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From X-Files Official Magazine (February 2002)
Transcribed by Megan
FRANK DISCUSSION
X-Files Executive Producer Frank Spotnitz takes time out to talk to the Official X-Files Magazine about all things x!
Frank Spotnitz joined The X-Files writing staff in 1994 and pretty much never left. He rose through the ranks from writer to staff editor to co-executive producer and ultimately worked side by side with Chris Carter not just on The X-Files, but also on Millennium, Harsh Realm, The X-Files movie and The Lone Gunmen. The official X-Files Magazine caught up with Spotnitz on the eve of Season Nine's US television debut and chatted to the writer-producer about things to come in the current year, dealing with the departure of David Duchovny and the arrival of new faces, his directing debut with "Alone", the fate of The Lone Gunmen and the possibility of a 10th season of The X-Files.
THE X-FILES MAGAZINE: Before we get into the specifics of the how and why there's a Season Nine, were you among those rooting for the show to return?
SPOTNITZ: Yes, I was. I thought Robert Patrick was such a home run last year and I was excited about Annabeth Gish and what her character could be. I believed in the show and what the show could be this year.
What did you make of the prospect of doing the show without Chris?
For some time there we didn't actually know if we had Chris and we worked for, I don't know, four to six weeks without him this year. It was actually Chris' idea; he encouraged the rest of us to sign up without knowing whether or not he was going to come back, I never would have done it unless he wanted us to do it and encouraged us to do it. The other thing is I much preferred him being here. I made it clear to him that I hope he'd come back. So I guess I felt we could do it without Chris and that we would do it, that we'd do as great a job as we could, but I was hoping all along that he would decide to come back.
Some people feel that the show itself is about Mulder's quest for the truth. And those people argue that without Mulder there is no X-Files. How big a hurdle is that, in your mind, for the show to overcome?
The show has been Mulder's quest for the truth. It was that for seven years and for part of the eighth year. But I really think that with the introduction of John Doggett last year, the TV series started to take on a new dimension. A baton was passed, almost literally. There was the scene in "Vienen" where Mulder literally handed over the X-Files office to Doggett. It's always a question mark whether or not the audience will accept huge changes like this, because the characters are so important and so much of why you watch a TV series. But, having said that, I think The X-Files is a very strong idea for a series with an almost inexhaustible supply of stories. If you can find other characters that are strong and other actors who people like and want to watch, I think there's potential for the show to go on indefinitely.
Were you pleased with David Duchovny's final scene?
Yes, totally. That was one of my favorite scenes in the series. It moved me, so I was delighted with it.
Let's talk first in broad strokes about Season Nine. To your thinking, what's the big picture, story-wise?
It's very interesting because Season Nine is sort of a three-lead show. It's Scully and Doggett and Reyes. As you'll see early on, it begins the way it left off last year, with Doggett and Reyes on the X-files. Scully has a new role to play. She's now a forensic investigator assigned to the FBI Training Academy in Quantico, Virginia. So you'll have these three-legged investigations all season. It's very different. It's a different way to tell the stories, which is exciting for us because it makes the show fresh and new again and not things we've done before. That became a challenge late in the Mulder-Scully era, how to keep ourselves really interested and excited again and again when you're up to the 175th episode, the 180th episode. When you've done that much, how do you keep Mulder and Scully's investigations feeling new? That's not a problem anymore for anyone. We're on our toes every week because we've never done this before.
Let's hit specifics. What will Scully's role be? Will she be off at Quantico, communicating with Doggett and Reyes by cell phone and in separate scenes with baby William, or will we see her with Doggett and Reyes?
Well, there's no standard format for it. Sometimes she'll be primarily at Quantico and sometimes it's focused on her, and Doggett and Reyes are in the background. There will be different shapes to all of these different stories. It really is a three-lead show in that they'll all have individual moments to shine as characters and actors. And there will be quite a few scenes of the three of them together. That's really interesting to watch, because not only do Gillian, David [megan note: typo? Robert?] and Annabeth like each other personally, but they have great chemistry together. We've got different dynamics on the show that we've not had before. We've got scenes with two strong, independent, professional women together, which we'd never played like this. The other interesting thing is that all three characters are heroic, but in different ways, and they've all got different crosses to bear as characters.
Take us through the various character interactions in Season Nine.
Doggett has kind of declared war on Deputy Director Kersh. He's accused him of complicity in his alien conspiracy or super-soldier conspiracy as Knowle Rohrer (Adam Baldwin) claimed it was. So that's really where we've picked up this season. It's a very awkward thing to do when you're an FBI agent - accuse your superior of corruption, essentially. Agent Reyes is by his side. Agent Scully has other issues to deal with, like what is her baby? We've said that Mulder and Scully consummated their relationship and that Mulder appeared to be the father of the baby. That's what Mulder and Scully believe, but we haven't answered the question, how a barren woman could become pregnant. We haven't answered the question of why all these aliens, if that's what they were, surrounded Scully at the Desert Hot Springs in Georgia and then left her untouched. So there are some deep, personal mysteries that Scully has to deal with and solve. As she said in the season finale last year, the X-files has become personal and have become her life. It's not a case. It's not something she can walk away from. It's her child.
And Skinner?
For many years Skinner was kind of this hamlet-like figure. He was torn between his responsibilities as an Assistant Director and his sympathies for Mulder and Scully. What was fun for us last year, and I think for Mitch Pileggi as well, was that the character finally took sides and went with Mulder and Scully all the way. That's still pretty much the role he plays this season. He's much more of a character of action that he's ever been before. And one of the reasons he's able to be such a partisan on behalf of the X-files is that there are these new antagonists that have developed within the FBI, like Deputy Director Kersh and Assistant Director Follmer, who ranks the same as Skinner.
