Duchovny Does A One-Eighty
David Duchovny of X-Files fame has a new film in the works. It's about an alien life force that quickly evolves into a monster-size problem. But this is no sci-fi thriller -- it's actually a comedy. CBS News Early Show Entertainment Contributor Laurie Hibberd recently visited the movie set in Los Angeles.
You don't expect stars like David Duchovny and Hannibal's Julianne Moore to make us laugh. But both of their careers are evolving, thanks to the new movie Evolution.
In Evolution, an asteroid hits Arizona, unleashing a rapidly evolving alien life force that threatens to conquer the planet. Who better to save the world than Duchovny and Orlando Jones?
"Certain people ask me, 'Is David Duchovny funny in the movie?' I say he's hilarious. He's absolutely hysterical, and don't ask me again," quipped Jones, as he pretended to demand a kiss from Duchovny, in payment for praising him.
Duchovny plays a university professor and Jones is his trusted right-hand man. As for the scientist played by Moore, "She's somebody who is kind of together intellectually but physically clumsy," explained Moore.
How come director Ivan Reitman (who also directed Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day) chose Moore and Duchovny for a comedy?
"David Duchovny is one of the funniest people you can meet. He's always had this great sense of wit and irony," said Reitman.
Although people now associate Duchovny with X-Files, he has played in comedies, such as Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and Beethoven, which was also directed by Ivan Reitman.
Moore has been in such comedies as The Big Lebowski and Nine Months (playing the pregnant woman), as well as the light-hearted Cookie's Fortune.
Duchovny remarked that acting school was no help in preparing him to act in a big-screen science fiction film.
Of course no one has to give comedy lessons to funny man Orlando Jones, even when just reacting to a special effect.
"It is surreal, honestly," Jones said, as he mimicked how Reitman directs them to act scared of an alien monster. "It's coming at you! It's coming at you, duck!...Look to the left, you see it...now, look back. It's scary again. It's bigger!"
Duchovny says there are some days when, "I'll call my wife, my agent, and say 'This is ridiculous. I have made a huge mistake.' But in any movie, there is that moment when you do that — lots of moments when you do that. I mean, your career is filled with such moments. In fact, that's most of life, is just thinking, 'I just made a huge mistake.'"
Will Evolution be a big mistake for Duchovny? We won't know for months yet. It opens nationwide on June.
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