#Mitch B.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[small-spanish-face]

im back with textposts. Theyre not Ace Attorney (i gotta find all the ones ive made to post them) so in the meantime have these.

[sci-fi-gifs]

THE X-FILES 2.08 'One Breath'

[antoschauniverse]

Walter Skinner💣 and Cigarette Smoking Man👿

[randomfoggytiger]

The Truth Is Out There: The Villains and Morally Gray

In this post, we'll get to hear from 1995 A.D. Skinner, Mr. X, the CSM, and Ratboy Krycek.

Previous parts of Brian Lowry's Book 1 are here, here, here, and here. Transcripts below will be fonted in italics; and unnecessary segments or information will be pruned, of course (go read the book!)

BITS FROM THE BOOK

…Though he isn’t shooting that day, actor Mitch Pileggi (who seems to create quite a stir among the female office staff) also pops by to look over dailies, or raw footage, of a fight sequence featuring him shot earlier in the week.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Mitch Pileggi

If part of an actor’s bag of tricks involves drawing on life experience, then Mitch PIleggi has more luggage at his disposal than most performers could even carry. 

…While his professional background may not have provided much inspiration, Pileggi did draw on part of his experience-- albeit in a manner that was both unplanned and extremely personal-- in creating the role of Skinner….

“I based him on my dad a lot,” says Pileggi who father passed away not long after the show’s premiere. “It was something that I wasn’t doing consciously, but my mom and my brothers picked up on this quite a bit. 

“I guess I was doing it unintentionally, and my mom called me up one time and said, ‘you know, I’m watching Dad.’ It really touched her.”

Pileggi describes his father as “very big stuff in my life,” an operations manager for a Defense Department contractor whose work led his family all over the world. At home he was a loving family man, the actor notes, while at work “he just kicked…. But then again, he was very tough, very stern, but very fair with his employees, too. Hopefully, that’s what’s coming across in Skinner.”

Born April 5 in Portland, Oregon, PIleggi began traveling with his family when he was only seven and, as he puts it, “didn’t stop moving till a a long time later.”

His father’s work took him to Turkey for most of his youth, and after attending high school there and college in Germany, Pileggi began working for the same company in Saudi Arabia, shuttling back and forth to the U.S. He later did some work for another contractor in Iran. 

Pileggi was in Turkey during two coup attempts and often passed through Beirut for visa purposes going into Saudi Arabia. Ultimately, he was one of the last Americans to get out of Iran as the government fell there, with barely enough fuel to reach the airport in Athens. “It was really hairy,” PIleggi says. “I thought…. ‘I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.’”

Pileggi returned to the U.S. and, having done some acting in high school and at a junior college, “just started messing around with it….”

The muscular, 6’2” actor (who says he’s “a basket case” if he doesn’t work out every day and, in what must be an imposing sight, loves to Rollerblade) subsequently was cast in Shocker, a movie directed by horrormeister Wes Craven. The producers were looking for someone “evil in a sexy kind of way” to play the role of psychotic killer Horace Pinker, and Pileggi won the part from a field of about 50 contenders. His audition, in fact, was so scary that producer Marianne Maddalena moved her chair away from him, taking a seat on the other side of the room. “She was sweating,” he recalls. “It was actually very funny.” 

…Pileggi auditioned for “The X-Files” unsuccessfully two or three times before he was cast as Skinner. Prior to that session he remembers thinking, “‘Why are they calling me back in? They didn’t hire me before.’ So I went in with a bit of an attitude for this meeting [about playing] Skinner. I was kind of grumpy and not in very good humor, and fortunately, Chris thought I was acting, ‘cause it suited the character.” 

Only later did Pileggi learn that he had lost out on earlier parts by a hair, or lack thereof. The burly actor (who remains Los Angeles casting director Rick Millikan’s proudest “find” and tends to get considerable notice from women around the set) was shaving his head at the time, which was why executive producer Chris Carter couldn’t envision him in those roles. In retrospect, because they would have been one-shots, “and then Skinner wouldn’t have been available to me.” 

…”Up to this point it’s just the situation he’s [Skinner] been put in,” he says, suggesting that Skinner also wants to find the truth but goes about it by more conventional means than his subordinates. 

Concerning End Game: “Steven [Mr. X] came up with some wonderful ideas,” Pileggi says. “He’s the one that suggested that Skinner head-butt him back, and when he said that I said, ‘Yeah, that’s really great.’ I think that’s something Skinner would have done: ‘Head-butt me? Well here, take this.’” 