David Duchovny is gone, but how long a shadow will Mulder cast on the proceeding? Will he be a ghost lurking around the X-files office?
Yes and no. A lot of people on the Internet, at least the louder, more strident voices in chat rooms, kept saying, "Mulder's the absent center." And other people were saying, "He's not the absent center. Look at all these episodes that went by without even a mention of Mulder." I think that's the fundamental misunderstanding of the The X-Files TV series is and has always been. If you look at any of the seasons leading up to last season, you had these mythology episodes that really bring us up to speed on the personal lives of the characters and on the alien conspiracy. Then you've got these stand-alone episodes that rarely touch on the personal lives of the characters, and are really separate, discreet installments of life on the X-files. You'll see Mulder dealt with or mentioned in depth certain episodes, like we did in the first two this year and like we will in other mythology episodes later in the season. Then you'll have cases that are cases, that investigate monsters and other paranormal phenomena. It's very hard to shoehorn the search for Mulder or the disappearance of Mulder into stories like that, and we really don't try. But having said that, I think the fact that Mulder defines the X-files, Mulder turned the X-files into a unit, is hard for anyone to forget. He does come up a lot. His name is mentioned because of the spirit with which he investigated these cases. I also think what's appealing about Doggett and Reyes is how much respect they have for Mulder. They very much respect and honor what came before them.
Simply put, will there be an episode that explains why he's not there anymore?
Yes. That's the biggest question we faced, how to gracefully address that while being true to the character because, obviously, we just don't have David Duchovny. We wanted to come up with a worthy explanation for why he's not there anymore. It was a big question going into the new season and it was partially explained by the end of the second episode. It's a question that will come up again and again in the mythology episodes this season.
David Duchovny has said he's willing to do another movie. Chris Carter has said there will be another movie. Do you have to bear a potential movie in mind while doing the day-to-day on the show? And if so, isn't that a pain?
It was a pain the ass, but we've figured all that out, I think. We know where we're going this year. We have a very clear idea about how the season will end and how Scully and Mulder's characters will end this season. There's an anticipation that this is Gillian's last year whether or not it's the last year of the series, so we have prepared ourselves for that and we have a master plan.
Let's switch to the Lone Gunmen series. What went right and what went wrong with the show?
I thought a lot more went right than went wrong. I wished very much that the network had brought back the show for another year. There was a mighty campaign internally to keep it on the air. There was a lot of support for the show among the studio executives and some of the network executives too. I think they just took a gamble that they could do better. But I think The Lone Gunmen was a really good show. I was really proud of it. I'm very proud of the work the guys (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund and Bruce Harwood) did and that Zuleikha Robinson and Stephen Snedden did. I think that the biggest curveball we threw the audiences was how comedic, how blatantly comedic the show was. And I don't think people were expecting that from the people behind The X-Files. If I had to do it over again I might have tried to make the transition more slowly. Having said that, I think if the show had come back for another year it would have had a chance to settle in and find its audience. It's a great disappointment.
After all of your years with the show, how would you define your contribution to The X-Files?
That's a really hard question to answer. I was a neophyte coming into this show. I started as a staff writer. It was my first job, not only on television, but in Hollywood. So much of this show is the singular vision of Chris Carter. He's got a very, very clear vision and I think everybody who has worked here has come to appreciate and respect that vision. Once having understood his point of view about story-telling I think we've all tried to bring our best work to it. And so it's been a very collaborative atmosphere. This is my eighth year on the show, my seventh year with John (Shiban) and Vince (Gilligan). That's a long association, a long time for a group of people to work together. I look at all these episodes - I flip and see them on FX or in syndication on weekends - and I have memories of pieces of me and pieces of them in virtually every show. We've all poured our hearts and souls into it. I don't think people generally understand - nor do they need to, particularly - how hard you have to work on a show like this and how much of your life is devoted to it. I'm very proud of it.
You directed your first episode in Season Eight. How did "Alone come about?
Season Eight was one of my best years, if not the best year, I've had on The X-Files. I wrote a lot of stand-alone episodes. The whole Lone Gunmen experience, even though it ended, was a joy. I loved the show and I loved watching dailies every day. The directing was something I was kind of dragged into, kicking and screaming. I really didn't have any great desire to do it. But I was convinced by a number of people, including David Duchovny, before the chance went away. I was really delighted that I did it. I had a great time. And I was greatly relieved when I saw the finished episode. It was a bad time for me to do it, in a way, because there was so much work to do as a writer and producer. We were still trying to figure out the season finale. My show went into prep and I had no idea how it was going to end because I hadn't finished the script. So I was extremely stressed. I had all the issues outside of being a director, plus pressure of directing for the first time and not being entirely sure how that would go. But nobody told me how much fun it is to direct. You've got all these people who are trying to help you succeed. The actors were so good. I was thrilled with Robert and David and Gillian, and also Jolie Jenkins, the guest actress who played Leyla Harrison. I was very proud of the show.
Last question. If this would be the last year of The X-Files or your last year with the show, what would you do for an encore?
This is the first time in five or six years where I'm only doing The X-Files right now. I've always been doing The X-Files and Millennium or Harsh Realm or The Lone Gunmen or The X-Files movie. That's been a great please. But now I'm waiting to see what comes next, to see if Chris develops another series. If this is the end of The X-Files for me, I may go do something else, develop another show or write a movie. I don't know what I'll do next. But it's kind of an exciting time.
Frank Spotnitz, thank you very much
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