lastofmars-a

[sci-fi-gifs]

THE X-FILES 5.06 'Christmas Carol'

[randomfoggytiger]

The Scully Family Actors' Thoughts on Their Characters

Found some incredible tidbits.

All quotes taken from this October 1995 interview (which was written before Melissa Scully's death.)

THE CONCEPTION OF BEYOND THE SEA AND ONE BREATH

The conception for “Beyond the Sea” originated with a desire on the part of scripters Glen Morgan and James Wong to write a “Scully episode” with the goal that such a story would both highlight Gillian Anderson’s acting ability, and humanize the dour Scully. They believed the best way to achieve that was to tie the episode’s X-File case to her in a personal way: by introducing her parents and having her father die before the teaser ended, and then linking her need to speak once more with her father to a psychic prisoner on death row.

Morgan recalled that, “In the pilot, Scully mentioned that her parents didn’t want her to become an FBI agent. We found that interesting. So many people want their own lives, and yet need their parents to accept that life, and we thought it seemed to be a common phenomenon around us. So we put it into the story and hoped it would connect with people. And we thought maybe Scully’s parents lived in Washington. And if they live in Washington, what could her father do? It was kind of obvious to us he was in the government and we put him in the military. Then we thought, ‘OK, he has to be a higher rank, a Navy captain’s kind of neat. And we just worked backwards from that.”

“Melissa was someone who had to understand Scully and yet be different to challenge Mulder’s actions,” said Morgan. “Who better than a mother or a sister? Considering where Mulder was at that time, we thought it would be interesting to see Mulder’s reaction to a believer of ‘positive’ ideas. So, again, it was a character that was created from the needs of Mulder and Scully’s characters.

CAPTAIN SCULLY, DON DAVIS

“The character is very similar to Briggs on Twin Peaks,” Davis noted. “William is a military man who, although he loved his child deeply, was unable to verbalize that love until it was too late. ...this was a guy who was at the top of his field and the way he showed his love to his family was to give his children an example to follow and to provide them with great security. That’s kind of where I started off from with the character.”

Although William had died, on The X-Files anything can happen, and he reappeared in “One Breath” to deliver to the comatose Scully the paternal message she had longed for in “Beyond the Sea”. Davi[s] said that director Bob Goodwin’s concern was that his monologue would not “become maudlin. He wanted me to be on the verge of being overcome, but he didn’t want it to happen. He wanted the character to be strong, to be very much the man that had fathered Dana. So what I tried to do was to show a man holding himself in, a man who was filled with emotion but who, as a military man, controlled the emotion. We did a few takes and each time Bob was bringing me down.”

MAGGIE SCULLY, SHEILA LARKIN

Scully’s mother Margaret was portrayed by actress Sheila Larken, and in the X-Files world, where almost everyone has a hidden agenda, Larken’s maternal warmth and sincerity was a bright spot within all the bleakness.

Larken was reluctant to take on the role of Margaret Scully.... Her hesitation stemmed, she said, from her own father’s death the year before from a heart attack.

“It wasn’t really something I really wanted to do or pull up,” she said. “But I did it anyway. I never thought the part would repeat. My interpretation when I did that scene at the funeral was of a woman so involved with her own pain, she couldn’t even react to what her daughter was asking her. And they allowed that, even though the daughter was the lead in the show.”

Larken saw Margaret as “a military wife, married before I graduated college, someone who never gets to finish her college degree or find a career for herself, but mainly gets enmeshed in her family. You know, the Everymother. Part of her emergence in becoming self-sufficient was during the course of this show with Dana. I think Margaret is ever-evolving. ”

Larken’s favorite scene came in “Ascension, ” when Margaret and Mulder meet at a park and talk about the missing Scully. “You explore a scene and try to find what you’re thinking, and what you’re not thinking, and that one just jelled together. There were just so many little itsy-bitsy things that came together and they came together on camera.” She found working with Anderson and Duchovny to be a particular treat. “Their depth is multi-layered. A lot of times you work with actors, and when you look into their eyes, they’re a blank. You’re working alone. But when you get to work with Gillian and David, whatever you send is received and vice versa.”

Larken said that as Margaret she usually does not draw on her own experience as a mother, because “it’s almost too vulnerable to let in. ” She did admit to an exception: “There’s one scene where being a parent did work. In ‘One Breath’ where Margaret says to pull the plug on her daughter, Mulder doesn’t want her to do it. He moved away on me, and I called him his first name. I just went, ‘Fox!’ I could hear that ‘mother’ voice. And David stopped cold, he stopped in his tracks. It was like the voice of every mother; in that sense, the mother did come through.”

MELISSA SCULLY, MELINDA MCGRAW

Coincidentally, McGraw said, she brought up the idea of making Melissa a psychic, and found Morgan and Wong had already had the same thought.

McGraw felt that Melissa “was the black sheep in this family, probably a very difficult teenager, in trouble, very curious. She experimented, I’m sure, with drugs and boys, was very political and was always a bit left of center and always pretty conscious of developing her psychic ability.”

Morgan and Wong had also played around with making Melissa a girlfriend for Mulder, and although that idea was jettisoned, McGraw said she felt the element of attraction was still there, “Certainly from Melissa’s side. We had talked about that, and I think that for various reasons it wasn’t to be. Mulder had just had a romance the week before (in “3 “).

McGraw felt that in the end, it was a good idea that the relationship “didn’t go that far, because that left grounds for something later. I think they wrote Melissa in a neat way, because she wasn’t all pure and light. She had this dark side to her, and this slightly jealous side, of being jealous of Dana.” But, she concluded, there is also a “total love. The bond of sibling love is so intense. It’s an age-old dramatic theme, and it’s one of the greatest loves that human beings have. It’s undeniably bigger than any other connection, because you’ve shared not only the same parents, but the same actual physical experience of being born to that mother.”

CHARLIE SCULLY, a Note

Since McGraw's vision lined up neatly with Morgan and Wong's, I find it interesting that she (indirectly) groups Charlie Scully with the rest of the "normal" Scullys-- as if he, too, were a "God and country" man like Capt. Scully, Maggie, Bill, and Scully herself.

CASTING

Director David Nutter cast Don Davis, familiar to genre viewers as Major Briggs in Twin Peaks, as William Scully, and Sheila Larken as Margaret Scully. “Scully needed to have a father and mother both of real strong qualities and charisma and three dimensions,” he said. “I felt that Don David and Sheila Larken would bring the required weird to the parts.”

Nutter had worked with Davis previously on several shows, including Broken Badges, and called him personally to ask him if he would accept the role of William Scully, despite its brevity.

David Nutter had met Larken when he auditioned her for his 1985 film Cease FIRE, and although he didn’t cast her, she made an impression on the director.

Larken’s husband, X-Files’ co-executive producer Bob Goodwin, mentioned her at one point to Nutter, and Nutter immediately thought of her for Margaret. “She was perfect. She was the one, and I hired her.”

The arrival of Scully’s sister Melissa, in ‘One Breath’ was an unexpected one. Scully’s two brothers, of whom she spoke in ‘Roland,’ were glimpsed in “Beyond the Sea” and were seen as children in a flashback of ‘ One Breath.’ Yet the sibling who turned up in that latter episode was a previously unheard of sister, Melissa, played by Melinda McGraw. 

"Most importantly, we [Morgan and Wong] wanted to write a good part of Melinda McGraw, with whom we shared a frustrating time on The Commish.”

TRIVIA

In between “Beyond the Sea” and “One Breath” Davi[s] made an uncredited, off screen appearance as a dialogue coach for “Miracle Man.” As a native of the Ozark Mountains region, and a former theater professor, he lent his expertise to the guest cast to help them properly pronounce Southern accents.

The New York native [Sheila] had left acting several years ago and had obtained a master’s degree in clinical social work. But after moving to Washington state with her husband, X-Files’ co-executive producer Bob Goodwin, she found herself busy with acting offers.

McGraw enjoyed playing a softer role after several years as a police detective. “It was really great for me to play a different character,” she said.

LASTLY, AN ANECDOTE

From the compiler:

I once had the opportunity to ask what Glen Morgan thought about Chris Carter killing off Melissa Scully.... He told me that most networks have what’s called “character payments”. If a character that a writer created returns in another episode, they get a couple hundred bucks. This doesn’t happen on FOX, so there goes any cash for the Lone Gunmen, Skinner, Tooms, Scully’s Ma…etc. “If we did get character payments, I would have been more bummed that they killed Melissa...."

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[mvlderfox]

“I’ve been told not to call you Fox. [By who?] Dana, just now. … Her soul is here. You can feel her, here.” // “She’s not here… I need to do more than just wave my hands in the air.”

[bertruce]

Woman of NCIS

One of the reasons I love NCIS is that they can afford to cast the same actor in different roles. Within the same show or within the NCIS-universe.

