DECISION OF A LIFETIME ACTOR MULLS 'X-FILES' OPTIONS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Will he do it? Can he do it?

These are the questions swirling around David Duchovny these days.

Will he quit ``The X-Files,'' which has made him one of the best-known television personalities in the world, when his contract runs out in a few weeks?

And will his decision to play for the eighth year Fox Mulder, the driven FBI investigator of all things paranormal, be influenced by whether or not Duchovny can draw audiences into theaters for his new movie, ``Return to Me,'' which opens Friday?

``My major problem with 'X-Files' is, always, the time commitment,'' says Duchovny, a lanky, intellectual 39-year-old with an easygoing personality and active wit. ``I'm just constantly putting myself in this very dangerous position of having a movie bomb a year. Whereas John Travolta can have four bombs and a hit in a year and he's still John Travolta, I can't. I've got to have a hit, I've got to have a big movie.

``That's my problem with the show. I love the show, I think it makes great movies and I would love every fifth or six movie that I do to be an 'X-Files' film. I just hate the pressure.''

While the 1998 ``X-Files'' movie was a summer hit, Duchovny has not had similar luck with his other starring features, such as ``Playing God,'' ``The Rapture'' and ``Kalifornia.''

But ``Return to Me,'' a light romantic fantasy with dark emotional undertones, comes, at the very least, with good portents. The film is directed and co-written by Bonnie Hunt, the comic actress who has been a friend since she played opposite Duchovny in one of his biggest, pre- ``Files'' hits, the family comedy ``Beethoven.''

``Obviously, with movies, it's hit or miss,'' Duchovny acknowledges. ``It's hard to know what's going to be good. But I'm especially proud of this whole process because I knew Bonnie and have always liked her, then I took a chance on a first-time director and I'm so fully rewarded. It's a great feeling to actually go with your gut about somebody and stake a considerable amount of your professional life on them, then have them come through. So aside from being professionally happy with the film, I'm personally happy.''

In ``Return to Me,'' Duchovny's Bob Rueland loses his beloved wife in a traffic accident. A year later, the still-devastated Chicago architect finds himself inexplicably attracted to a waitress he meets at an Italian restaurant. What he doesn't know is that Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver) received his wife's heart in a transplant operation. As their love blossoms, Grace discovers the truth, but understandably has trouble breaking the news to the still-fragile Bob.

Hunt was as pleased as Duchovny was to work with an old friend. But she was more enthused about giving him a chance to display a range of his talents that Duchovny's darker films and the buttoned-up, obsessive Mulder haven't permitted.

``It was a joy for me to be able to have my friend do, what I think, is his best work in my first movie,'' Hunt says. ``I was able to help him bring out all of these levels that he has as an actor. There are moments when he's so funny and moments of deep sadness and vulnerability. I mean, what a roller coaster ride.''

Indeed. But that's make-believe, and nothing compared to what Duchovny, the show's producers and the entire Fox Network are going through over the future of ``X-Files.''

``I don't know what's happening with the TV show; it's still up in the air,'' Duchovny claims. ``I'm not lying or anything. I haven't made a final decision; they haven't made a final decision. There could be an eighth year, there could be an eighth year without me. I don't know; I really have to sit down and think about what I'm willing to do.''

Duchovny doesn't seem to mind if the show - which the troubled Fox Network depends on as an island of ratings stability, despite the fact that its viewership has taken a direct hit this year from ABC's game show monster ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' - continues without him (co-star Gillian Anderson is contractually committed for another season). Foremost on his mind is a feeling that, despite his constant protestations of love for ``The X-Files,'' the thrill is gone.

``I don't see any reason, aside from making money, for the show to go on,'' Duchovny says. ``There are really no creative challenges left. For me, the only thing left is that I've been given the opportunity to write and direct two episodes, and it's an amazing opportunity. It's like being given $3.5 million to go make a little movie. This is like free film school for me. So if I was to come back next year, that would be the main reason why.''

Duchovny made last season's well-received baseball-themed episode, ``The Unnatural,'' and has just finished shooting a new one, which is scheduled to air on April 30. In the upcoming show, Mulder discovers that his boss has sold some X-Files stories to Hollywood. When he goes to Tinseltown to investigate, he discovers that the show being made of his exploits stars Garry Shandling (a close friend, whom Duchovny memorably pretended to have a crush on in Shandling's own post-modern ``The Larry Sanders Show'') and, playing partner Dana Scully, Duchovny's real-life wife, Tea Leoni.

``I like writing and directing,'' notes the New York native, who dropped out of Yale a semester shy of earning his Ph.D. in English Literature to pursue acting in Manhattan. ``I don't think I've ever really gotten as close to being fulfilled as I was with that episode I did last year. So I think that's probably the direction where I'm headed.''

And he's probably got a future at it after his impressive display of a not-insubstantial directorial gift: attracting top talent for dirt cheap.

``When you can deliver two stars for $3,000, you're a hero at the studio,'' he says. ``And of course I have to say this, but really, I am just so impressed with my wife as an actress. I would put her in anything I do if she would do it. And I love Garry as a performer, so I just feel so lucky that they would do a TV show.''

Duchovny is even more impressed with Leoni's performance at home these days. This most down-to-earth of actors is in absolute awe of his wife's rapport with their baby daughter, Madelaine West, who celebrates her first birthday this month.

As for his own parenting experience, the actor is learning that there are more rewarding things in life than directing TV shows. Even good TV shows.

``She's starting to cuddle a little bit,'' he notes, analytically but with an increasing tone of satisfaction. ``You know, you're so affectionate with them, but aside from holding, they don't really respond when you, like, stroke them. It's not like a cat or a 5-year-old kid, who likes it when you scratch their head. Babies don't get physical affection right away, and I just didn't know how to make her feel good. But now, all of a sudden, she's recently started to lay her head into me. I'm like, ``Oh my God!' ''

Things aren't quite so blissful with Duchovny's TV family, although he insists that there's been minimal fallout on the set from his pending lawsuit against ``The X-Files'' producers - which names, among many others, the show's creator and guiding hand, Chris Carter - for syndication revenues the actor feels he's owed.

``Here's my line: I have a view of my contract and they have a view of my contract,'' Duchovny says. ``Those two views are different. Because of that, I have a lawsuit, and when their view of my contract becomes my view of my contract, then the lawsuit will no longer be necessary.

``But it doesn't affect my work on the show at all. It has nothing to do with it. That happens in Business Affairs on the eighth floor of a building that I've never been in. What happens on the set is what we do all the time, which is that everybody works as hard as they can to make the show as good as it can be. That's all it ever is.''

Whatever his personal future may hold, Duchovny will definitely be sorry to see ``The X-Files'' series come to an end - if only because, he feels, there will never be another television show like it.

``I'm telling you, this show is amazing,'' he says. ``But 'The X-Files' is a dinosaur. They will never spend money on a television show like they spend on 'The X-Files' again. We were lucky because the series grew up in the two or three years before cable fragmented the audience, when you could still rationalize spending that kind of money to get a huge audience. But you'll never get an audience like this again.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) 'X' - it sign?

David Duchovny turns to romantic comedy in 'Return to Me'

(2) David Duchovny will decide this spring whether to return for an eighth season of ``The X-Files.''

(3) Minnie Driver and David Duchovny play two seemingly star-crossed lovers in ``Return to Me.''