By Chris Snellgrove | Published
When you are a television director, it’s always a pleasant surprise when you learn that one of your stars is naturally great for making your own stunts. It’s something that X-Files Director Rw Goodwin discovered during the shooting of the final of season 1 of his Spooky program, “The Erlenmeyer Flask”. A scene involved that Fox Mulder jumped a fence and flowed into the alley, and while David Duchovny made this waterfall, Goodwin discovered that the leading actor was too fast for the cameras to follow.
David Duchovny was too good in cascades
Goodwin is a veteran director, and he had a simple plan to shoot this scene … in particular, having a cameraman leading on a vehicle to follow the actor. In this case, however, David Duchovny was so fast while doing the blow that the cameraman and his walk just couldn’t follow. As Goodwin described it later, “I had a golf cart with which to start and he just passed it like, you know, a lightning.”
If you are a more relaxed fan of X-FilesYou might be surprised to learn that David Duchovny did this one himself. However, the actor has often preferred to make his own stunts when possible, tell Roller In 1995, “if you were going to shoot it and I will do it, at least see that it’s me.” He did not do this for the good of his ego but for the good of his fans, saying: “If it is the real actor” who makes these stunts, “it is generally more exciting than shooting a double”.
When recording the comment for “The Erlenmeyer Flask”, Rw Goodwin said that David Duchovny could have had a double, but only for the first part of this blow. “I think we may have used stuntmen in a large wide blow through the fence, but, for the most part, that was all that David and the problem we had here was to follow with him.” The director solved this problem personally by improving his journey: “In the end, I ended up having to be on a regular van which could travel up to fifty miles on time just to follow him.”
A part of what helped David Duchovny to do this waterfall was his size: six feet high, the long legs of the actor allow him to run quickly, but they also often overcome the Costar Gillian Anderson, who measures 5’3 ”. To make the characters appear in reference to his first name. Speaking of references, the first film of X-Files made the difference in height Mulder in Scully that he always insisted on driving because “I was never sure that your little feet could reach the pedals.”
As this film was shot, X-Files Cast and Crew was very familiar with the speed of David Duchovny and how he sometimes passed out loud to racing shoes to make the stunts more realistic. Fans also started to notice these racing shoes and were particularly amused by the fact that poor Gillian Anderson had to do all his race in heels. These shoes were something of a necessary harm, however, because the actor could not stay on his box all the time, and the high heels helped him to appear a little closer to Duchovny when they were talking next to each other.
The speed of David Duchovny and the general sporting capacities were well known after a few years, but they took everyone by surprise during the shooting of the final of season 1.. Fortunately, the blow worked fabulously, and Duchovny doing his own race scenes and other major waterfalls has quickly become a must in the series.
