William B Davis, the actor who played the villainous Cigarette-Smoking Man in the X-files, is shown in an eerie light at his home in an Vancouver on Saturday.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
Vancouver actor William B. Davis, who played the "Cigarette-Smoking Man" villain in the iconic 1990s series The X-Files, says there's something fitting about plans to shoot six new episodes of the series in the B.C. city this summer.
No air date has been set yet for the project, which marks a return to Vancouver, where the first five seasons of the show about a pair of FBI agents investigating paranormal events, were shot from 1993 to 1998. The series ran until 2002.
At its best, The X-Files could be chilling, creepy, moving and wildly hilarious, with cutting-edge writing, acting and production.
"[Vancouver is] where the show belongs," said Mr. Davis, now acting on the made-in-Vancouver time-travel TV series Continuum. "The Vancouver production community, in a way, deserves to do the remount since the Vancouver production community was the community that launched the show."
For the Vancouver production sector, the series was a job-creating juggernaut now fondly remembered. Simon Barry, creator and executive producer of Continuum, says anyone in the production sector not committed to another series could end up working on The X-Files. That included Mr. Barry, who had gigs as an X-Files assistant cameraman.
And the show had an impact when he went to look for financing and support for Continuum. "It opened the door to science-fiction shows being internationally saleable. You could have a show for nerds that attracted international audiences," Mr. Barry said.
Other X-Files graduates include Vince Gilligan, who would go on to create TV's Breaking Bad, and Howard Gordon, who was at the helm of 24 and Homeland.
Vancouver's forests lured series creator Chris Carter and his team from Los Angeles in 1993, and they stayed until David Duchovny called for a move to L.A., to spend more time with his then-wife, actress Téa Leoni. Memorably, Mr. Duchovny also caused a stir in Vancouver by complaining about the weather – "400 inches of rain a day."
One mystery lingering around this revival is exactly why X-Files is coming back to Vancouver.
"I don't have any inside information on why they decided to come back here," said Mr. Davis, who has been told by Mr. Carter that he will be back in the new series. "I can think of lots of good reasons, from sentimental to atmosphere to lower Canadian dollar to amazing crews to a good experience."
Robert Goodwin, an X-Files executive producer who directed the last episode shot in Vancouver, says it could be all of those reasons plus one – a bid for luck in coming back to a region that offered much help.
Before The X-Files, Vancouver played host to such series as MacGyver and 21 Jump Street. However, Mr. Goodwin says The X-Files was special.
"The X-Files, with no disrespect to anybody else, was kind of a landmark show. It was a show that didn't look like any other show," said Mr. Goodwin, now based in Bellingham, Wash. "It looked like the movies. We really wanted high quality in terms of the directing style and the acting style and the look of the show."
He says the Vancouver region had such diverse settings producers were able to evoke locations across the United States and around the world. Also, he said the wealth of local actors allowed producers to do most of their casting with performers in the Lower Mainland.
While news of The X-Files reboot was announced last week, it has long been the talk of Vancouver's production sector where the key point of discussion was the length of the return – six episodes or more.
Six episodes won't cause much of a splash for what is now one of North America's key production centres and currently home to such series as Supernatural, The Flash and Arrow, as well as looming feature films such as Star Trek 3, observers say. But there's a lot of sentimental affection for the show.
Crawford Hawkins, executive director of the B.C. wing of the Directors Guild of Canada, worked as a second-unit director and in post production on The X-Files. He won one of the show's Emmys for his sound-editing work.
Mr. Hawkins said he has no plans to work on the new X-Files run, but would like to hang around the set. "We'll all go down there on the first day of shooting and wish them luck – if we're allowed to," he said, laughing.
Ian Bailey