'The Truth' DVD commentary by Kim Manners

Transcript of the DVD Audio Commentary by Kim Manners for the episode 'The Truth'

Transcribed by: Libby
Edited by: X_Follower

Hi, this is Kim Manners. I had the pleasuring of directing fifty-three episodes of The X-Files. This is episode 52, and it was a very emotional time. I'd been on the show for seven and a half years, and this is the culmination of a really very privileged career.

This was shot up in Fresno, California. This is actually an electrical generating plant that runs between two lakes, and the tunnel you're about to see is actually over a mile long. This tunnel descends several thousand feet underground, and it was very cold.

This interior you're about to see is the electrical generating plant main room and we turned it into what we called the war room, it was supposed to be a secret government facility. All of that is set dressing that we brought in, there's actually really nothing in this room except a large generator that pumps the water between the two lakes back and forth.

I think that we spent four or five days lighting this set. We had a rigging crew in here and it just took forever to light it, but once we had it lit, basically all we had to do is flip a switch and we were lit for almost anything we wanted to do. Bill Roe, who was our cinematographer, did a great job with this.

[Mulder enters a room with the main computer terminal.]

Now, this was shot on a sound stage at 20th Century Fox studios, this is actually a set we built, and we hung a large piece of glass in mid-air, and everything that you see coming up on the glass is all computer generated.

Enter Adam Baldwin.

This is Mike Smith, he's on cables, he's just got thrown through that large piece of glass I was talking about earlier. Special effects team loaded an explosive on it so just as he hit it they blew it up.

[Mulder is running down the tunnel.]

Now this is back up in Fresno.

And yes, that was the ghost of Alex Krycek.

[Alarm sounds.]

Mark Snow, hey, boy, can he put some music on a soundtrack or what?

This is atop a large crane in that electrical generating room, and we're getting ready to do a high fall here. This was about eighty feet above the ground. That stuntman is actually on a cable and that's an electrical grid that we created.

That's actually David hanging there, eighty feet above the ground, on a cable.

[Main titles]

Boy, hearing this theme song just chokes me up, been a long time. Some of the nicest actors I ever worked with in my life. Over nine years, nobody ever developed an attitude, everybody was there to work and to do their best job.

[Mulder in the prison cell being tortured by the guard.]

This is all a government set-up to take down Fox Mulder.

We originally shot this, David, and later seeing he's standing on his head doing yoga. (laughs)

[Mulder giving in to the guard's demands and saying he's a guilty man.]

David did an amazing job in this episode.

[Scully and Skinner arrive.]

This was shot at an abandoned military base in Long Beach, MacArthur, I think it is, Fort MacArthur.

[Skinner tells Scully that Mulder is being held for the murder of a military man. Scully goes into Mulder's cell.]

That's one of the few times David ever called Gillian 'Dana'. I never quite understood (laughs) why for nine years we did this show and it was always 'Scully', 'Mulder', 'Scully', 'Mulder'. Why not 'Fox', 'Dana'? (laughs)

Boy, I gotta tell you it was a privilege to be part of such a great family.

[Mulder says he's clear about the charges against him.]

Fortunately, we had a cast that didn't like to rehearse, which was great. We would block a scene, lay it out, very seldom did the actors not like what I had brought to work, to stage, so we'd block it out. A lot of times with just a second team, and the actors come and say: what do you want, what do you want me to do, and let's go. I'd give the camera operator a rehearsal and the actors always wanted to pull the trigger, you know, take one, take two, take three, and I'm one of those directors, I think that the early takes are always the best, I mean, the more and more and more you go over the material you lose that spontaneity and all of our cast they were wonderful [...], they came in prepared, and they knew the dialogue and, you know, they knew the limited time we had. However, we were given a great opportunity on The X-Files, we shot eight days of main unit and three days of second unit on our one-hour episodes. This, I believe, we shot, if I'm not mistaken, like 25 days on a two-hour, or two-parter I should say, and that's quite a luxury in television.

