David Duchovny Biography

Once often called "the thinking woman's sex symbol," Duchovny graduated from Princeton with a degree in English Literature, earned his Masters at Yale and was on the verge of getting his Ph.D. when he decided to pursue acting (his first job was a Lowenbrau beer ad). He got the lead in Showtime's erotic series Red Shoe Diaries before landing his career-making role in 1993 investigating aliens as FBI Agent Fox Mulder on the hit sci-fi show The X-Files. For better or worse, Duchovny decided it was time to leave after eight seasons. As beloved as his character was, audiences never warmed up to the movies he made during and after the show — other than the semi-hit The X-Files movie — and he returned to TV for the cable series Californication.


1. He offered the role of the mother in House of D to Meryl Streep, who turned it down.
2. He was the title character in the video game XIII.
3. He is a big-time sports fan and was a star on his high school basketball team.
4. He met his wife Téa Leoni on the set of The Tonight Show. They didn't see each other for six years until their mutual agent suggested they meet; he proposed four months later.
5. Some press outlets have accused him of being a sex addict, which he has denied.


"At the risk of being too deep, destiny is really just story-telling. That's what we do when we tell stories. We try to make sense out of what happened, we try to give it meaning. So I think it's all chaos and it doesn't make sense until we tell the story."
— IO Film, 2000


Wife: Téa Leoni, actress; born Feb. 25, 1966; married May 6, 1997
Daughter: Madelaine West Duchovny, born Apr. 24, 1999
Son: Kyd Miller Duchovny, born June 15, 2002


2008: Golden Globe: Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Comedy/Musical), Californication

1999: Golden Globe nomination: Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Drama), The X-Files

1998: Golden Globe nomination: Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Drama), The X-Files

1997: Golden Globe: Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Drama), The X-Files

1996: Golden Globe nomination: Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series (Drama), The X-Files


The X-Files: I Want to Believe - (2008) - Actor
Things We Lost in the Fire - (2007 ) - Actor
The TV Set - (2007) - Actor
Trust the Man - (2006) - Actor
House of D - (2005) - Director
View all films


http://duchovny.net/