David Duchovny almost turned down his career defining role in “The X-Files” because he was shooting a TV movie with a pal.

The actor didn’t want to let his friend down and quit the project, so he told his agents he wasn’t interested in what became the role of a lifetime.

“I had gotten… a couple of scenes in this movie of the week, and it was a director who I was friendly with, and I was going to have to… pull out of that part to do The X-Files pilot,” David told Rob Lowe on his Literally! podcast. “I said to my agents, ‘I don’t want to do that. You know, she’s a friend, and I don’t want to pull out’. (I said), ‘X-Files, this is about extra-terrestrials. How long can it go? It’s a good pilot but you’re either going to see the aliens or (not)’.

“I wasn’t interested in conspiracy theories, and I was perfectly willing to just say, ‘I’m going to have to pass on that pilot, because I said I’d do this other project’.”

Duchovny is glad his agent talked him into taking the role of Fox Mulder: “It’s scary to think back on; if you didn’t open this door, or you took that left instead of that right. It’s, like, none of it had to happen. You talk about actors being dumb… well, that was me.”

– Cover Media