GQ: So has it set in yet that you’re officially retiring Hank Moody’s black T-shirt?
David Duchovny: (Laughs) Thanks for noticing my wardrobe. One of the things I loved about doing the part was that I could pretty much wear the same clothes everyday.
Will Hank be a tough character to let go of? Seems like he would be fun to play.
It was fun. I’ll miss the comedy. That’s always what was the most fun for me was trying to make this stuff funny, and real in a way. That was my motivation to take the job: that it was suited for me rather than other types of comedy being done in movies or television. I’m not denigrating the comedies of today, but a lot of it now is about men acting like children. You know, men being very silly. There are great people doing it, but I couldn’t do that. What I always loved about playing Hank was that he just spoke his mind, and he had kind of a courage to say whatever he felt was true, regardless of whatever the consequences might be.
As Hank says in season 4, it’s Zen and the art of who gives a fuck.
Exactly. And that’s who the guy was. But you know, on the other hand, he did give a fuck about certain things. He wasn’t just a wrecking ball, he was a guy that loved his girl, and he loved his daughter and he wanted his family. Obviously he was not doing the right thing to keep that family together, but those things meant a lot to him. And I kind of liked our family values, even though you’d never think of our show as having them. It was very important for them, the love of their family and trying to keep it together. And, you know, lip service is paid to that on other shows, but I think we tried to make it somewhat realistic in that way, and I thought that was worthwhile.
Yet the show has such a reputation for its bawdier aspects.
It was always a little frustrating to me because nudity and sex are like the red cape to the bull in terms of what people want to talk about. As soon as that comes into play it just obliterates everything else that the show might be about. But you can’t tell people what to feel or what to talk about a show, you just make it and let it go and let it do what it does. I can sit here until I’m blue in the face and say I feel like the show is about love, it’s about family, but people are going to say, no, it’s about nudity. But I know what we were trying to do. Especially in the beginning, the first three or four years, that’s what we did. The last few years it’s been tougher, mostly because Becca, the daughter, got to an age where she didn’t need the parenting that she might have needed in the first few years. So it became less urgent to focus on that area, and as a consequence, the show kind of spun out into crazier and crazier orbits.
Season six especially seemed to steer away from that, and yet the show had its best season ever in terms of ratings.
I know. That’s just the red cape again. I think we probably had the most sex and the most nudity in six. I mean, I can’t give you the figures.
You don’t have those stats ready?
I don’t have the sabermetrics. But, you know, I think that’s kind of the Catch 22 of cable, where people say that sex sells, and then you try to make a show this way and then, you know, the sex sells and you go, “Well, I give up.”
Will this final season bring things back to the family dynamic?
It does, because there’s a surprise this year, which I’m not allowed to talk about, but which will become obvious after the first episode. And that kind of necessitates a return to those issues.
Michael Imperioli is the main guest star this season. His character might be my favorite since Lew Ashby.
Yeah, Michael is great. You know Lew Ashby is a good friend of mine. Well, not Lew but Callum Rennie. He’s a really terrific actor. And we couldn’t really let him go, we kept bringing him back as a ghost because we love him so much. But Michael is great and I’m a big fan of his work. And I love his character too. He’s just kind of a no bullshit guy. The thing for me, and for every season, is that it’s important for Hank to have a legitimate opponent. If Hank has a silly-ass opponent, somebody who’s easy to beat, then he looks like a bully. But if he has somebody who’s a true opponent and who has a point of view that’s interesting and opposite of Hank’s, then you’ve got a good fight. And then the show works. And I think Michael is that guy and that actor.
Californication has always poked fun at show business. But this season, it’s finally going after it’s own medium: TV.
Certainly Tom Kapinos (the creator) has a penchant for attacking show business. It’s kind of like the written word is the hero of the show. You know, the novel. Hank’s identity as a novelist seems sacred and pure and virtuous, whereas he gets screwed up when he tries to turn that into money by making a movie or a television show.
The writer’s revenge.
Yeah, I mean if you talk to Tom about it, it’s always been a fantasy for him. The whole show’s been a fantasy that a writer would be interesting to people. To make a show about a writer and to have that writer be attractive to women and powerful in the world and all these things. It’s just complete wish fulfillment for Tom, and for writers in general, he would say.
Obviously the big question that hangs over the season is, will Hank end up with Karen. In your opinion, do you think Hank should get her? Are you a romantic?
