Double act with X-factor; The truth is out there - David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are back in The X-Files: I Want To Believe, in cinemas from today

Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), August 1, 2008

AFTER six years away, FBI agents Mulder and Scully are back in business with a new X-Files movie.

But according to David Duchovny, who returns as Fox Mulder, it feels like they've never really been away.

"I never thought about it ending," he says.

"We always had the desire to grow the TV show into a movie franchise. We didn't really want it to end.

"We loved the show, we loved the characters and we enjoyed working with one another. We owe so much to the characters, to each other and to the fans of the show, and we wanted to keep on doing that."

Gillian Anderson, who returns as Dana Scully, agreed to do the film without so much as a glance at the finished script.

She admits of the film, which was cowritten and directed by X-Files creator Chris Carter: "My decision to be on board was made a long time before the script was even written. I don't know what I would have done if the script was bad, but fortunately I didn't have to face that.

"We'd had the discussion early on, that were it ever to come to fruition, we'd all be on board for another film.

"With six years having passed when we'd been doing other things both professionally and personally, it felt like good timing."

Hugely successful, The X-Files spawned a movie and ran for nine TV series, with viewers in more than 60 countries glued to Mulder and Scully's investigations into unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. The new film is set in real time, with both agents having left the FBI. Scully - now working as a doctor - and Mulder are living together. But their relationship is tested when an FBI agent asks Mulder to help investigate the disappearance of a female agent, with the help of psychic and convicted paedophile Father Joseph (Billy Connelly).

Gillian says: "What makes the film unique is the particular kind of relationship, the intense relationship, between the two characters.

"It's almost a marriage in a sense. Even though we're not working side by side throughout the whole film, there's that intensity between the characters and the thriller storyline at the same time."

The film also sees the resumption of the powerful on-screen chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson. Despite the actors having rarely been in contact with each other in recent years, they both admit they were able to recreate the characters' special relationship without a lot of effort.

"The chemistry between David and me is something that is there naturally," Gillian explains. "It has been there despite ourselves, no matter what moods we're in or what was going on in our personal lives.

"There are shades of it in other projects I've done. But there's something different with David and that's the unexplainable bit."

David adds: "Because we had so little contact there was an element of missing one another and missing working together.

"It's my feeling that we acted as a couple on the television show in all but physical intimacy. We bickered like a couple, we needed each other like a couple. I think it's quite similar to actually being a couple."

We acted as a couple on the television show in all but physical intimacy. We bickered like a couple, we needed each other like a couple

X FILES: THE FACTS

The show first hit our screens in September 1993 and was so popular it became the first TV show to be released on DVD.

FBI agents Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson) take opposing roles in the sci-fi series, with Mulder being the 'believer' and Scully the 'sceptic'.

The first X Files film was released in 1998, as a continuation of the season five finale. Series six picked up where the film left off.

Mulder and Scully have a strong on-screen chemistry and fans have often noted a 'sexual tension' between them, but their relationship is strictly platonic and they were even given other love interests in the show.

In real life, David is married to actress Tea Leoni and twice-divorced Gillian is now living with businessman Mark Griffiths in the UK.

CAPTION(S):

TOGETHER AGAIN - David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson