William B Davis at the Kennedy Space Center 5/27

I finally got to meet someone from the XF--which is something I never thought would happen. :o) Although I attempted to reach the Space Center early for the 11:00 speech, but between the looong lines, this crazy tour stuff they send you through to reach the Saturn V building, we were too late for the first one. We arrived there at 12 and WBD had already finished autographs and left. So we waited for the 1:00pm speech, and it was great. Now my cameraman wasn't a big help...LOL...and kept cutting off here and there. So I've added what WBD said below, minus a part or two, but I summarize the missing parts at the bottom.

This is the entrance to the KSC Visitor Complex	These are the buses that took us on an extra 40 min detour to the Saturn V building.	This is the Apollo/Saturn V building from the bus. This is where WBD gave his speech.
He steps up to the podium	"....and she screamed!"	Still speaking and smiling
Taking a quick drink while the mic man is running around	Wrapping up the speech	I took this while still in line--he's giving autographs

________________________________________________
THE SPEECH AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
________________________________________________
WBD: "Hi. <<looks to the group in the front row>> So, now you just sit through all of them or just..."

WBD: "Aw. I'm touched. Thank you, thank you. Except now I don't know what to say because you've heard what I had to say so now....ah...so I can do a little talk about evolutionary biology and, ah, the reasons no life is out there...but I won't do that. I think I'll talk about the X-Files.

If you'll ask me questions I will be able to answer them, so let me see if I can tell you what I do know.

I do know there will be a season 8, which most of you know now, and we know that ah, David will be in some of them. <<pauses while the crowd 'awwws'>> We were hoping I would polish him off and then he wouldn't be in any of them. The series would pivot around Scully and the Cigarette Smoking Man solving crimes. <<round of applause>>

All you do is suggest ideas, they don't necessarily fly. What can I say. <<laughter>>

Um, I don't know, it's a funny thing to say, but I don't know if I'm alive or dead. Raises all sorts of metaphysical questions. But if you saw the last episode, you saw that I was pushed down the stairs...in quite a crash. You'll be pleased to know that it wasn't me rolling down the stairs...at least that I was pleased to know it wasn't me rolling down the stairs. But it *was* a person--it was a stunt double and he did it twice...and he got up at the end of it and said 'Oh, I'm fine.' The director said to him before we did it, when everything was set up, 'Well, have a good ride!.' I think I wouldn't want to be a stunt person.

Anyway, I think we'll just open it up for questions or discussion. There's a man with a microphone who goes around....

________________________________________________________________
camera is off for a few mins. We pick back up when WBD is talking about Mulder.
________________________________________________________________

WBD: <<talking about if Mulder knew the things CSM did>> "Do you trust him with that information?! No! He'll go on Larry King live and blab it to the world--it'll be panic! But suppose Cigarette Smoking Man gets what he wants--which is to cover every...."

WBD: "Well, apparently so...which is to cover everything up. Then what will happen? Nothing. You won't know! I could go on and on and on....I mean, who's sacrificing more...Mulder or CSM? CSM sacrificed his health, he sacrificed..."

WBD: "Cassandra. What's Mulder sacrificed? He's doing what he wants to do and he's doing it with a beautiful woman. I man, what kind of sacrifice is that?

And actually, I have this problem with Mulder. Ah, I don't know about the rest of you, but I think he's a virgin. <<huge round of laughter>>

But, I mean, can you imagine working for 7 years with a very attractive woman and never making a pass at her? I mean, what can I say. CSM got one chance. Close. Anyway, what was the question again?" <<more laughs>>

Man in audience: "Have you ever had any nasty confrontations from members of the public due to your character?"

WBD: "People have been very nice to me, and most people I know do distinguish between the actor and the character, but I had a couple. There was one time I was standing in an elevator in Portland and a woman got on the elevator, just the two of us in the elevator, and we were kinda looking at the front, you know, the way one does on an elevator, and then after a moment I saw her eyes kind of start to go like this <<his eyes slowly move to the corner>> and then she screamed: <<laughing>> 'Oh my god you look like that scary guy in the X-Files!' When I said I was the scary guy in the X-Files, she said 'Wait a minute I gotta get my friends' and I had to do autographs.

Then there was a time in (sp?)Sascatoon and I was doing a talk and the organizers knew this particular person was a fan of the show and thought he would like to come and see the talks, so they made sure they would tell him about it. He said, 'Well, if *he's* coming, *I'm* cetainly not going, and if I did go I'd probably kill him.' So that was a little scary. They don't actually come up to me and say that. Hey, where did the man with the microphone go?"

Well, driving in, you know, you see these buildings, and you think....I mean, how do we know that they're being used for what they say they're being used? <<laughter>> It's a pretty impressive place."

Guy in Audience: "I enjoyed the episode you wrote and directed. I was wondering if you would be doing any others?"

WBD: "Thank you....." Camera cuts here, but in summary, his answer was, not at this time.

___________________________________________________
Camera cuts for a few mins again.
___________________________________________________

WBD: <<referring to how he would have made refrences to the Pilot in a later episode, trying to have CSM flirting with Scully>> "I had refrences back to the Pilot. We talked about 'Remember that look in the hall?' and she <Scully> says, 'Oh yeah, that was really intimidating' and CSM says 'That was pure lust' <<laughing>> and she says, 'You really scared me that first meeting when you were over by the filing cabinet' and I said 'Yeah, I really had to lean on it because it just couldn't handle it.' I didn't get to do any of that. <<audience laughing>>

Um, what was the question again...<<more laughs>>...oh yes, how the character had developed.

But it's...it's been very interesting to see it grow first as a powerful instrument, I suppose, in the conspiracy, then become more and more of a person. It's been fun.

______________________________________________________
Another cut from the camera, but only about 30 seconds--it had been switched over to me, thank goodness!
_______________________________________________________

<<The question he is answering had been something along the lines of: The term Cancerman was never used for the longest time after it had been used once--did the tobacco industry have anything to do with that?>>

WBD: "...once called me Cancerman, and that kind of caught on with the fans and they wanted him to do it again, but David wouldn't repeat himself, so he's called me black lunged son of a bitch <<audience laughs>> among other things....but I don't think he's ever called me Cancerman again. I don't know if that term was used again until Requiem, this last episode, where Marita Covarrubias...."

WBD: "I got it. I think I got it right. <smiles> So it just came in for a while and it sort of drifted back, but it's sort of a fan base name."

Mic Guy: "Okay, anybody else with questions? Okay." <<he's still squeezing around the chairs>>

Girl from Audience: "What is like a typical day for you on the set of the X-Files?"

WBD: "In a way, as an actor it's hard to say a typical day, because our days vary a great deal, whether we're in for the whole day or whether they were just shooting part of the day. But a typical X-Files day on the set...it would start, ah, well, it could start at anytime. It could start anywhere from 6 in the morning till 3 or 4 in the afternoon, depending on if it was a night shoot or a day shoot. You can pretty much count for another 15 hours after that at least--the days are very long. It's a great deal of waiting around...for pretty much everybody on a film set. So it's hard to say what one day is....hanging around for 4 hours in a trailer until they're finally ready for you to being on set and kinda being there all the time.

Man from Audience: "Do you know your character's real name or has it always been CSM?"

WBD: "Well, there seems to be a theory, since my wife's name was Spender and my son's name was Spender, then perhaps my name is, in fact, Spender. <<audience laughs>> But....but CGB Spender--I don't know what CGB stands for. But I don't have confidence in that <<more laughs>> I haven't settled with that really as my name. I need a name--I use it, but I'm not sure if it's true."

Man from Audience: "When you're living in Toronto what's your opinion about moving from Canada to LA?"

WBD: "Ah, yeah, just, ah, I'm just kinda a bit touchy...I don't live in Toronto, I live in Vancouver.

I'm sorry the show moved as much for the show as anything else. The look of the show is different when it shoots in California and there's nothing they can do about it. I mean, even Requiem, where they went all the way up to Big Bear Mountain in order to get foliage that was something like Oregon, but the light's different. The sun *etches.* The show is built on gloom and haze and not sure what's real and what's not real, so it's changed the show by moving to Los Angeles. For me personally it has it's good points and bad points. It's not bad at all for me to spend time in LA and make contacts there, so that's a plus really."

Girl from Audience: "What is the attitude on the set now with the lawsuit against 1013 and just the general relationship between the actors on set is. Is it jovial, happy, is it kind of morose?"

