Happy solstice! Here is something out of the ordinary: an interview with Robert Mandel, the director of The X-Files pilot episode in 1993, by the people at the “Hey, That’s Me!” podcast. This is I think the only interview he has ever given on TXF, he is somebody who goes from project to project and doesn’t look back. The pilot is of course full of iconic moments and it is still very well-remembered. He only did the pilot but he sounds like somebody who could have been a good fit for the show long-term.
The episode runs like a live commentary on the episode itself. Some highlights:
Before, he did a lot of theatre, then AFI, short films, then features. This was his first TV experience, he wanted to do more movies.
A great experience overall. He and Carter were in complete agreement.
He had seen “Prime Suspect” [1991 TV movie with Helen Mirren, police investigation on serial killer with the lead dealing with workplace sexism], he discussed it with Carter and they wanted the same approach for TXF, low-key mystery, play it straight.
He came in when Mulder had been cast, they were still looking for a Scully.
Carter was more familiar with TV production than him. As writer and producer, Carter was on set every day, but the cooperation with Mandel went fine, there was trust.
He specifically remembers shooting a lot of dialogue under the cold and the rain, and Mulder talking about his sister, working with director of photography Tom Del Ruth [also only worked on the pilot].
Tight shooting schedule, hardly any time for rehearsals. Now pilots get more time.
They did 5-7 takes, tops; anything more than 3 takes was a lot already.
Carter liked people sticking to the script.
Carter found a lot of the set dressing himself, like Mulder’s wall. He worked a lot on the Pentagon set, for him it was key.
He and Carter showed the pilot to two executives. They expected or wanted more humor, they were looking at each other, trying to anticipate the audience reaction.
They really didn’t expect success, even after it came out.
He thinks Carter was genius keeping Mulder and Scully apart.
On the monsters-of-the-week: “Chris would’ve done UFO episodes every week. The network didn’t want that. They wanted a monster show. I remember being in the office late at night — which was like a box; it was just a dump on the Fox lot — and we’re just sitting there trying to think of ideas.”
On 1X02: Squeeze: “Regarding the 30 years, my brother told me, “I think that you stole a Night Stalker. There was a thing where there was a guy who comes out every 30 or 50 years.” I’m like, “What?!” We loved that show with Darren McGavin. The episodes weren’t readily available until recently, so I don’t know if I lodged that in my subconscious. Chris had been in France, and he was fascinated by how they make foie gras, so that’s where it came about that Tooms ate livers.”
On 1X20: Tooms: “Skinner was named after my mom’s friend.”
On 1X07: Ice: “When I was a kid, there was an unknown movie called Report to the Commissioner, and at the end of the trailer, the two people were in an elevator with guns on each other. That image had a big effect on me — so let’s do that!”
On 1X12: Beyond the Sea: “we wanted to introduce [Scully] to the possibility of a paranormal event. We felt that the one thing that people might be open to is wanting to see a loved one that had moved along. The experience has a great deal of watching my mom when my grandfather passed away.”
On 2X14: Die Hand Die Verletzt: “John Bartley was the director of photography, and he lit that fourth act essentially with two flashlights, which were I think $3,000 each and the wire went up Duchovny’s coat. It was not done on TV where an entire act was just that level of darkness.”
On 4X03: Home: “My grandmother and grandfather, my mom’s parents, lived in Rochester, and they had a family next door who was a very nice family, maybe a little chaotic, named the Peacocks. I just thought, what a great name, and so we named [the “Home” family] the Peacocks.”
Still trying to catch up with recent interviews — here is one with Eleanor Infante, editor of 4 episodes in The X-Files season 11, with the “Hey Danny, it’s Mulder” podcast. Some interesting insights here:
She talks about working within the strict boundaries of length for commercial cuts in network television, as opposed to much more flexibility in streaming. [I think that can be negative as much as positive, as it inserts tightness in script and editing.]
Glen Morgan brought her to TXF. They did “Lore” together before (and worked on “The Twilight Zone” since).
She had never watched the show. As she was editing her episodes, she was watching a top 30 of episodes as per a list by Vulture.
Interesting difference in working methods between the two brothers: Glen lets editor give him what she wants, he is a collaborator, he takes what others suggest; whereas Darin is very specific about what he wants, she was a help for his vision.