[Doggett and Reyes argue about whether Rohrer has died or can die. Skinner informs them that Mulder has gone into a secure facility where the so-called shadow government is installed. Skinner tells them of the eye-witness evidence.]

Part of the reason The X-Files experience was so exciting is because over the years we... Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz were always very creative and a lot of that creativity was motivated by need. For instance, when David left the show we brought in Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish. Going to work was constantly… it was a new and exciting experience because we had new blood that seemed to breathe itself into the series, every season. We never did the same show twice, it was truly a remarkable television series.

[General Suveg tells Kersh how the trial is to be conducted.]

It was also an incredible pleasure to work on this show because the actors knew that underplaying a scene, the one you're watching now, almost every scene on The X-Files for that matter, brought the ridiculous into a certain world of reality.

[Mulder's prison cell.]

This is the scene where David originally started standing on his head, (laughs) I think. As I recall we cut around it.

[Scully and Skinner enter the cell.]

Beautifully lit scene. Bill Roe, I think he won two or three ASC awards. He's a brilliant talent.

[Mulder and Scully kiss.]

This was a very tough show for the cast, and myself, because we knew this was it.

[Mulder greets Skinner. They discuss the upcoming trial. Doggett and Reyes arrive.]

[Later, Scully enters the cell and awakens Mulder who is sleeping on the floor.]

Directing scenes like this were really tough. [...] There were days I'd yell 'action' and the tears would roll down my face because I knew David and Gillian and Mitch, the family, this was it. When you work this hard on a television series, and this is the hardest work I've ever done on any television series, in a very long career, you become like prisoners of war, it's painful to work this hard. This show required incredible physical and emotional sacrifice on everybody's part, everybody's part, and when you're all put in that painful position, you bond much closer than what I'll call family, and to say goodbye to those people that you shared this excruciating experience with, as rewarding as it was it was still excruciating, is difficult, you know. There's a bond that we share that we'll never lose.

[Scully cries when she tells Mulder about William. Mulder tells her he's been hiding in New Mexico.]

The lady's a fine actress.

[Scully asks Mulder what he found. He says he can't tell her.]

[The courtroom, empty at present. Skinner enters.]

This was one of the most challenging sequences I've ever had to direct. Chris Carter wanted this to be a Breaker Morant style courtroom, which means there's no spectators, there's no jury. And all I really had to work with were a handful of actors in any given scene, and keep it fresh and keep it alive. There's not a lot of places you can go or cut to, and it was about forty pages between the two-parter that were written in this courtroom. It was an extreme challenge and I think the actors pulled it off really well.

When I read both scripts, I literally was terrified at the challenge of making over forty pages interesting in a courtroom, especially when the actors basically were telling the story of nine years of The X-Files, and I had very few people to cut to. It wasn't like I had a courtroom full of spectators or a jury where I could play tension and back and forth, you know, you only had the five judges on the panel, the prosecuting attorney and Mitch and David and then your witnesses, and they were sitting in a chair, so it was a beautiful set, Corey Kaplan designed a very pretty set, you know, and with the fans helped that I laid back with a big wide lens, and we did some cross-dissolves, and I think, I'd like to think that I was very successful in making forty pages in one room interesting television drama.

[Skinner argues with the Kersh about the nature of the court. Scully is the first witness.]

This was very difficult for the actors, because they had to recap nine years of story. Basically it's all exposition, and for them to pull it off without it becoming boring or mundane was truly difficult. That was a very, very difficult challenge, not only directorially, but for all of the actors as well, because there they were, they had nowhere to go, you know, I could get some movement out of Mitch Pileggi, but everybody else was seated and it was tough, it was tough. We had to keep the camera moving to keep it interesting, and the actors I think did a wonderful job breathing some life into, you know, the story of nine years of The X-Files.

[Scully continues.]

This film was from the feature that Rob Bowman directed.

[Scully says the government learned of the virus in 1947.]

This is interesting because there are many people who swear this is true and that there was a government cover-up, to cover up this crash.

