Duchovny raps media

DAVID DUCHOVNY: He says his remarks about Vancouver's rain were taken out of context.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - David Duchovny says he's finally reached the point where he no longer feels like a stranger in the house he and his actress wife, Tea Leoni, bought last year high in the Malibu hills region of southern California. "It genuinely feels like home now," Duchovny said.

But it didn't feel like home last winter when Duchovny was still filming The X-Files in Vancouver and was able to visit there only on occasional weekends.

Duchovny insists he is still a big fan of Vancouver, but he also says he's still trying to come to terms with the uproar that broke out over the decision to relocate The X-Files to Los Angeles after five years of shooting in Vancouver. And he suggests he was a victim of the "infantile" Vancouver media.

Co-star Gillian Anderson shared his desire to move the show to southern California, but it was Duchovny who took the brunt of the criticism. He says it wasn't easy to be driving around Vancouver and suddenly to see a sign on a strip club marquee reading: "DAVID DUCHOVNY IS BARRED -- GO HOME."

"The intensity of the reaction hurt because people thought they were being rejected or insulted," he says now. "They felt they had been demeaned. But ultimately, it didn't hurt because it was silly. It wasn't about anything important."

Duchovny knows now that he created a big problem for himself when he made a casual joke about Vancouver's rainy weather during an appearance on Conan O'Brien's late-night talk show.

"My commentary about the weather was funneled into my desire to move to Los Angeles. I kept reading that I wanted to leave Vancouver because I didn't like the weather and I didn't like the city -- whereas actually it was two totally different stories."

So for the record, Duchovny wants to make a few things clear.

"Vancouver was my home for five years. I liked Vancouver. If it wasn't for having to take that flight back and forth, and if it wasn't for the fact that at this point in the life of the show I wanted to be closer to Los Angeles to be with Tea and do other things, I would still be there."

He blames the media for stirring up the furore and for giving the impression that he wanted to flee Vancouver's rainy winter weather.

"It was too bad because people in that city do take their cue from the newspapers. I mean, who watches Conan O'Brien in Vancouver? Nobody, but the papers grabbed on to it."

Duchovny says he understands the city felt it was "losing something," but adds that the behaviour of the Vancouver press was "infantile and terrible" last year. "Everything I say becomes disparaging when it's reported in Canada."

Later he qualifies his remark, drawing a distinction between the way The Province and The Vancouver Sun covered the decision to relocate The X-Files.

"The Sun wasn't the problem," he says. "The Province was the problem." But of course, he adds, "The Sun is considered the classier publication."