Interviews
The following interview with Chris Carter (creator of 'The X-Files') and Gillian Anderson was included on the 'X-Files Movie' videotape (UK release) and was transcribed by Richard Preece.
Chris Carter.
The idea was to do a story that was a kind of culmination of five years of the show and to try and make an event of it which became the movie.I said I'd never show an alien or a spaceship before the fifth season of the show. That is an important piece of the mythology that we're going to play with now and as we come back in season six of the show you're going to see why that alien was the way he was and is and why he is a sort of ferocious, fierce creature.There was a scene written for the movie and it had to do with Mulder's sister who was, he believes abducted when she was eight years old, there was an answer to that, a bigger and more complete answer than we'd ever got before. We realised that it was just too much information so we cut it out, putting it back into the movie though Ithink we are adding something back in that plays to the original spirit and intent of that scene which was to give a big answer to a big question.
We wanted to do something that was both frightening and big enough to justify its inclusion in the movie as a big event. I'm kind of scared of bees myself so just being in the 'Bee Domes' was a big deal for me.I put on a protective outfit and I was in there during the filming which was in the end really exhilarating, because David and Gillian weren't in these 'get ups' so you got to watch them really performing a pretty amazing stunt with live bees, thousands of live bees and my hat's off to David and Gillian for pulling it off because the work that they do is just unbelievably hard.
Gillian Anderson.
There are so many challenges in an action adventure film that involves so many special effects. You know pretending to be in Tunisia or pretending to be in the Antarctic surrounded by green walls and certainly snow beneath us but everything else that you can see beyond us, the landscape and the mountains and everything is all special effects and CGI and computer everything and it's remarkable.The one scene at the end where we're lying in the ice and the snow and it's real ice that we've got our faces pressed against for sometime while they're trying to get the shot, it was very cold.I have to say the most uncomfortable scenes to shoot were in the corn field, I had to run very close behind David so all of the corn that he goes through ends up like thwacking me in the face.we did a lot of stuff attached to wires, we had to get a shot of us sliding down the face of the exterior of the spaceship where we slide forward full speed ahead and drop and at some point the wire goes taut and it catches us before we fall off the edge.I actually wanted to keep going it excites me rather than terrifies me.I have to say that shooting the 'hallway scene' was probably one of my favourites. it was such a momentous moment in the history of these characters and I think I enjoyed that aspect of it a great deal.
Chris Carter.
The movie is pivotal to understanding the series as you go on, along the way we will cover a lot of the ground and explain a lot of the things that the movie may not have explained perfectly. But that's part of the fun of the X-Files, unanswered questions, questions that are answered and the answers are taken away. We're big 'Indian givers' on this TV series, we often say things and learn that they're lies later on becausewe're dealing with so many treacherous characters and I guess I'm a sort of treacherous character in that way too, I'm constantly pulling the rug out from underneath the viewers.So the movie is important to the series, all important you will gain not only a bigger appreciation for the series as it goes forward, but the series as you look back.
BACK