I never forget, about the fourth season of the show, while we were still shooting in Vancouver, we had two CIA agents come to the set who were big fans of the show, and they said: all we can tell you is what you're doing here on The X-Files is not so far from the truth.

The set was inspired by the movie Breaker Morant which I watched, and when you watch Breaker Morant, there's not as much in the courtroom as we did, and I was forced to, you know, creativity I think is born by challenge. If it's easy, anybody can do it, if it's a difficult situation where you're trying to move the camera, make the camera create a mood, get the most out of your actors and you've got forty-plus pages in one room and very few people to work with, it demands that you do something interesting, and I think that myself and the actors kept those courtroom scenes interesting. It held the audience's attention. But then The X-Files was, as I said, it was truly a show about frustration, it was about people who believed and no one else believed them, and it's kind of what Chris Carter went through with Twentieth Century Fox. He had a vision, and it was all Chris' vision, and Fox didn't always agree with his vision. But it turns out, hey, it's good for nine years.

That two-part episode that we shot, everyday that you went to work you knew that was one less day that the family would be together, and we truly were a family, The X-Files, whether we were five years in Vancouver or four years in Los Angeles, both crews and the cast, we spent so many hours together, 75, 80, 85 hours a week, and it was such a… it was a very difficult show to do well because it was so far-out there that what could have been ridiculous everyone worked very hard to make very believable and it was a complete and total effort, every effort had to be concentrated, effort to achieve something that would work, that it would be believable. And, you know, as the CIA agents told me, what we do on The X-Files was not so far from the truth, but to make people believe that Fox Mulder and Dana Scully and Walter Skinner and John Doggett and Annabeth's character, I mean, to make it believable was quite a challenge.

[Spender's testimony.]

That make-up job that Chris Owens endured probably took maybe six hours. Cheri Medcalf, she would come up with these designs and sketches and bring them to myself and Chris and Frank, and the three of us would pow-wow with Vince Gilligan and John Shiban, and, you know, most of those make-up decisions or any creative decision were really kind of done or decided as a team.

I've always told the actors that, any actors there were, exposition can be deadly, but if they breathe some life into it, if they approach it as if it's fresh material, it works. There's something about Chris Carter, I have to take my hat off to him, he knew how to make the words work. Sometimes you would think it was overwritten, it was tedious, but the actors would bring a life and a reality that made it interesting, and Chris knew that somehow, he knew that he was surrounded by enough talented people to make the words real.

[New Mexico.]

This was shot down in Borrego Springs, California.

[Gibson Praise.]

Jeff Gulka was a kid we found in Vancouver who had never acted before in his life. Every time he'd show up I would just be amazed at, you know, how he'd aged and, you know, if we'd gone another couple of seasons he'd probably be smoking cigars. Chris made him a recurrent character.

[Mulder is back in his cell. Mulder and Scully talk and then she leaves. Mulder hears a voice.]

Steven Williams, X, one of the greatest characters, I think, on The X-Files.

[X and Mulder talk.]

Only on The X-Files could a dead man hand Fox Mulder a note. (laughs)

[Doggett and Reyes.]

Mark Snow's one of the most talented men in the business. He's - genius is a pretty big word, isn't it - but Mark is a genius. His music, I always knew once Mark was done with it, it would be an extraordinary achievement. Part of the measure, if you know you've directed a good show, is before the music's on it. If you can watch a show before the music is put in and you like it, that's quite an accomplishment. And then I knew it was going to go to Mark, so if I liked it and then it was on its way to Mark's, it was going to be a very special episode. Mark's a very talented man.

[Courtroom. Marita Covarrubias.]

