The “Hey Danny, it’s Mulder” podcast did a nice little interview with Angelo Vacco, who was a production assistant for nearly the entire run of The X-Files, plus he had small roles on the series: a gas station attendant in “F. Emasculata”, a victim in “Milagro”, plus a doorman in “Talitha Cumi” and a bartender in “Improbable”. He also holds an Instagram account with his own photos from the making of the show: “My Life on X-Files“!

Here are the cliff notes:

• Fresh from New York to Los Angeles, he wanted to be an actor. He didn’t know TXF at all. He approached production between seasons 1 and 2, he was 22. On his very first day, Joan (Chris Carter’s assistant) told him he would be a “temporary production assistant”, in the LA offices.
• Typical tasks would be to get coffees, make photocopies, distribute scripts, get dailies from Vancouver to be screened to the LA producers and executives. Wash Carter’s car.
• Eventually the producers had to make a decision on him. Howard Gordon said “we have to keep Angelo”. He ended up staying for 8 seasons!
• In the early years, the LA crew were few people. The editing was done in a movable trailer on the Fox lot. Building 49, Carter’s office, was an old 1920s bungalow. There was no space on the Fox lots.
• Working on TXF was a dream job. They were a work family, doing 16-hour days. 
• He did photography, developed his own photos, and took a lot of photos while at work. Many of these can be seen on his Instagram, “My Life on X-Files”.
• He met Carter when he was returning from shooting “Duane Barry” (the first episode he directed). The episode was initially named “Duane Garry” but they had to change it when they found there was a real FBI Agent named that. He asked if he could be an actor.
• The “F. Emasculata” script reads about the gas station attendant, “he looks so much like Angelo Vacco we could swear it’s him”! So he didn’t audition for that role, but he did for the others.
• The Vancouver pool of actors was small, so there was the “X-Files rep”, a répertoire of actors with repeat roles.
• He auditioned for “D.P.O.”.
• “Milagro” was shot in Griffiths Park. He did ADR on his own scream.
• He has a lot of stories to tell about shooting the Bree Sharp music video for “David Duchovny, why won’t you love me?” song, where he is also credited. The video’s two directors were involved in Millennium (Will Shivers, uncredited?) and TXF (Charles/Chuck Forsch, assistant to Chris Carter and to the producers). It started as an end-of-season video made by the crew. Then Bree sent the song, it got to David. They did the music video on the Fox lot and hence got people like Brad Pitt (shooting Fight Club), Sarah Michelle Gellar (shooting Buffy), he drove around with the golf cart and just asked.
• (See also David Duchovny’s recent interview with Bree Sharp on his podcast!)
• Here’s the video, remastered by Lyle:

• Angelo also works in ADR (automated dialogue recording) doing things like background conversations, voices of police officers on the radio, TV presenters. He has been doing work with the same ADR group for 25 years and he did ADR work for the TXF revival seasons
• “Paul Rabwin knows everything” about making The X-Files. [somebody interview that man!]

Here’s a selection of Angelo’s photos, there’s much more on his account!

https://www.heydannyitsmulder.com/episodes/episode4

Tags: 1013interviews, angelo vacco, bree sharp, f. emasculata, heydannyitsmulder, improbable, milagro, talitha cumi, thexfiles

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2025 at 10:48 am and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.