Pileggi recalls director Rob Bowman telling him to use more force shoving Williams against the elevator wall, and on the next pass he nearly put him through it. “The whole back of the elevator started coming out. We just about knocked it down,” he notes. 

Pileggi also received a number of letters from Vietnam veterans due to the story Skinner relates about his tour of duty during “One Breath,” which the actor found particularly gratifying. The character is clearly developing his own following among fans as well, though Pileggi quickly points out that everything is relative based on the time he spends with “The X-Files” stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. “I go out to dinner with David and it’s like they don’t even see me, which is all right,” he chuckles. 

…After all his traveling, in fact, Mitch PIleggi sounds like someone who’s found home. “This is what an actor dreams about-- either having a feature career or getting a series [character] on a quality show like this,” he says. “I just couldn’t be happier.”

Steven Williams

…“I am still in the dark as much as the audience is about X,” he says, referring to the character he began playing near the start of the show’s second season, a high-level government source who has taken Deep Throat’s place in helping Agent Fox Mulder, albeit with some reluctance and a decidedly ruthless streak. “They keep me so in the dark it’s pathetic.”

Still, the likable actor (who, in contrast to his character’s grim demeanor, has a disarming and ready laugh) wouldn’t have it any other way-- except, perhaps, for more advance notice as to when he’ll be needed to shoot and some assurance that I won’t suffer the same fate as his predecessor, Deep Throat. Demonstrating X’s savvy survival instincts, in fact, Williams isn’t above urging people to lobby for him to hang around. 

…He landed the role on “The X-Files” at the last minute (an actress had originally been cast in the part), based to some degree on his relationships with some fellow “Jump Street” alumni, including producer/director David Nutter and co-executive producers Glen Morgan and James Wong…. 

Despite his congenial nature, Williams says he has no problems getting himself into the stony frame of mind required to play X…. “It’s just automatic,” he says. “They go, ‘Action,’ and bam, I’m Mr. X. I’m just able to switch on and off like that and trick people.”

Although the actor initially considered trying to learn what makes X tick, ultimately he decided he’d be better off maintaining a certain mystery. “The less I know about him, the more interesting he becomes. That’s the way I’ve been playing him,” says Williams. “The biggest thing about X is that he’s a survivor. He’s said that: ‘I don’t want to die.’ While he is icy and cold, you can see fear in this man. 

“I thought about trying to do all that stuff [to prepare], and then I thought, ‘No, this is working for me.’” For that reason, Williams has done his job the old-fashioned way. As he puts it: “You read the words and look at the situation, and you put yourself there.”

Acting has put Williams in a lot of different places. Born January 7 in Memphis, Tennessee, until age nine he was raised principally by his grandparents (his parents had divorced), living in a farming community where his grandfather was a baptist minister. 

After a stint in the army, Williams worked as a shoe salesman in Chicago, quitting his job in 1972 to begin modeling and later working with a children’s theater group. The modeling led to commercials, stage work, and eventually two nominations for the Joseph Jefferson Award. 

…In a field fraught with unemployment, Williams notes, “From the moment I started doing this I’ve never had to do anything else. I’ve always been able to make a living acting… thank God.” 

….Williams says he also enjoys the nasty streak he’s allowed to exhibit on “The X-Files”, from his cold-blooded execution of another operative in the episode “One Breath” (“I like that iciness, that coldness”) to X’s brutal encounter in an elevator with Assistant Director Skinner in “End Game.” Close friends have been most startled by the character, he says, telling him, “Man, you’ve tapped into a dark side of yourself.”

According to Williams, he actually helped stage X’s tussle with Skinner, having developed an interest in fight choreography and the martial arts while working with Chuck Norris on the second “Missing in Action” movie. “In these close quarters, I said, ‘How ‘bout a nice head-butt for openers?’” Williams recalls. “Skinner is the same type of guy, so he head-butts… back…. These aren’t guys who are interested in having a long fight. They’re interested in taking you out and getting out of there.” 

Williams has done most of his work with David Duchovny, who he describes as “a pleasant guy” if not exactly a drinking buddy. Still, the two aren’t above sharing a laugh to break the tension, especially when someone flubs a line. “The stuff is so heavy sometimes that you’ve got to do the other side just to lighten it up,” he says. 

While he felt a bit constrained at the outset, Williams is pleased with the way his role has unfolded and doesn’t even mind the fact that he plays one of the few recurring characters in primetime without a regular name. Asked what he thinks X’s John Hancock might be, the actor pauses, admitting that he hasn’t given the notion much though. “Leroy,” he says after a beat, laughing loudly. “Leroy Williams. Which is why he calls himself ‘Mr. X.’”