Every actor that's come in here, guest actor, they all said the same thing, that they immediately feel like they're part of the family. And this is a very big, very unique, very loving, very tight-knit family of people, this crew. And again it's because it's such a difficult show to produce. It's very, very tough for every, every department. And they work so hard to get it right, not only get it right but to make it the best they can. Everybody's very proud of the show, very proud of being a part of it, a lot of our departments have won Emmys, and deservedly so. But you become much closer than any other crew, I think, because it takes so much effort, so much teamwork, that it's the most special family I've had, and I've been in this business since I was three years old in one form or another, I grew up on the set with my dad, my brother and sister were in the business, are in the business, and I've been with a lot of families over the years. But nothing ever could touch this family, it's the closest family I've ever had the pleasure to work with.

I've known about lenses since I was a kid. I learnt to direct by watching directors who didn't know how to direct. Directors who would waste time, who didn't know what their next setup was. I do my homework at home. When I come to work on Monday, I can tell you what the last shot Friday afternoon is going to be. And I know what lenses I want, and it's just the way I direct, it's the way I've always directed. And I grew up in the business so that's another reason I know what lenses to use. You know, I've seen a lot of films and, I don't know, it's second nature to me.

It was good to have David back. I think everybody was glad that David was back for the last two hours. Myself, Robert, Annabeth, you know, this has been a long journey and it's really been about Scully and Mulder and to wrap up the series we had to have David back. And he was glad to be back, I think, I could see it in his eyes. I remember saying: did he enjoy his time off, he said that he spent a lot of time thinking about his X-Files family and wondering what we were doing, and no matter what time of day or night he wondered that, he knew the answer was we were working. David, I think, had a really good time. It was a lot of fun to direct him again. When he left here (laugh), I would give him a piece of direction, he'd say go sit down, but this time he was happy to take my direction. He was happy to be back with the family. I think he was very happy to work with Gillian again. And it was a lot of fun, it was a great way to send off this series to have him back.

These sequences in this courtroom, my favorite moments are the ones where no one speaks. They have such expression, it just says it all. I've always thought as a director that what isn't said is much more important than what is said, and this is a great example of that.

[Gibson Praise. Skinner and Mulder confirm that Gibson can read minds. Gibson points to one particular judge.]

The Toothpick Man.

[Gibson says that the judge is not human. Mulder reacts to that and is forcibly removed from the courtroom.]

[Doggett: What's left for us on The X-Files?]

There's a poignant line.

[Back in the courtroom, Skinner calls Doggett.]

Working on The X-Files was an incredible experience. I mean, Bill Roe was a fabulous cinematographer. I worked with the best special effects people. Tommy Doherty, our key grip. Jono, our gaffer. I mean, these guys were extraordinary. I would go to them as a director and say: listen, I've got some challenges here, I need your help. And you're talking to a key grip and a lighting gaffer, and they were so enthusiastic that I would come to them and ask them for input and ideas and certain themes or night exteriors or how can we make this look different. I mean, we invented, or Jono I should say, I did an episode where we're shooting in a slaughterhouse and we had, I don't know, a thousand dead pigs hanging upside down. But we needed to create pig shadows, so we had to cut little paper pigs in front of the lights, and so we called that a piguloris because a cuculoris is a piece of equipment the grips use to create little spotty light effects, but we had chapulorises, we had a piguloris, and the guys really enjoyed, you know, the different things they got to do. And then you had Cheri Medcalf and Dena Green, two of the greatest make-up and hair people I've ever worked with. I mean, everyone, the prop department, Danny Weselis our stunt coordinator never got anybody hurt. We did some outrageous stunt work on the show. It was just a wonderful experience, you know, one I miss actually. Barry Thomas was my first assistant director, the best, Barry Thomas was the best. He directed an episode and did a wonderful job on it. You know, he was doing The X-Files, this guy is a big-time feature first AD. He's done some huge films. But he loved The X-Files. And we had Nina and Paula, two second ADs that were just terrific. We had the best team there was. Tim Silver was our production manager, Harry Bring our producer, Michelle MacLaren, co-exec producer with myself, and I've mentioned Vince and John and Frank. It was a real collaborative effort and I've got to hand it to Chris Carter because he put together a tremendous team of people, and he inspired you to dig as deep as you could and do the best work you could, because with Chris it's all about the work, it's about nothing else but the work.