11X02: This: for the group approaching the Mulder & Scully house in the teaser, Glen was inspired by Peter Weir’s “Witness”, with the dread of the cops approaching the Amish. He also wanted to use the Ramones song.
11X04: The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat: Darin is a perfectionist genius. He is all about language, rhythm. He sat with her and went through all the takes. She was the one who suggested to him that they use the a capella version of the main theme!
11X07: Rm9…/Followers: she had fun inserting draft sounds in the editing, Glen liked almost everything, then the sound department replicated it. The voice of the AI would have been Stephen Hawking himself, they were talking with his estate, but he was ill [he died just months later, in March 2018].
11X10: My Struggle IV: Build trust with the director-producer to take initiative, and move things around even if it was not scripted. She did that in this episode. Carter asked her to do an audio commentary of the episode.
A rare interview with Michael W. Watkins with the Danish Sammensværgelsen/Conspiracy podcast! With Bernadette “Bernie” Caulfield, together they replaced Bob Goodwin as one of the show’s most important roles: co-executive producers, the people who really run the day-to-day business of managing the production. He worked in The X-Files season 6 and half of season 7. He also directed 6 TXF episodes (Dreamland II, Tithonus, Arcadia, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Sein und Zeit, X-Cops) and also one Millennium episode (Sacrament in s1). A key person in making the show, but he has done very few interviews on it! Some notes from the interview:
Shift from Vancouver to LA: he personally recruited some 270 crew members (!): 1st unit + 2nd unit + 3rd unit for pick-ups and inserts. He hired everyone apart from stunt coordinator Danny Weselis, a friend of Kim Manners’. He was on set every day, shuttling from set to location to 2nd unit. It took a lot of energy and time.
It was challenging from the start: having to make a nuclear pool for 6X01: The Beginning.
6X02: Drive: Vince Gilligan was the first to adapt to the new setting of the landscape of California.
6X03: Triangle: a huge production, they put a tarp over Queen Mary, they had power shut down at night at Long Beach, they had generators to pour water over the ship, they painted the water green.
6X15 Arcadia: they were ashamed of the monster, they called him “Fecal Fred”, they tried but it was awful, it was cut out.
7X12: X-Cops: they put the cop car on a gimble to tumble it, they were running around at 2 am, they used a real drug shooting house, Duchovny improvised lines and hummed the “Bad Boys” theme, they had weird extras, they were making it up as they went along and were using the surprise effect on the actors as things were happening.
He followed the show from its start. Director of Photography John Bartley used to be a gaffer working for him, he was a DOP himself before becoming a director. [IMDb has one collaboration between them, the 1984 TV movie “The Glitter Dome“.] He is also friends with DOP Joel Ransom. He talks about the lighting choices for the show, not in your face, you didn’t see everything.
He enjoyed a lot working with David Duchovny, helping him with directing.
He left the show to try something new, Steven Spielberg sent him a script for a pilot. [This ended up to just a TV movie, the 2001 Marine Corps movie “Semper Fi“.] His long-time partner Bernie Caulfield left the show together with him. [They were replaced by Harry Bring and Michelle MacLaren as co-executive producers.]
Here are two older interviews (November-December 2020) that came to my attention recently: Chris Carter and Glen Morgan on Strange Arrivals, a podcast researching the UFO phenomenon. As always, some interesting thoughts here, and some surprising musings from these creators looking back at what made The X-Files the success it became.
He turned the tables on gender on who would be stereotypically believer and skeptic.
He had been reading the UFO literature before writing the Pilot; his 3 “go to guys” were John Mack, David Jacobs, Budd Hopkins. [The 3 collaborated in the Roper survey on alien abductions that Carter used to pitch The X-Files to Fox.] What interested him was that these people doubted themselves, that they were smart people conducting a serious investigation.
If you watch the Pilot + “Deep Throat” + “The Erlenmeyer Flask” “you will get a foundational view of The X-Files mythology”.
TXF was about “imagining the world before disclosure”. [“Disclosure” is a UFO literature term for the secret of alien contact being revealed to the public.]
When they started, he didn’t want to show an alien for 5 years; but that lasted just a year, they showed an alien in 2X01: “Little Green Men”.