Nicholas Lea

Despite appearing in a relatively small number of episodes, Nicholas Lea-- who has made his presence felt as FBI Agent Alex Krycek… says his affiliation with “The X-Files” has already paid dividends when casting people in Los Angeles to recognize him from the show. “That instantly breaks the ice,” he says, “especially for an actor who is from Vancouver and doesn’t know anybody down there.” 

Lea didn’t take up acting full time until the age of 25, after going to art school and singing in a band. After the group broke up he met an acting coach and, having always wanted to give it a try, took the plunge headfirst. “I went and quit my job the next day and started acting,” he says, admitting now that he perhaps felt “a little bit bulletproof at that point.” 

After landing parts in Vancouver-based television shows and some low-budget features, Lea earned his first real exposure with a recurring role in ABC’s “The Commish”, where he also met his girlfriend, Melinda McGraw, who played Scully’s sister Melissa on “The X-Files”. 

Lea did more than 30 episodes of “The Commish”, turning up on “The X-Files” in the first-season installment “Genderbender”.... The one-shot role particularly impressed director Rob Bowman, who kept him in mind for a return and immediately though of him for Krycek….

Born on June 22, Lea was the only actor considered in Vancouver for the part, which he thought would simply be a three-episode arc. When he heard he had been cast, Lea remembers running into the gym where Melinda was working out and screaming with joy. 

…Krycek brought with him an ill-defined past. “That’s an actor’s job really, to come in with a history of who that person is,” Lea explains, saying he did research on the FBI and wrote an entire back story “about who this guy was and where he was from. Hopefully, then, the decisions that you make in a show are, like anybody, motivated from their past. There’s a whole psychology that goes behind that.” 

Krycek’s traitorous doings earned him the nickname “Ratboy” along the Internet, as well as a small cadre of admirers who call themselves “The Ratnicks.” Lea says he’s honored to have merited that kind of attention from fans. 

Lea has done most of his scenes with David Duchovny, and the two have become friends, though it would be difficult to tell based on their self-choreographed fight in the second-season finale “Anasazi.” “It was really nasty,” Lea says. “That’s what we were after-- not your regular TV fight.” 

…Lea adds that he’ll remain ready to put on the character of Krycek-- and whatever nickname the show’s fans may be calling him-- at a moment’s notice. “I’ll always drop whatever I’m doing to come up here and do this,” he states, emphasizing his affection for “The X-Files” crew. 

“They’re the best group of producers I’ve ever worked with, and they’ve given me a huge opportunity here. It’s easy to go through this business and get jobs and go, ‘Yeah, see you later,’ but these guys here have really opened up something for me, and that’s priceless.”

William B. Davis

…Davis did smoke once but quit long before his stint on “The X-Files” and puffs herbal cigarettes while playing the menacing character known as the Cigarette-Smoking Man…. 

The well-traveled actor and drama teacher appeared in “The X-Files” pilot as a shadowy figure who participates in covering up material found by agents Mulder and Scully, but he didn’t actually speak a line until “Tooms,” 20 episodes and several months later. Davis directed and taught acting for most of his professional life until he took some acting classes as a brush-up technique to help his teaching. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe I’ve learned something here, telling people all this time what to do,’” he recalls, before beginning to pursue acting in earnest around 1980. 

Born in Toronto on January 13, Davis started out as a child actor, then attended the University of Toronto and later the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After directing theater in England for five years he returned to Canada, where he was involved in theater and then radio for the Canadian Broadcasting Co. 

Davis continued to teach and still serves as director of the William Davis Centre for Actor’s Study, having moved to Vancouver to run the Vancouver Playhouse Acting School in 1985….

The Cigarette-Smoking Man has little or no history on which to base the character, and in Davis’s eyes not much of a personal life about which to theorize. “I think he’s just burnt,” he says. “‘Workaholic’ would be to underestimate him. There is no other life, there is no other purpose, than what he is pursuing.”

Davis laughs at the question of whether the character has a more conventional name but finds plenty of implied symbolism in how he’s presented, particularly in the juxtaposition of evil with fire. Although reluctant to come out and say that he’s in essence playing the Devil, “What other name could I have but Lucifer?” he asks with a sheepish smile, quickly adding that the Cigarette-Smoking Man sees himself not as evil but rather as being “on a crusade to save the world.” 