[Reyes' testimony.]

I'd forgotten exactly how many pages were in this courtroom. There were only so many angles, so many things you could do.

To be a part of what I consider television history, I believe, I truly believe that one day this show will be held up with the likes of I Love Lucy, The Fugitive, the important television shows, groundbreaking television shows. And to be a part of that history is remarkable.

[Flashback to Scully, Mulder and baby William.]

That baby is our executive producer John Shiban's son.

My dad taught me something a long, long time ago. He said you've always got to treat your crew with respect. I'm no better than the crew, I've always treated crews that way. Crews respect me because I respect them. I learn everybody's name, I know everybody's name, I call everybody by name, I thank everybody, shake everybody's hand at the end of the day. And it's not an act, these people are largely responsible for whether or not I come off looking good. They're my tools, they're my paintbrush, and I have to give them all the credit for that, and they know that about me, you know, so they treat me like I am the heart and soul of the show, maybe the godfather. Chris may be the boss, you know, but I'm kind of the crew's spiritual leader, you know, and it's just that way because they're my guys and gals, and I'm their director, you know. We work together as a team, I'm not the most important person out there, they are, and they appreciate that, but I know that. I mean, George, the dolly grip, all I've got to do is look at George, and I can say: George, [...] get in, and he knows exactly what I'm talking about. I'm just playing with him, you know, but he knows exactly what I mean, and I'm just talking gibberish, but he understands that I want to make a move in and get there, you know, but I don't have to speak English to the man. (laughs) We just have a great relationship, all of us, you know, there's great mutual respect and trust and friendship and that's what this is about.

[The end of Reyes' speech in the courtroom.]

I was so lucky these actors sustained the drama so well.

[Doggett and Reyes arrive at Scully's apartment.]

This is the exterior of Scully's apartment, this was actually shot at Universal Studios. This is all a set here.

[Autopsy room.]

This is a set we built at Fox. This was where Dana Scully was teaching the medical FBI agents autopsy work.

[Courtroom.]

The X-Files, for the seven and a half years that I was there I directed 53 episodes, it was always an extremely difficult show to mount, produce, direct. It was a tough, tough show. I like to say we'd bit off more than we could chew, but we could always chew it, but it was tough. It was like doing a feature on a TV schedule and we did, every week, we did a small feature. My favorite episode still is a show called 'Home', I thought that was just terrific. And there was another show called 'Closure' where Fox found his dead sister, her ghost, and that's one of my favorite shows. But we did, Lili Taylor, we did an episode called 'Mind's Eye' that was just phenomenal with Lili, she was truly a talented and still is truly a talented actress. There's quite a few of them that I'm fond of, but 'Home' was, beyond a doubt, was the best. (laughs)

[The verdict is delivered.]

This was one of David's finest moments.

Every episode on The X-Files that I directed I learnt something new because The X-Files, unlike any other television show, was different every week. We never did the same show twice. It wasn't a cop drama, it wasn't, you know, a crime scene drama, it wasn't a law show, every week it was different. We'd have a monster of the week, we played the alien, and I learned an enormous amount. I think I joined The X-Files a good director and I think I left The X-Files a terrific director, not that I'm blowing my own horn, but that's just the kind of environment Chris Carter afforded me to work in, and I had every tool available, steadicam, crane, you name it, if I wanted it I got it. And that was the way it was on The X-Files. And Chris would work very, very hard on the scripts, whether he was writing an original or if he was rewriting another writer. And he would turn it over to you when it was right, when he thought it was right, and then once it was yours, it was yours, he never interfered. It was a fabulous working environment, one I'll never see again.

David was a remarkable actor. He had an ability, he could pick up that speech and learn it in two minutes. Five-page scene, six-page scene, he could learn it in ten minutes, verbatim, and never ever missed a beat.

[Scully's apartment.]

I love this, we played all off of Gillian's face.