Mulder and Scully’s investigations: they present theories to each other, are competitive, “it became a 9-year flirtation, a seduction of sorts”.
The disclaimer in the Pilot about being based on actual documented cases was asked to be added by the network. It was a hard sales pitch to get the network to understand that it’s better to be left wondering at the end of the episode instead of wrapping everything in a neat bow.
Mythology: he was trying to create a sense of awe, the idea that science doesn’t have all the answers, that religion either, that there are things beyond the pale.
He has a Scully bias, a prove it to me philosophy. He is skeptical, but he has met so many people who believe in the story that they tell. “Who am I to question them?” He sat on a regression hypnosis session during the time the show was being produced, it was powerful and vivid.
He got very lucky in getting the writers he did. The characters developed over time, everyone added in nuances. But the fundamentals were there from the beginning.
The appeal of the alien stories is the fear of the other, the unknown of whether they have a good or evil intent.
On wanting to declassify UFO documents: Clinton, Obama, now Rubio, they are a long line of people who want to know.
While TXF was about a file cabinet full of the unknown, it was really about Mulder and Scully and their relationship. [Whatever you want to say about Carter styming the relationship, he is clear-sighted about what made the show what it became and what it’s remembered for.]
He singles out production designers Michael Nemirsky (Pilot) and Graeme Murray (seasons 1-5, with things like the examination table in “Duane Barry”), they made better things than what the writers imagined.
A Fox executive literally wanted Gillian Anderson fired because she was pregnant.
He read all of Sherlock Holmes as a kid, it was a big influence on Mulder and Scully’s dynamic.
He grew up in Syracuse, NY: there were cult groups, mediums, seances in the area, his family were all believers in paranormal. He only started considering the skeptic side due to his work on TXF, writing for Scully.
He read “Chariots of the Gods” when he was young, he was into NASA space exploration, loved “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The UFO Incident” [1975 TV movie, a representation of the famous 1961 Hills alien abduction incident, with James Earl Jones], he grew up with all the monster movies and paranoid movies (“All the President’s Men”, “The Parallax View”, “Klute”), “The Twilight Zone”.
The network didn’t want a UFO story every week, they wanted Mulder and Scully to help people. The writers brainstormed and came up with the monster-of-the-week format.
They all came up together with the idea of Scully’s disappearance to cover for Gillian’s pregnancy. They never set out to be serialized, it was brought up by necessity. Write, then just think about what happens next, figure it out, bring ideas. There was no writers’ room.
The XF mythology made new stuff up compared to the established UFO lore in order to have something fresh for TV, which eventually became difficult to manage.
He went to a UFO community show in the Los Angeles airport with writer Marilyn Osborne. There were the exact prototypes for the Lone Gunmen there, down to the “Byers” taking out the magnetic strip out of a dollar bill. He discovered there was a whole industry around UFOs!
Carter was the one with the deeper UFO research.
He read the Science News publication every week for ideas. There was a story about Greenland ice core deep drilling. You take two truth, make stuff up, you make an X-File (like Deep Throat’s quote from “E.B.E.”). He sees that approach in modern myth: people believe in made-up stuff.
The best thing Carter did was “I want to believe”: everybody wants to believe, even the hardcore scientists.
“If TXF played any part in the proliferation of this conspiracy stuff, I’d have big regrets.” It’s now ridiculously out of hand, it’s no longer for entertainment.
When they started the show, Scully would never see an alien ever. But by episode 12 she was seeing the ghost of her father. Mulder is the interesting character; as the show goes on, Scully bends towards Mulder, otherwise the show would have become “Scooby Doo”. Scully experienced things, that’s the benefit and necessity of a TV series, to keep conflict and momentum.
Mythology over time: in the 1930s, the scientist was bad (“Frankenstein”, “The Invisible Man”). In the 1950s, the scientist is creating the trouble and solving it, there was trust in government. 1960s, “The Andromeda Strain”, Vietnam, 1970s, “Close Encounters”, “Star Wars”. Where are we now? How to create a myth about the pandemic? [interview recorded November 2020] Storytelling-wise, you would never come up with a head of a country that is obstructing it. What is it about science and conspiracy, what is it telling us? Where were we then? What does that type of story tell us about where we are now? [All of these are excellent questions and a great way to think of the show in its historical context. These are things any reboot would have to consider and find a reason for its existence — good luck!]
