CC: The show has been off the air for six years, but we actually think that has whetted appetites for the movie. So hopefully there will be word-of-mouth, hopefully people will know this franchise, The X-Files, hopefully they’ll come because it’s good story telling and it’s a big summer movie.

GA: It was more exhausting the first time around we fitted it between the hiatuses of the series.

DD: That was not good for anyone.

GA: That was horrendous, this was pleasurable.

DD: We went out, publicizing the movie, told people they didn’t have to have knowledge of the show, and that was actually a lie, we lied to the people. But this time around, because the show has been off the air, we say you don’t have to have specialized knowledge of the show …

GA: It’s true.

DD: It’s actually true, and I won’t be sitting here next time saying “oh I lied again.”

CC: There’s a certain shorthand. We know these characters very well, they know these characters through and through. That said, we wrote the script, which they liked, but they had notes, we worked through those notes.

DD: It really didn’t get rewritten much. It’s a thriller, it has to work, it’s a puzzle piece. It has to work, you can’t like improvise stuff. You can’t, you can’t be screwing with it.

CC: It always adds to the process. Everybody adds to the process, but David and Gillian, in embodying these characters, make it even better. I had no idea what to expect from Billy Connolly. I had written the part for him. I said, “I think you can do anything.” And he said, “thank you very much, what makes you say that?” I told him the reasons I thought he could do anything. He was sorta of surprised and I believe he was impressed.

GA: First of all he’s a really lovely man, he’s a really lovely person. He has a lovely perspective on life, on the world, and he’s also hysterically funny and entertaining. He was, he was a joy to work with, he was wonderful.

DD: Yeah, a good man.

CC: He took the script, read it on a plane ride to New York, wrote me a very nice note that said, “When do we begin?” And I’ll have that framed on my wall soon enough. It’s an extreme environment, and whenever you are dealing with an extreme environment, you deal with something scary, you deal with something that is immediately frightening, is immediately bleak, is immediately I think something that puts you on edge.

DD: Behind the scares there are also big ideas, philosophical and moral ideas as well, behind what is driving the thriller.