[Back at USMC Base Brig at Quantico.]

This was extremely difficult, this was back at Fort MacArthur, and that guard booth and that chain link fence is all set, we only had about 30 or 40 feet of chain link so I couldn't shoot the perimeter of this place at all because I didn't have enough chain link fence.

[Doggett and Skinner help Mulder escape.]

This was tough. I had a steadicam operator running backwards for that, wearing a huge camera rig.

[Kersh joins them and they run outside.]

That's all the fence I had. (laughs)

I was concerned about that location. I didn't think that it would fill our story needs but it did, we figured out a way to shoot it and Bill Roe figured out a way to light it, especially at night to make it look… it was very believable actually, so once again it worked out. It always does work out on The X-Files, I don't know why that is.

Basically, when I'm done shooting, before any of the other producers can see it, I have to do what they call a director's cut. So I have to get into the room with the editors and for this one I bounced back and forth because one editor, Lynne, was working on one, and James was working on the other, and I would bounce back and forth between rooms, and cut sequences in. I have a knack, I can remember what takes… I'll print several takes of a performance or a certain scene, and I had a knack of remembering what lines I liked from each take, so I can cut very quickly, which was very helpful here because we had such a short turnaround. And then once I'm done, well, then we brought in Chris and Frank and John and Vince, and then I was still part of the process as co-exec, and we'd go through it again and I was… I had a real good fortune with The X-Files because 90, probably 85 to 90 % of my cut survives each time, and the guys would come in, make a little change here, a little change there, so we could get it out, get it to Paul Rabwin as quickly as possible.

[Doggett and Reyes in The X-Files office which is now empty.]

Paul Rabwin was one of our producers in charge of post-production. They all worked very, very hard, very hard, to get this thing on the air, but it wasn't the first time that happened, many times over nine years, especially toward, you know, you do 22 episodes a season and toward the end your turnaround is very short. I think the turnaround on this was like six days before it had to get to the dubbing stage and Mark Snow, so I had to do my cut like in two days.

[Gibson tells them they know where Mulder and Scully are going.]

[Mulder and Scully. Mulder exits the car. The Lone Gunmen appear.]

(Kim laughs)

[Langly: ...draining the little lizard.]

I don't know how they got away with that.

This was shot the last day in Borrego Springs, the wind was blowing, howling. One of the last scenes we shot.

[Next day. Desert.]

There's a funny story that goes with this. We're shooting this from an overlook obviously to this canyon, and when I drove with my wife to Borrego Springs to shoot this portion of the show, I stopped on the way into the hotel at that overlook and got out of the car to see how the set was progressing, that's all a set we built. And there were a bunch of tourists there and they were very impressed how we were restoring these Anasazi ruins, they had no idea it was a set. (chuckles)

Corey Kaplan did a fabulous job designing this. That's all built against a very precarious mud cliff, it's not even stone or granite. And we had to make it strong enough to be able to work in, we also had to blow it up, so it was really quite a challenge for the construction people. This is an actual part of the set that we were working in on location.

[Mulder: The Indians said it was from a wise man who lived in the ruins: a Keeper of the Truth.]

Cigarette-Smoking Man.

[Mulder and Scully make their way through the narrow passageway into a living space with Cigarette-Smoking Man.]

Now this is on the sound stage back at 20th Century Fox.

Still smoking a cigarette through a hole in his neck.

This was really tough for Bill Davis to do because obviously that hole in his neck is phony and he had a hell of a time trying to find it with that cigarette.

[The helicopter carrying Doggett and Reyes arrives.]

We had to be very, very careful in this canyon. We had flying helicopters and we couldn't get off of any of these dirt roads. This is all very ecologically, very sensitive area, they didn't even want us to fly. It was lambing season, all of the mountain goats were giving birth and baby bats. The Forest Service was very, very helpful here.