Some recent cast reunions in conventions were billed as The X-Files 32th anniversary events, and it’s true such events with so many cast members are by now rare.
This made for some beautiful photos. Robert Patrick says “pure joy“:
Fan Expo
With Gillian Anderson, Robert Patrick, Annabeth Gish, Mitch Pileggi, Nick Lea. Some highlights:
Robert: Doggett is his favorite role of his entire career!
Gillian typically doesn’t remember anything (but does remember the scene where Scully throws water on Doggett’s face), whereas Nick remembers details.
Robert remembers doing script table reads, nobody else does.
Mitch remembers shooting a scene with Duchovny, Carter called and was rewriting the scene, he passed the dialogue over the phone: that’s how a short notice they had with getting and learning the dialogue.
Nick: he had little notice, except the one time he knew he would have to speak Russian 2 weeks in advance [4X09: Tunguska].
Robert: the director of photography would give them directions to direct their flashlights to hit a board, so that the reflection would light their own faces.
Did they have any input to their character to Carter? Everyone, quickly: “no!”
Mitch didn’t like the prosthetics with the nanobots [6X10: S.R. 819], he told them to get rid of this storyline. [And so sadly this was another story thread that was not followed up, I would have liked it to.]
Annabeth watches Stranger Things and Pluribus, which tackle similar questions as TXF.
About 7X17: all things: Gillian wrote the outline one day until 3 am. Carter got Spotnitz to guide her through the process of turning it into a script. The 1st day directing she felt unbelievably lucky, the 2nd day she just wanted it to be over! She hadn’t thought of it beforehand but she wished she had spent more time working with the actors, working through each scene and what specifically she wanted out of them.
+ a panel just with Gillian, where she mentioned that getting back into the Scully character for the revival was really difficult.
Reboot talk
The Ryan Coogler reboot project was touched upon in Fan Expo.
Mitch has not been approached. Gillian had just one conversation with him it feels like 2 years ago, her knee-jerk reaction would be that she’s not interested as she’s done this already, but Coogler is talented and doesn’t say no, she’s interested to read what he’s created.
Gillian repeated just as much for a Screenrant interview: “I have no idea where they are at, or if it’s at.”
So any Scully reappearance talks in the potential reboot are way overblown, this is far from happening yet!
Monster Mania
Another cast reunion, same with the above minus Nick Lea but with William “Bill” Davis and Laurie Holden. Apart from the usual questions (do you believe, what’s your favorite, how did you meet Arlene, did you really eat the 2X20: Humbug cricket) there were two “incidents” I want to flag:
On the William arc, anything else you want to know? Gillian: I guess to find out who the father is. A fan shouts “The Cigarette-Smoking Man”…and Gillian gives Bill a comic look.
Anything you would like your character to do? Bill: I had to offer to write an episode to get some scenes with Gillian. Gillian: But he gave me something else instead. Bill: I didn’t plan that part.
This is both funny and tragic. It’s awkward to say the least that actors have to answer for the writer in front of fans… They will be doing this for the rest of their lives!
Gillian Anderson on “War of the Coprophages”
Gillian confirms on Jimmy Kimmel that the happenings in one shot in 3X12: War of the Coprophages were not planned: as she walks into a supermarket, a car accident happens behind her and an extra bumps into her. She continued in-character, and the shot made it to the final episode. Both these things were great and contributed to the sense of panic that the episode was trying to convey at that point!
David Duchovny on “Aubrey”
A story relayed by Annie on X-Files Diaries: David told her that one particular line in 2X12: Aubrey came from him, and not from script writer Sara Charno. The line in question:
Mulder: “I’ve often felt that dreams are answers to questions we haven’t yet figured out how to ask.”
This memorable line was repeated from Scully back to Mulder in 4X08: Paper Hearts.
Is this true? Let’s do some forensic work. We can compare script versions, thanks to boggsfiles: earlier script versions as late as the pink version (dated Nov 14 1994) don’t have it, while the yellow version (dated Nov 16, just two days later) has it. The dailies from that episode show that Nov 22 or 23 was day 5 of shooting, placing the start of shooting to Nov 18 or 19. So it looks like it checks out and that David could have provided that line after a script read just a couple of days before shooting began!