WBD: "It's actually a difficult question to answer in some ways because I think people have the idea that the show is a little like a stage play since all of the actors are there and are rehearsing all the time. I can go for months and not see either Gillian or David....or Mitch. It depends who we're working with and so we could be in the episode, but your scenes aren't with them. So...so there isn't a general atmosphere in that sense because it depends who is together at the same time. I think everybody is fairly relaxed now. There were periods of tension. I think it was a little awkward, I know, ah, I was having meetings with Frank Spotnitz--we were doing Amor Fati, the second episode of the season that David wrote, and so I came to Frank Spotnitz's office and Frank would be on the phone to David, something about that episode, and then he'd relay it to Chris, and then Chris would relay his response back to Frank who would send it to David, because Chris and David weren't talking to each other."

_________________________________________________
I pass the camera back at this point...I know, bad mistake. *L*
_________________________________________________

<<He has been asked a question about how the tv show and the movie were different>>

WBD: "The movie was fun to do. It was very different to do. The waiting around we have on television is multifold on films because they take so long to do everything. Instead of doing 2-3 takes on a particular shot we would do 30 takes on a particular shot. I got so tired of hearing: 'Going again. Going again.' Every time a shot would finish, 'Cut. Going again.' Well, what didn't you like this time? <<crowd laughs>> It's just a different process.

Guy from Audience: "Hi. Do you think that Chris Carter maybe got the idea of your character from an actual guy in the government?"

WBD: <<chuckles>> "I've never asked him that. I know he's kind of a conspiracy buff...but I don't know if there was an actual person. I don't know--maybe I'm his father. <<crowd laughs>> So there's a thought! We haven't spread that rumor--CSM is Chris Carter's father! <<lots of laughing>>

WBD: "Maybe I don't know whether to tell you the age I was or the year it was. I think I'll tell you the age I was. I was 11 when I started acting. My cousins ran a summer theater company and they needed a kid in one of their plays. I was sort-of close. That started me.

Girl from Audience: "Besides the one you wrote, what was your favorite episode?"

WBD: <<looks to the front row since this girl was sitting there.>> "She wasn't here for the first show, was she? <smiles> Now there's been so many. That was an easy question to answer 4 years ago, but now it's got more difficult. I still really think fondly of Talitha Cumi, which was the season finale of season 3. We had kidnapped this alien shape changer. We had him in this cell and I had all of these debates with him. That's also really when I had my first scene with Mrs. Mulder and that was my first thwarted attempt at a love interest. I kept thinking that was going to develop, then she died, then they gave me Fowley, and I thought that was going to develop, then she died, then I got interested in Scully, so they killed me off." <<round of laughter, WBD included>>

Girl in Front: "In the episode you wrote, there was a....Marjorie Butters I think, there were some rumors going around that was actually to be CSM's mother. Was that what it was intended to be?"

I mean, it's true that there was a draft at one point. It wasn't actually my idea, but there was a draft that did have her be my mother. And basically, I did the math and said that was 112, ah, and I'm whatever age...anyway, it worked out that she would have given birth to me when she was 62. It really didn't make sense that she could be my mother, so we dropped that. She had just became someone that I had taken care of."

____________________________________
The rest was cut, much to my dismay. But I do remember the highlights! There were questions about Scully's pregnancy in which he replied (I do have this right before the tape ends) "Judging by the way she acted to me during my episode, I don't think she would have been so pleased if it had been CSM's"

Someone questioned about GA being pregnant in which he talked about it, joking that it wasn't entirely crazy for a person to have two children.

He also talked about how he, Jim Neville, and Chris Owens used to hang out together.

Someone asked about the reported two different endings that had been filmed for Requiem, depending on which one would air from the fate of the show. He said there were never two alternate endings and nothing was cut. The last page of the script was missing which said "Scully/Skinner wrap up" but he speculates that that scene might have gone differently if the show had ended with S7.
_____________________________________

So that was my day! It was very hot outside and crowded with tourists, but when finally getting to WBD's second speech, everything else was forgiven! I have some pictures on the way in a few days, so I'll put them up when I get them. :o)

William B. Davis at the Kennedy Space Center May 27