People 2/16/98
Talking With. . . The Lone Gunmen
The X-Files' Eccentric Eggheads
"Trust No One" - One of the key mantras of The X-Files - should
perhaps be ammended to: "Trust no one - except three computer geeks
named Frohike, Byers, and Langly." These self-described Lone Gunmen
are the amusingly paranoid amateur slueths to whom FBI agent Fox
Mulder (David Duchovny) turns whenever he needs to flesh out his
seemingly wacko theories of UFO abductions and high-level cover-ups.
This week (9 p.m. ET, Feb. 15 on Fox), the trio help Mulder and his
partner, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), explain the weird death of
a computer genius.
"They're our comic relief," says co-=executive producer Frank Spotnitz.
"But they also reflect the paranoia that surrounds the role the
government plays in our lives."
"Whatever we represent, people seems to have locked into it," says Tom Braidwood, 49, an X-Files assistant director who doubles as the
diminutive Frohike and, with his fellow Gunmen, is often mobbed at
X-Files conventions. Indeed, Bruce Harwood, 24, a Canadian actor who
plays the buttoned-down Byers, observes, "I've met people {there} who
thought they had been kidnapped by aliens." Adds Dean Haglund, 32, a
Vancouver-based stand up comic who plays the long-haired Langly:
"Military personnle tell me all about freaky things that happened on
their base." The actors say they're skeptical of conspiracy theories.
Except. . . "sometimes we hear clicking noises when we're talking on
the phone," says Haglund. "Isn't that what a phone being tapped sounds
like?"
Craig Tomashoff
(
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