X Files Creator Says Studio Execs Asked Wheres the Sex Appeal? About Gillian An

June 2024 · 4 minute read

“The X-Files” creator Chris Carter is not involved in the upcoming reboot, which is being shepherded by “Black Panther” filmmaker Ryan Coogler. In a new interview with Inverse, Carter said he has no reservations about letting someone else put their stamp on his beloved franchise.

“It’s interesting, people say, ‘Aren’t you possessive of it?’ And I say, ‘No, I’m looking forward to seeing what somebody else does with it,’” Carter said, adding that he had a “really nice conversation” with Coogler when the latter first pitched his idea for an “X-Files” reboot to Fox.

“I just asked him what his ideas were, and he told me, and I said, ‘Those sound like good ideas,’” Carter said. “No matter what, he’s got a hard job. Casting is a hard job. Mounting it is a hard job. All the problems that I dealt with are going to be his problems.”

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There’s also another factor that is going to make an “X-Files” reboot hard: Conspiracy theories are now the norm thanks to social media. In Carter’s “X-Files,” David Duchovny’s Mulder was a criminal profiler and a conspiracy theorist who believed in the supernatural. Gillian Anderson’s Scully was a medical doctor and a conspiracy skeptic.

“Everything’s a conspiracy,” Carter sighed while talking to Inverse. “No one knows what the truth is. It’s completely subjective and relative now.”

Carter pointed to the conspiracy theories that erupted over Kate Middleton’s public absence last month. She ultimately revealed she had stepped back from the spotlight due to a cancer diagnosis.

“Can you imagine, first of all, being sick — but then everyone’s got a take on it?” Carter said. “The most private thing becomes the most public thing, and then the most misunderstood thing.”

Whether or not Duchovny and Anderson feature in Coogler’s “X-Files” reboot remains to be seen. Carter remembered Fox executives not exactly embracing his casting choices when he pitched the two actors in the early 1990s. The studio wanted a bombshell like Pamela Anderson to play Scully.

“Where’s the sex appeal?” Carter remembered studio executives asking him. “Even though Gillian’s beautiful, she wasn’t their idea of sexy. First, because they didn’t understand what I was trying to do with the show. And she was an unknown, so that never helps.”

Head over to Inverse’s website to read Carter’s latest interview in its entirety.

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