Ilt Jones is beyond a shadow of a doubt one of the finest location managers in the picture business. He understands how important his job is. He understands that what he finds for a director to choose from is really the fabric of the piece, I mean, it's your palette. And Ilt worked very, very hard, especially in Borrego Springs because as I mentioned it was lambing season, the bighorn sheep were lambing, there's a bat that's native to the area and they were having their babies, and it was very difficult, and Ilt jumped through hoops and really pulled off some miracles in getting us permission to fly those helicopters, not to mention to do those explosions, because you can't hurt anything down there, so the construction people had to build all of that Anasazi ruin and it never touched the cliff, it was all freestanding, although it looked as though it was built into the cliff. And then our special effects teams did a fabulous job because, again, when all those explosions went up, we couldn't hurt any of the natural surroundings, so it was very challenging. And then of course as luck would have it, the day that we did the big explosions, the wind… it was so cold and the wind was blowing so hard that I was afraid we weren't going to be able to fly. But Steve Stafford, our aerial coordinator, brought in some of the finest pilots in Hollywood and the guys did one heck of a job, and when you watch the show, you'll see I'm shooting the cameras behind these helicopters, they've got to stay in a certain spot so I can get a tie-up of those rockets being fired into these buildings, and it was very difficult.

[Knowle Rohrer disintegrates. Two other helicopters arrive.]

This was tough. The sequence you're about to see as these helicopters attack, the wind was howling. Very dangerous to fly in. The guys did a remarkable job. Steve Stafford brought in some of the best pilots I've ever seen.

Timing on that was very tough, getting the car out and just bringing the helicopters in was very difficult.

[The helicopters fire missiles.]

This is the day the wind was just howling. Those missiles are all computer-generated. We had smoke bombs in the helicopters and then we generated, computer-generated, the rockets.

The end.

[A missile is fired directly at CSM.]

You can see the way that helicopter is vibrating back and forth, that's all from wind.

[The helicopters depart.]

I think that we were only the second company to shoot at the hydroelectric company in Fresno. They were very reticent. Again, Ilt Jones stepped to the plate. They were very reticent to let us shoot there, and Ilt made several trips and met with several very important people with the electric company, and they finally consented to us shooting there and they were very pleased. That's one thing I can say about The X-Files crew, we never went into a location and destroyed it or hurt it in any way. We always showed great respect. But in Borrego Springs, that was the second time we shot there. We did our opening show of, I think it was the eighth season there, when we introduced Robert Patrick and his character, and when David basically, so we thought, died or was abducted in that episode.

[Mulder and Scully in the motel room.]

I think that Chris and Frank did a wonderful job and, again, and Chris did this so often over nine years, there were no answers, you know, he left it open. And, you know, Gillian, I'm sorry, Fox and Dana are still on the run. You know, I don't know where they are right now but they're running from the law, and I think that was clever. A lot better than Seinfeld - I know where they are, they're in jail cell.

The scene kind of sums up the series. It was really a series about frustration, about a man who believed and a woman who was a skeptic but became a believer. And no one else would believe them.

Directing that scene with David and Gillian was extremely tough. You know, directing this whole two-parter was very emotional, especially with David and Gillian. Through nine years you have your ups and downs, especially when David and Gillian were in so much of each hour. We did, I think, 201 hours and they were in so much of every scene, and to work together that many days for nine years, the relationships, they have swings. David and Gillian always got along but it was not easy, you know, it wasn't easy. I can say this: they never became what some people might refer to as prima donnas, they were always prepared, never made you wait, always eager and enthusiastic about the work. And they, you know, hey, it was like a marriage, you know, and any of you out there, marriage is work, you have to work at it, and David and Gillian had to work at their relationship. And when you direct them in a scene like that last scene in the motel room, where basically they're fugitives from justice, and you can just see it in their faces how much they truly did love each other, and that wasn't just Dana and Fox, that was David and Gillian, they truly, truly loved each other. Ah… I never saw anything like it. I've been in this business all my life, literally, and I think that David and Gillian's relationship, Scully and Mulder, one of the greatest male/female relationships in TV history.