KTOslin at the Haven found this:
pic:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/photoExpansion.jsp?id=7361
article:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2006/04/28/news/15455.shtml
Friday, April 28, 2006
BEYOND THE GATE
Duchovny '82 shares X-periences in showbiz
By Brett Amelkin
Princetonian Senior Writer
Photo by Leslie Lee
In a room swarming with "X-Philes" and adoring, middle-aged
women, actor David Duchovny '82 was enthusiastically welcomed
back to campus Thursday by a camera-happy crowd.
Duchovny's visit, which included a lecture at the James
Stewart Theater and a dinner in the Rockefeller College private
dining room, marked his first public appearance on campus since
his graduation.
The actor, casually dressed in jeans and a white T-****rt,
was equally casual in disposition, frequently launching into the
type of self-deprecating, ironic humor that is his trademark.
Recalling his years on campus, for instance, Duchovny
remembered thinking that pursuing an acting career was a bizarre
choice for a Princeton student. When his Blair Hall roommate
would discuss acting during late-night chats, Duchovny said he
rolled his eyes.
"What an idiot! You came here to act!" he recalled thinking.
"'Why would you come to Princeton to act?' Fortunately for me,
I haven't run into him since I [became] an actor."
Duchovny, an English major, described how failing at campus
athletics led him to his eventual career.
"I wanted to play baseball and basketball very badly,
but no one wanted me to do that very badly," he said.
What he missed about not participating in s****ts, he said,
was the "collaborative aspect of the team."
"When I was 26 or 27, I found myself gravitating towards an
acting class because I wanted to write. It was that sense of
collaboration that I wanted," he said. "Just the weird form
that life takes."
After graduating from Princeton, Duchovny attended graduate
school at Yale to earn a master's degree in English literature.
He dropped out before earning a Ph.D., though, with no
particular direction in mind.
"I left graduate school to do nothing. I didn't leave for
anything. I just left. There wasn't a plan," he said.
This is when Duchovny seriously started to pursue acting,
he said.
Now, with almost 20 years of show business experience,
Duchovny is a household name, due in large part to his
career-making role as Agent Mulder in the science fiction
TV drama, "The X-Files."
Duchovny went on to star in such movies as "Return to Me,"
"Zoolander" and the 2004 film "House of D," which he also wrote
and directed.
Even after his acting success, though, Duchovny said that
when he began directing, he was filled with fear and self-doubt.
"I don't know anything about anything," he recalled feeling.
"I thought, 'I'm screwed. I'm an imposter. It's wrong for me
to be here. Hopefully I'll lose my money and I won't have to
be here. Oh that'd be great!' "
Despite his initial apprehension, Duchovny has learned to
trust his artistic intuition.
"I'm here to tell you that all you have is your instinct,
which is the most wonderful and terrifying thing as an artist,"
he said. "You are going to learn your craft and your skills,
but in the end, all you have is something you couldn't learn
and have no control over, something that speaks through you."
"The most fun and the most satisfying is the work I do by
mistake," he added. "You prepare so that the mistakes go the
right way."
Duchovny was introduced by comparative literature professor
Maria DiBattista, who knew the actor during his time on campus.
In her remarks, DiBattista read from Duchovny's senior
thesis on Samuel Beckett and said that Duchovny "arrests
our attention by giving a kind of consistency," ****traying
"personalities who convey a kind of comic edginess."
She added that Duchovny has been the "only visitor who
actually inspired a song," referring to musician Bree Sharpe's
ode "David Duchovny."
Following his lecture, Duchovny was asked a series of
episode-specific questions by die-hard fans of "The X-Files"
who were sitting in the first few rows of the audience.
Elizabeth Landau '06 asked Duchovny which episode was his
favorite and whether he believed in aliens.
"Probably not," he responded to the latter question.
"I find it unlikely that life is in only one place, but I don't
believe that we've been contacted."
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