X-Files: Why David Duchovny Nixed Gillian Anderson’s Californication Cameo

Here’s why David Duchovny prevented his X-Files co-star Gillian Anderson from cameoing on his Showtime comedy Californication. While Duchovny first got widespread notice thanks to his surprisingly progressive role as trans FBI agent Denise Bryson on Twin Peaks, it wasn’t until he played a different FBI agent, Fox Mulder, on The X-Files that the actor became a household name. The X-Files was also the true launching point for the career of Gillian Anderson, who was mostly unknown prior to playing the skeptical Dana Scully.

While it’s become well-known over the years that Duchovny and Anderson didn’t always get along behind the scenes during the X-Files‘ original run, in the years since, both have become good friends, and were in a much better place personally by the time the X-Files revival happened in 2016. Following The X-Files‘ original conclusion in 2002 though, Duchovny moved on to starring in Californication, the overtly TV-MA comedy in which he played sex-obsessed, functional alcoholic writer Hank Moody.

Californication lasted for seven seasons, and while Duchovny earned praise for his performance, his character was best known for having an almost supernatural ability to get just about every woman he met into his bed. Duchovny had many one-night stands on the show, and many X-Files fans wished over the years that Gillian Anderson would guest star as one of these flings, as a call-back to the famous sexual tension between Mulder and Scully. It turns out that Anderson was completely on-board with that idea, and made overtures to do so, but Duchovny rejected the ideae for a fairly simple reason. He was afraid that such a salacious cameo would affect how X-Files fans viewed Mulder and Scully going forward.

It’s not hard to see why some X-Philes would’ve been more than happy to see Duchovny and Anderson get busy onscreen, as while they eventually got together romantically, Mulder and Scully never really did much as far as displaying physical affection in front of the camera. Yet at the same time, Duchovny’s position does make sense. He is protective of The X-Files, and of the award-winning characters that he and Anderson created while leading the show. While they certainly wouldn’t have been playing Mulder and Scully on Californication, anyone who had watched The X-Files would likely still see them that way.

Mulder and Scully’s relationship always had a tinge of innocence to it, as while there were clearly sparks between them early on, the two became best friends and trusted FBI agent partners long before they shared their first kiss, much less the first time they made love. To see Duchovny and Anderson getting anything close to as down and dirty as many of Californication‘s infamous sex scenes got would’ve risked forever altering the image of the two actors together, and thus the image of Mulder and Scully together. In that sense, as much as it pained some X-Files fans, Duchovny was right to block an on-screen hookup with Gillian Anderson.

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