For example, Melinda McGraw. She played Gibbs' first ex-wife and Fornell's wife - Diane in NCIS. SHE PLAYED GREATLY! The unstoppable dangerous red-haired hurricane Diane.

Also Melinda McGraw played Gina Powell in NCIS: New Orleans. A woman from Pride's past (s5e5).

I love Diane, I love Melinda. And I think I'm ready to love Gina.

[offbrandevents]

Philes, our Memorial Day Sale ENDS TOMORROW! And we have an update: we have an opportunity to add more to this exciting event, however we would need another 200 people to come to make this work! Share far and wide and make sure the news of Philefest spreads! ❤️👽X

[vintagewarhol]

[scifipinups]

Melinda McGraw The X-Files 'The Blessing Way' (1993)

[ramascreen]

Key Art And Trailer For Peacock's PAUL T. GOLDMAN Series

Key Art And Trailer For Peacock’s PAUL T. GOLDMAN Series

Peacock has released these official key art and trailer for PAUL T. GOLDMAN. The Upcoming Comedy Series From Executive Producer Seth Rogen and Director / Executive Producer Jason Woliner (Borat Subsequent Moviefilm) Premieres Exclusively on Peacock January 1 with 3 Episodes at Launch and New Episodes Dropping Weekly on Sundays. Meet the unbelievable man at the center of an unbelievable…

[spockasmr]

should we kiss under the star of bethlehem?

[hudbannonarchive]

this scene + crash (1996) + the death drive + the interview melinda mcgraw did for they coined it where she said the note weiner gave her for this character was that "life is deadening and she doesn't want to feel dead"

[slippinmickeys]

Been rereading your fics (adore them, btw); but I especially LOVE how you write Melissa-- you breathe life into her in a way that takes out any sting of irritation, transforming her actions it into elder sister banter and care. You get her, and you get her and Scully's relationship; and I never get sick of reading fics with her in it. :DDDDDDDDDD

First of all, that’s incredibly kind of you to say, and particularly kind of you to reach out and tell me! I’ve been struggling lately, and messages like this make me honestly a bit weepy. 🥹

Melissa is really fun to write. Her relationship with Scully is very…sibling… I don’t know another way to describe it. Two people who are fundamentally different, but whose shared experiences bond them in that way that just a look shares a thousand thoughts.

Meeting Melinda McGraw at PhileFest was cool. She still had Melissa’s actual crystal choker from the show and wore it all weekend. And I found the Scully family panel fascinating.

But back to fic… if you like my other Melissa work, I hope you’ll like a WIP I’ve been working on (though writers block has been particularly nasty the last few months). It’s a fortune teller AU and Melissa has a big role.

Again, thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot. A lot a lot a lot.

[baronessblixen]

I love how Melinda McGraw plays Scully’s older sister when irl she’s two months younger than Gillian lol

She is? 🤯I didn't know that, anon! They should have made Scully and Melissa twins. That would have been cool.

[anders-hawke]

I’m with you on Charlie being gay — mostly because I’ve wondered about the picture at the dock for most of my life 🤣 I’ve also always thought of Maggie as the Catholic one, because faith mattered to her. But also for the drama with Father McCue (I think that was his name?). But I’ve been consoling myself that that scene at the dock happened before casting had thought of/found Pat Skipper and Melinda McGraw to be on lock for being Junior and Melissa. So anything is possible during that in-between time of needing bodies/actually getting someone permanent 😬

Exactly, like obviously “Beyond the Sea” was made way before they decided to give Missy and Bill speaking roles and so they probably weren’t even named then—might’ve even been cast through an extras company. It’s really annoying behavior but it’s not surprising—the writers consistently showed that they didn’t care all that much about continuity. The fact that Scully and Missy’s cross necklaces came just from Maggie and not both her and Bill Sr. says a lot, and also Maggie being friends with the Father.

But honestly I just like the drama of complicating the Scullys and bringing up homophobia, and that that’s why he went low contact with them.

[mvlderfox]

“Why don’t you just drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat. Why is it so much easier for you to run around trying to get even than just expressing to her how you feel? I expect more from you. Dana expects more. Even if it doesn't bring her back, at least she'll know. And so will you.”

[visplay]

Chris: Wrongfully Accused is a Leslie Nielsen comedy not too far from the Naked Gun films, somewhat amusing, Watch: On Subscription Service.