Entertainment
The X-Files Actor Who Freaked Out David Duchovny By Insisting On Being Naked
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Part of what makes Fox Mulder such a great X-Files character is that he’s cool and collected; the kind of guy who can face down aliens and sewer monsters and still get a few quips in before saving the day. Normally, David Duchovny is just as Zen-like as his Mulder character, but he ended up getting freaked out by one of the show’s greatest guest stars. That star was Doug Hutchison (who played stretchy villain Eugene Tooms), who insisted on playing his climactic scene naked, a decision that spooked Duchovny when he had to act alongside a nude, slime-covered monster man.
Tooms, The Naked Horror
In the climax of the episode “Tooms,” Mulder discovers and confronts the titular villain, who is found hiding, naked and covered in goo, beneath a mall escalator. It wasn’t the writers’ idea to make the villain nude, but Hutchison insisted on stripping down for the final scene because it made more sense for his animalistic character. As showrunner Chris Carter later pointed out, the nudity made that scene much scarier for Duchovny: in his words, “David was very nervous about being in a little tiny confined space with a naked man.”
Much of this info, including Carter’s recollections about Duchovny, comes from the DVD special features of The X-Files Season 1 set. There, the showrunner revealed more of the Mulder actor’s thoughts on acting alongside Hutchison’s naked form. About “Tooms,” he revealed that “the thing that I felt worst about was that David Duchovny was gonna actually have to get into this elevator shaft with this naked, greasy, grimy, sweaty man and to have to…pretend to be afraid of him, which was probably the easy part.”
While Carter initially felt bad about putting his star through this ordeal, he ultimately decided that it was all for the best. The showrunner thought the “little bit of discomfort…added to the scene” in part because Duchovny really “was very nervous about being in a little tiny confined space with a naked man.” However, “it made the scare, the creep, all that more real,” meaning that Duchovny’s fear was shared by just about everyone watching “Tooms” and seeing his (ahem) naked fear.
But while the X-Files showrunner concluded that the nudity was a great idea, the man who originally proposed the idea ended up regretting it. Eugene Tooms actor Doug Hutchison got his wish to perform the scene naked, but he also got something else: the cold. In his words, “I was sick as a dog and naked as a jaybird and had this icy cold slime all over me.”
Continuing, the actor described his discomfort in excruciatingly visceral detail: “I was literally sticking all over everything and everything was sticking to me,” he said. “I had lint in the most preposterous places on my body,” he said before concluding that the entire experience of shooting this scene “was really kind of gross.” While the guest star paints an extremely vivid picture here, much of this isn’t exactly surprising…after all, anyone who had seen the Tooms character naked and covered in goo can easily imagine how much the actor would be sticking to pretty much every surface around him.
This entire tale is very illuminating because it shows how many different creative factors go into making a great X-Files episode. The Tooms character wouldn’t have been naked if the actor hadn’t insisted on it and Chris Carter hadn’t signed off on it; meanwhile, the climactic scene wouldn’t have been effective if Duchovny didn’t get rightly freaked out at his proximity to a naked, slime-covered guy playing a functionally immortal cannibal. It all came together and elevated the episode…but really, what else were you expecting from an episode that turned an escalator into a lethal weapon?
Entertainment
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Entertainment
Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
Comedian John Early makes his feature directorial debut with Maddie’s Secret, an offbeat homage to melodrama that he wrote and headlines as its eponymous heroine.
As an aspiring food influencer, Maddie Ralph (Early) is passionate about her cuisine. And at first glance, she’s got a picture-perfect life: a loving husband (Eric Rahill), a devoted best friend (Kate Berlant), and a job at a culinary content studio called Gourmaybe. But as the title suggests, there’s a side to Maddie she can’t stomach sharing with her loved ones. And this secret could kill her.
Out of the movie’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, I cheered Maddie’s Secret, writing in my review for Mashable, “The film is silly and strange, but even amid campy bits, sincere. So, you’ll laugh at its parody elements, but may well be genuinely moved by Early’s commitment to this strange and splendid film.”
I also said “John Early is a better ingénue than Sydney Sweeney,” comparing Maddie’s Secret to another earnest (but less entertaining) TIFF offering, Christy. And I stand by it.
Maddie’s Secret opens in theaters in New York on June 19, and in Los Angeles on June 26.
Entertainment
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
We know Pride is all year round, but there is something special about the month of June. We’re not there quite yet, but if you want a main squeeze for all the parades and parties, you gotta start looking now. How about on a dating app?
As a lesbian, you probably know all about them. Lesbian Americans (along with bisexual and gay Americans) are far more likely to have ever used dating apps than straight Americans: 51 percent to 28 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
There are a few reasons why LGBTQ people might turn to online dating more quickly than straight folks. For one, you might live in an area without a thriving LGBTQ community, and in-person dating may be hard. If you don’t know other lesbians to begin with, how can you meet more IRL to date? (Sometimes, lesbian spaces can also be co-opted by The Straights.) Unfortunately, in-person dating may also be less safe, depending on where you live.
Hookup apps for everyone
AdultFriendFinder
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readers’ pick for casual connections
Tinder
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top pick for finding hookups
Hinge
—
popular choice for regular meetups
Thankfully, we live in a time where we can find people like us with a few swipes. Lesbians are welcome on major dating apps, and there are also niche ones specifically for lesbians and other queer women and people. But which one to choose?
How to find the best dating apps for lesbians
Niche lesbian dating apps aren’t your only option for finding love.
Credit: Stacey Zhu / Mashable
In Mashable’s recommendations below, you’ll find both general dating apps and apps specifically for queer people. As the former appeals to the general population, you’ll find more users in these spaces. The caveat, however, is that when you swipe on other women, you might find those coupled with men who are looking for another woman to have a threesome with (aka unicorn hunters). No judgment here, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. Then again, people of all types are on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. You never know who you may come across.
Then there are apps specifically for the community, like HER and Lex. If you yearn for a smaller dating scene, head for these apps. While there’s no “Grindr for lesbians” — we go into why in the FAQ section — these apps are more so like stepping into your neighborhood lesbian bar than an app like Bumble.
You can also try multiple dating apps, as each one below has a free version. You can filter by the gender you identify with and are looking for, and sometimes, as with OkCupid, there are many options to choose from.
Diving into the dating pool isn’t easy, but the water’s fine. Check out our guide below for the full rundown of our recommendations and dating app reviews.
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Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