Yeah, I am. When I was first considering doing the show I read the script and I just wasn’t sure what the show was. It’s really just about the character, you know, and that’s always hard to do. And because it was bawdy and it was crude in parts, I said to Tom, this is funny, but I don’t want to do a show that’s about a guy just having these adventures with women. I don’t know what the point of that is. And he said, what if you got it right with a woman the first time, you know, when you’re young, and you screw it up? How do you get it back? So to me, the show was always about, “How does Hank get back with Karen?” But you know, without giving away our ending, I’m happy with it, but it’s not my ending. Because I didn’t write it. I was always one to say, either Hank dies, which I thought was good because, for me, the chickens have to come home to roost at some point. And to have Hank die was going to be realistic to me. And sad, and perhaps powerful. But, you know, either he dies, or he ends up with Karen were my choices.
You directed the first episode of this season, and you’ve directed a few other episodes. Would you like to spend more time behind the camera?
I would. I love doing that. I love directing. I would do it in a second. I think that I will be doing a lot more of that, just because it’s really satisfying to me. I’m really happy when I direct, artistically and personally. And I love working with actors. I love everything about it. I love not having to be in makeup.
What about writing for TV or film?
I’ve written scripts, and the ideas that I have are rarely TV show ideas. Most of the ideas I have are skewed towards the smaller independent film market. But I did get to write for the X Files, I wrote and directed a couple of shows for that. I found that really satisfying. But that was a great frame for me to be given. You’ve got these great characters, all you’ve got to do is come up with a good story and write it. With Californication I never really wanted to write for that because it was so Tom’s voice that I just didn’t even know how to do it. You know, I could write Mulder’s voice, but I don’t know if I could write Hank’s voice in an odd way.
Yet you played the part so naturally.
Yeah, well that’s good. You know that was another thing where I wouldn’t want to write it because it’s always frustrating when people want to confuse you with a character. It’s enough that I’m a producer of the show and I’m the star of the show and I direct a show and then if I was going to write some of the show too, it would sound pretty hollow when I would protest and say no, this guy is not me.
But then I imagine you spent the 90s with everyone thinking you were Fox Mulder.
Exactly. So, you know, that’s just the lot of an actor. And I think it’s a byproduct of success that you have to accept, so that’s cool. I’ll take it.
You’ve now done something that very few TV actors get to do, which is bring to life two fairly iconic TV characters. Would you go for the hat trick and try another TV series?
Yeah, just yesterday I signed on to do a limited TV series run on NBC called Aquarius, which takes place in 1960’s L.A. during the time of the Manson murders. It’s kind of a meditation on America turning from the ‘50s to the ‘60s to the ‘70s. It’s a really interesting period for me and I’m looking forward to it. And I’m playing a cop, which is so different from playing Hank Moody for the last seven years. Now whether or not it’s going to be iconic, you never know.
Before acting, you wanted to be a poet and a writer. Have you kept up with that?
I hadn’t until this past year. I wrote a, I don’t know if I’d call it a novel because it’s kind of short. Novella sounds weird. Who knows what a novella is? But it’s going to be published next year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. It’s kind of a fable. I don’t know if it’s a kid’s book, I can’t describe it, but it stars animals. But it also has grown up philosophical and political themes. So it’s this weird kind of hybrid thing that I hope people will enjoy. And then I also got into music the past few years, which I’ve always been a big music fan, but I learned how to play guitar. And then I’d always written poetry. I didn’t think I was a good enough poet to be a real poet, but I thought I was a good enough poet to be a good lyricist. So I started to write songs. And now we’re going to make an album. I have about 20 songs and we’ll choose ten or eleven. We’re going to record probably next month.
Did you have any influence on the music in Californication? Obviously Hank is big Warren Zevon fan.
Oh, yeah, Zevon. That just kind of happened, because I wasn’t a Zevon fan and neither was Tom. And then for some reason, I just got into him, and I started reading about him and he kind of became an inspiration for the character. And then the songs, I was just blown away. I’d never really taken a look at this guy and seen what a great songwriter he was, and what a great lyricist he was. And Tom didn’t know either, so we kind of discovered him together. And then he was just woven in throughout all the years. And Tom is a huge music guy and took pretty seriously the music that was on the show. So most of the choices were his. I remember once driving to work and telling him that I’d just listened to Elton John’s “High Flying Bird,” which was an old song from the ‘70s, and we ended up putting that at the end of season one. So yeah, there were times when I would say, I like this song and we would try to get it in.
Last question: Hank Moody or Fox Mulder: who wins in a fist fight?
(Laughs) I think, well I think Moody does because he’ll probably fight dirty. But Mulder’s got a gun, so I don’t know. I don’t know where that goes.
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