[IMG:L]Hank Moody was the guy who had it all: A great career as a writer, a beautiful daughter, and a relationship that was meant to last forever. But as he moves his family to Los Angeles for the opportunity of a lifetime, his own dream life starts to unravel. His brilliant book God Hates Us All is turned into a crappy romantic comedy called A Crazy Little Thing Called Love. The love of his life, Karen, leaves him for another guy. And as if all this isn’t bad enough, he now has incurable writer’s block. What’s a guy to do but react…poorly?
Californication marks David Duchovny’s return to television as a series regular for the first time since the X-Files, but there aren’t many parallels to be drawn between Fox Mulder and Hank Moody. What Hank is looking for is very much in sight, and for both the viewer and Duchovny it is the bumpy road of drugs, sex and alcohol that makes for good television. Can Hank shape up and retrieve what he has lost? We caught up with Duchovny to find out.
HW: What made you decide this was the show to go back to TV with?
DD: It was really the script that Tom Kapinos wrote. I was interested in the character and the idea. I never think [doing] a television pilot means you might have to do a television show. I just thought let’s tackle this one thing. Let’s tackle this now. Let’s make a great half hour of this guy in this world.
HW: Do you want to see Karen and Hank work out their relationship on the show?
DD: I think that’s the heart of the show, that relationship, you know. I sat down with Tom after our pilot and I wanted to know what the show is about if I was going to commit to doing it. And he said it’s about getting it right the first time and screwing it up and how you get it back. And I said “Oh, I can do that. I can see that show.” And now, you will.
HW: This is a great pilot. How will you keep it up?
DD: It’s hard. What really should happen on a television show is that you get better at it because you start to figure out what the show is. In many ways it’s not that hard to make a great pilot. It is hard, but it’s less amazing to me than a great series. So, now the hard work begins. I’m proud of the pilot and I’m happy that we made it the way it is and it’s close to what I thought it would be and now I just want to get better. That’s on the writers, it’s on the actors – it’s on all of us.
HW: What makes this show different from others on television?
DD: It’s the drama and the graphic content, yet it’s still got a light heart to it because at its heart it’s a comedy. And I think that’s what makes it not a sitcom. This is a seemingly stark world, but it still has this buoyant heart, which is what I want this to be.
HW: It seems to have an indie feel to it…
DD: Yeah. I feel like on this show I can do the kind of work that you want to do in an independent film, but I get to do it 11 weeks out of the year and pursue a character and a story through a much longer kind of genesis than you can in film. It originally was conceived [as an independent film]. So it still has that flavor.
HW: Will you write for the show?
DD: I’m not going to be writing for the show, but as all the actors will attest, Tom is very open to hearing what the actors have to say in terms of storyline or in terms of this particular piece of dialogue. So I just take advantage of Tom in that way, but not in the sense where I would be actually writing scripts.
HW: Have you suggested something?
DD: I’ve suggested a lot of things.
HW: And has he accepted them?
DD: I haven’t seen, damn, not one thing. That’s not true. I think there’s been a bunch of stuff. It’s been a great collaboration so far, and I attribute that to Tom‘s openness and ego, in a good sense.
HW: The beginning, when you ash out in holy water, was that always in the script?
DD: Yeah, that was there. Tom comes from a Catholic background and he just loves to do that. Me, being half Jewish and half Protestant, I’m like “If that really turns him on, okay. Ooh, it’s so profane. I’m so offended.” I don’t know. I just shouldn’t be smoking. It’s not that it’s holy water, it’s the cigarette [Laughs].
[IMG:R]HW: Were you meant to laugh when you get punched during sex?
DD: It was a character insight. What I’ve said to Tom as we’ve been shooting is that this guy’s response to chaos is laughter because that’s actually what he feels all the time. When it turns out the way that he thinks it’s actually pretty funny to him. So I said to the director, ‘You need to stay on me because I need to laugh at this.’ It became one of the best moments in the pilot and that’s something that we’re trying to continue. We need to show Hank laughing at the worst possible time.
HW: What do you think you will take more heat from, the nudity or the smoking?
DD: I’m thinking it’s the nude smoking.
HW: Can you shake him at the end of the day and go home without that baggage?
DD: It’s weird. I guess that some actors are like that, but it’s never really been a concern for me. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m no good. I think that sometimes what happens is I’ll be driving home and I’ll be like, “F**k. That sucked.” But it’s not because of the character. It just didn’t go the way that I wanted it to go, and then that’s hard to shake because you take your work home with you. But I don’t take the character home with me.
HW: What did your wife Tea say about this character?
DD: It was interesting, because I gave her the script and I said, “I’m thinking about doing this,” and she said, “Oh, I don’t know.” She was afraid that this guy was not relatable. I said, “I have an insight. I think I know how to do this, and we’re going to make it work.” And then, we showed her the finished product and she was like, “God damn it, you know, you did it.” So it was kind of a conversation where I asked for her opinion and then I said, “I don’t like your opinion.”
HW: Will Tea be on the show?
DD: We have always tried not to work together, and we’ve been pretty good at that so far, mostly because she doesn’t want to work with me. But I can’t imagine what would be worse than watching people that actually have sex have sex on camera. I can’t imagine a creepier thing. So I wouldn’t want to inflict that on you, and I wouldn’t want to inflict it upon my relationship either.
HW: How did you celebrate your 10-year anniversary?
DD: Well, we got these [tattoos]. I hate wearing [my wedding band] because I bang it everywhere and I hurt myself, so we made a compromise. I said, ‘If I get a tattoo can I take that ring off?’ She said, ‘Sure.’ She liked the tattoo and she went ahead and got one for herself.
HW: Can you describe the tattoo?
DD: It’s AYSF, which stands for a phrase that we say to one another, but I don’t actually tell anybody.
HW Do your kids get what you and your wife do, that you’re actors?
DD: They like craft service. They think it’s fun to come visit set. Obviously my kids aren’t going to see this show for a number of years, and even The X-Files they’re not going to see for five or six years. I’ve done one job that my kids have seen – Beethoven, which was the movie about the dog. They haven’t even seen Jurassic Park yet with Tea. So they know that we’re actors and they know that sometimes people know who we are and they understand why they know who we are, but I’m sure they wish I was on Hannah Montana or something.
HW: It seems like there’s always news of an X-Files script in the works. What’s different about this one?
DD: I’m actually supposed to see it next week. Before I would just say that because they told me, but now I’ve been talking to Chris [Carter] and he’s been giving me progress reports. He actually called yesterday and said “Next week you should have something to read.”
HW: Can you give us any more details about the movie?
DD: No. I mean, honestly, I wasn’t trying to be coy. I really am expecting to see a script next week. Chris has written it with Frank Spotnitz, and Chris will direct it. And Gillian [Anderson]‘s on board and I’m on board, and that’s all I can tell you. I’m looking forward to seeing what he did.
HW: It’s supposed to be a one off type script instead of a mythology type script?
DD: It should be a one-off. It should be.
HW: Is there a tentative schedule for shooting and releasing it?
DD: I think that it was November for a summer release.
[IMG:L]HW: Are you looking forward to bringing Mulder back?
DD: Yeah, I am, because he’s cool and it’s a great show and I love playing the character.
HW: What does Mulder have in common with Hank?
DD: Well, I guess that they both want to know the truth and they both speak the truth. I haven’t really thought of it that way, but I guess that they both speak their minds to their detriment.
HW: How do you think that X-Files would’ve been different if it had been on Showtime?
DD: [Laughs] Well, Mulder and Scully probably would have had sex right away and then the show wouldn’t have lasted.
