, but there’s nothing concrete at this point. … I don’t know what the world of his show is. I don’t know if my character exists in that show. It’s all hypothetical to me.”
Coogler is doing a good job of keeping information about the reboot on lockdown. The only casting that Hulu has announced is Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel among the lead roles.
Duchovny made his comments during the press tour for Season 2 of the History Channel’s Secrets Declassified With David Duchovny.
Duchovny’s nonfiction show reveals the hidden world of secret government projects, experiments, missions, technologies, and more that have long been kept out of sight. Season 2 debuted March 17 and airs Tuesdays on the History Channel.
“That files do become declassified after a certain amount of time has always been interesting to me, in the sense of the truth will out,” Duchovny said at a press conference hosted by the Television Critics Association. “That’s a very interesting field of inquiry, that these are not fictional events, these are real events that have been classified for a long time.”
Because Secrets Declassified is “in the same sphere as The X-Files,” the actor was “a little wary treading into that area again.” However, he added, “I made the distinction in my mind that this is more like documentary/nonfiction reporting than it is fictionalization.”
Duchovny’s partnership with the History Channel has “been great” over the past two seasons, he told Gold Derby. “They’ve been super collaborative about [not making this] David Duchovny’s Stories. My take on these stories is not important. The take that I have is really the take of the channel and the show. And they’re cool with it not being David Duchovny, who did The X-Files, weighing in on these mysteries. It’s really its own thing.”