The Canadian native does admit that the role presents one constant challenge, since the tall, distinguished-looking actor clearly has a bit of an accent that he has to concentrate on masking in playing a lifelong Washington bureaucrat. “I have to watch my vowel sounds,” Davis says. 

With his acting career occupying more of his time, Davis has scaled back a bit on teaching. His students, meanwhile, have taken an interest in and developed admiration for his on-screen work, with one even suggesting that the Cigarette-Smoking Man himself is an alien who thrives on carbon monoxide. Davis shrugs it all off. “Back in the days when I was still silent,” he says, with a smile that bears little resemblance to his character, “people asked me to give classes on how to ‘look’ sinister.”

TRIVIA

Mitch Pileggi's favorite episode is "End Game."

Steven Williams's favorite episodes are "End Game" and "One Breath."

Nicholas Lea's favorite episode is "Duane Barry."

William B. Davis's favorite episodes are "End Game" and "Anasazi."

“End Game”: “End Game” is also memorable for the confrontation between X and Skinner. Mitch Pileggi recalls taking a few accidental shots to the groin in slamming Steven Williams against (and nearly through) the fake elevator wall. Williams suggested the dueling head-butts, saying there was a psychological as well a s a physical aspect to the encounter. The scene grew out of a need to have Scully discover where Mulder was, since only X knew. Finally, Carter simply told writer Frank Spotnitz, “Why can’t we just have Skinner beat the information out of X?” 

“The Blessing Way”: The episode contains several interesting nuances relating to the series both on and off-screen-- such as having Krycek, played by Nicholas Lea, shoot Melissa Scully, played by his real-life girlfriend Melinda McGraw. Mulder also talks in his sleep about wanting sunflower seeds, having discussed inheriting his father’s taste for them in the second-season episode, “Aubrey.” 

CONCLUSION

And there we have it-- one more part to go!

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[avengedbiologist]

I'm drawing some lame stuff for GA day and man,,, talk about catfish 💀

[coopershusband4evr]

Gays in my restaurant...... I hate the 𝑔𝒶𝓎𝓈 /j /nsrs

[tread-octane]

I found a truck

-Meggie

HEY! Shouldn't you be in School by now??

[piranya]

x

[widowshill]

HEY LITTLE SONGBIRD, look all around you see how the vipers and vultures surround you and they'll take you down, they'll pick you clean if you stick around such a desperate scene.

[pinkyjulien]

━  Past midnight fries with the fam' 🍟 featuring @arcandoria's babes 🧡

[nerds-yearbook]

On June 19, 1998, the X-Files jumped from the small screen to premiere as a feature film The X-Files: Fight the Future. Creator Chris Carter, cast and crew had hoped after season 5 to continue the series as films, however Fox insisted that it continue on as a TV series. The next The X-Files film wouldn't appear until 5 years after the first run of the series cancelled (The X-Files: I Want To Believe July 25, 2008). The movie saw a new development in the pending alien invasion and gave a reason to re-open the X-Files, which had been closed in season 5. It teased fans with a kiss between Agents Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). The movie also saw the demise of The Well Manicured Man (John Neville). Some of the TV series regulars who appeared in the movie were The Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B Davis), A.D. Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), Langly (Dean Haglund), Byers (Bruce Harwood), Frohike (Tom Braidwood), Group Elder (Don S Williams), 2nd Elder (George Murdock), and the Black Haired Man (Michael Shamus Wiles). Some of the characters that were exclusive to the movie were Kurtzweil (Martin Landau), Bronschweig (Jeffrey DeMunn), Cassidy (Blythe Danner), Michaud (Terry O'Quinn), Strughold (Armin Mueller-Stahl), Fire Captain Cooles (Gary Grubbs), and The Barmaid (Glenne Headly). If the British Valley looked familiar it was because Milton Johns also appeared in the Empire Strikes Back and the original run of Doctor Who. ("The X-Files", Movie, Film)

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[laf-outloud]

@officialdavidbmeadows Such an honor to share the screen, telling stories, with these big hearted gentlemen. It’s been a blast this season!!! Truly a highlight of my Acting Career. Thank you @thecwwalker for the incredible opportunity, @yuh_dun_messed_up_a_a_ron for creating such a Rad character, and to @jaredpadalecki and @mitchpileggi for being such class acts and making me feel like a part of the #Walker family. Stay tuned!!!!

Such nice words from David! "...highlight of my Acting Career." David did a great job and I'm glad he was part of the Walker Family!

[scenesandscreens]

The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)

Director - Rob Bowman, Cinematography - Ward Russell

"Trust no one, Mr. Mulder."

[ptxweekly]

11/16/2023