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“Evolution” Cast Interview

Beverly Hills, Calif., June 3, 2001–Though Ivan Reitman‘s new sci-fi comedy Evolution features a cast of famous folks, its real star may be the moon.

You see, a few scenes into the film, David Duchovny and co-star Orlando Jones have it out with the military brass before driving away in frustration. The ex-X-Filer drops trou and gives the officials a two-cheeked salute, if you will.

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I got up on the Jeep, my ass was right on the windshield…I thought, well, it’s that kind of movie,” Duchovny says. “Ivan didn’t know I was doing it.”

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“So I’m watching my monitor, and I’m thinking, why’s David Duchovny dropping his trousers? Then I realize he’s mooning the general,” Reitman adds.

“Ivan didn’t know if it would even make the final cut,” Duchovny says. “But after an early screening, he said, ‘People really get on board when you whip your ass out.’ I said, ‘I’m happy to be of service!'”

“David’s so proud of his ass. You see that in the movie,” adds the film’s female lead, Julianne Moore. “He’s got a videotape of it, he gave me a Polaroid of it…he’s verrry proud.”

As the Jeep’s driver, Jones had a different view altogether. “As I’m backing the Jeep out I realize David’s ass is against the window. I’m trying to hold it together, and driving fast to get my face off camera!” he says, laughing. “I think I start to throw my head back laughing as Ivan cuts.”

Hmm…so are the rumors true? “Like a horse!” Jones chortles.

Such hind sight may be entertaining in itself, but there’s more than butt shots to Evolution. In the movie, two community college science teachers (Duchovny and Jones) and a fireman hopeful (Seann William Scott) must stave off an alien takeover of Earth after a meteor carrying extraterrestrial organisms crashes in the Arizona desert. The single-celled alien stowaways evolve at light speed, and in mere weeks, threaten to take over the planet in true Darwinian fashion. The feds get involved, as does a Center for Disease Control brainiac (Julianne Moore), who defects from the government team to join the renegades and rid the world of the outer-space scourge.

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Evolution marks Ivan Reitman‘s first foray back into the genre of goofy sci-fi in 15 years, since 1984’s Ghostbusters. “The movie started out as a dramatic script without any humor whatsoever, but for me to do straight sci-fi seemed boring,” Reitman said. “It absolutely owes something to Ghostbusters. But I wasn’t thinking about that so much as creating a heroic grouping of my unlikely quartet.”

(“If it’s like Ghostbusters, does that make me Harold Ramis?” quips Moore.)

Casting Duchovny in the lead might have seemed like a cagey bit of genius, but in fact Reitman just thought he’d be good at it. “He has this very rare combo, he’s good looking and funny,” Reitman says. (“That was a long time ago,” Duchovny avers.) “Then he got X-Files and didn’t smile for eight years!”

Duchovny adds, “So I start reading the script, and was like, this is great. Then 20 pages later there’s aliens. I was like, ‘Oooh, why? Now I can’t do it.’ But Ivan’s never seen X-Files so it wasn’t like he cared I would be in a movie with aliens; he wasn’t going to play off it or against it. So I figured the kind of acting I would do in this movie would be so different from anything I’ve ever done that the alien thing would be a superficial coincidence.”

He seems determined to lose his perpetual shadow–FBI agent Fox Mulder, the alien-seeking role he won’t be returning to come fall. “For the rest of my life people will say, ‘I didn’t know you were funny.’ I’m thankful I am trying to run from a success rather than a failure,” he says. “In my estimation, you have almost 200 hours of The X-Files. That’s 200 hours of me acting. You look at actors you grew up loving, they made maybe 40 films–that’s 80 hours. I did enough.”

If Duchovny is something of a wry straight guy, Jones is his outspoken, long-suffering geologist sidekick. “I wanted to do a character that people wouldn’t expect me to do, that didn’t find his comedy in black and white,” Jones says. “Harry suffers from that 21-31 thing, that, ‘What am I gonna do with my life?’ thing. It’s easier for him to make comments than to get on with his own life.”

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Moore, who was looking forward to this role as a comedic break from a string of serious films, thought her character was too straitlaced upon first read. Having spent an entire semester on “clown work” in college, she had her own ideas of how to improve it–by adding klutz-appeal. “I told Ivan I didn’t think this character was funny. It would only be funny if there was physical comedy,” she says. “It’s always funny if someone falls down, especially if no one mentions it and it’s just kind of there. I’m pretty good at falling. I like it. I know how to do it.”

This easygoing bunch got along just as well offscreen as on it, especially when Duchovny and Jones teamed up to pull the occasional prank on their hapless co-star Scott. “Oh, it was a big love affair, the Orlando-David love affair! I love these guys. They’re a very friendly bunch,” Moore says.

“And that adorable Seann! He’s so adorable, I can’t stand it!”

Evolution opens June 8.

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