A long interview of Chris Carter almost went by unnoticed, and it’s because he talks quite little about #TheXFiles: this is “L8night with Choccy”, the main focus is surfing! Still, some notes on everything else (that was not mentioned elsewhere):
His father was a construction worker, his mother a housewife, both hard workers, he got that from them. His brother Craig, 5 years younger, was always smarter than him, ended up at MIT. His first job was being a paperboy, then at ice cream parlor. He read a lot as a kid, Readers’ Digest, Life Magazine.
He started surfing age 12. First plane ride at 18, to Hawaii. Lots of talk about surfing spots, surfers, California surfing culture of the 1970s (including surfer movies, like “Pacific Vibrations”, “Endless Summer”, “Five Summer Stories” with its soundtrack by Honk)… Parties, girls, surfing. [Drugs? Look at that poster!]
He started working on Surfing magazine as an intern at 22, writing the captions for the photos, ended up staying for 5 years, left as a senior editor. He was very proud of his first full article, a profile of surfer Jack Lindholm, in Hawaii.
He had been registered on the draft list to go to Vietnam, he was about to get the lottery ticket to go, but the war ended.
He’s left handed.
He wrote a chapter for the book “Surfer Stories: 12 Untold Stories by 12 Writers about 12 of the World’s Greatest Surfers“, a profile of Shaun Tomson.
He met his wife Dori because her cousin and writing partner was a surfer, he also wrote for Surfing magazine.
After TXF wrapped, he learned how to fly with the series’ flight coordinator. [That must be Steve Stafford.]
He bought a house with his wife when he was 30, they have sold it since and now it has burned down. He was living paycheck to paycheck paying his mortgage until he finally got a good pay with Fox.
First thing he did at Fox was a TV pilot for ABC inspired by the movie “The Verdict” (with Paul Newman), a lawyer that wins against all odds; they liked it but it was not picked up. The second thing was TXF.
In the Vancouver years he sent the writers to follow closely their episodes’ production: “I wanted them to be there to protect the work”, “protect the script”.
They started production of the pilot in LA then they realized they needed a forest. He had gone to Vancouver with his wife to produce a Disney Sunday movie in 1986 and saw the forests there.
He singles out Bob Goodwin for the success of the show, convincing the studio to give them more budget.
Rick Carter’s advice after making “Amazing Stories” was that you will have no money and no time, hide spooky things in the dark.
For the movies, they got more than a season’s worth of budget (25 episodes). [This is probably for FTF, whose budget was about $66M. Budgets per episode grew from about $1M to $4M in the first 5 seasons, so this sounds about right.]
Due to work on TXF, he essentially hadn’t surfed for 9 years. He surfed on the very day he won a Golden Globe. [That was in 1995, 1997 and 1998.] Making TXF between LA and Vancouver, he spent his life on air with Air Canada or on the road.
“Twin Peaks is a show I could watch every night of the week. David Lynch was an original, a titan.”
“Chris Carter is back in business!” He is doing the IWTB director’s cut. “We are doing a spin off of TXF.” [Note the “we”, meaning he is involved to some capacity in the upcoming project led by Ryan Coogler.] He is also writing a movie, the script will be done by end of June. [No indication as to when the interview was recorded precisely.] “It’s going to get made because it’s timely.” “I know where I want to make it, I know who I want to make it with.” [I hope this happens, I’d love to see more by Carter. Although “Fencewalker” is probably sitting on a shelf somewhere.]
Tags: 1013interviews, chris carter, thexfiles, txfreboot
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