'What Happens Later' star David Duchovny: 'Love remains a goal'

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- David Duchovny said he was glad What Happens Later, in theaters Friday, showed how adults deal with relationships later in life.

Duchovny, 63, plays a man who reconnects with an ex-girlfriend (Meg Ryan) during an airport layover.

"This movie honors the passage of time and the different concerns that you have at different ages," Duchovny told UPI in a recent Zoom interview. "And yet love remains a goal."

Ryan also directed What Happens Later and co-wrote it with Kirk Lynn, in addition to playing Willa. Duchovny plays Bill, who still has some bitterness about his breakup with Willa.

Duchovny said the conversation that takes up the duration of What Happens Later shows how Bill and Willa "misremember and misjudge each other." Their reunion reveals truths about the relationship 25 years later.

"I was a rock for her and yet I was filled with anxiety," Duchovny said of his character. "She never really knew that. To me, she was this free spirited, anything's possible kind of person, and I didn't know she was riddled with regret, as well."

After a successful run in the '90s sci-fi drama The X-Files, Duchovny said he'd hoped to transition more into a romantic leading man. He did star in the romance Return to Me in 2000, but found the genre changed since Meg Ryan "was the supreme ruler of that world."

"That was exactly the time when Judd Apatow revolutionized the rom-com," Duchovny said. "It became the raunchy rom-com so I kind of missed out on that."

Duchovny said he relates to the romance and sentiment in movies like What Happens Later. However, he said, he aims to bring a light touch to drama and a dramatic weight to comedy.

"I think I try to bring the opposite in whatever I'm doing," Duchovny said. "If I'm doing a comedy, I try to bring some darkness into that. If I'm doing straight drama, I try to bring some comedy into that."

Ryan filmed many of Bill and Willa's conversations in long takes. Duchovny said they would often perform eight pages of dialogue at a time.

"There's a certain kind of comedic rhythm that can happen between the two actors," Duchovny said. "There's a certain kind of human rhythm that happens."

In addition to navigating the story and dialogue, Ryan and Duchovny had to navigate the actual travelers at the Fayetteville Regional Airport in North Carolina. Duchovny said the film crew was not allowed to interfere with anyone trying to make a flight.

"You're not actually allowed to ask anybody to wait," Duchovny said. "You can't instruct anybody to do anything at an airport. If they're moving, you can't say, 'Can you hold on 2 seconds while David and Meg try to finish this take?'"

In the film, the airport empties out as stranded travelers book hotels or a few flights make it out during lapses in the storm. What Happens Later had access to the airport after hours.

"Most of the movie happens at night," Duchovny said. "That airport was shut down except for us."

Like Ryan, Duchovny has also directed TV shows and movies in which he starred, like the films House of D and Bucky F*cking Dent and episodes of The X-Files and Californication. He said he was sensitive to how much Ryan had to manage.

"I knew how all-encompassing it has to be," Duchovny said. "I didn't want to be a burden to Meg and that I just wanted to give her what she thought she wanted."

Duchovny said Ryan never seemed overwhelmed and managed to create a playful space.

"That's really what you want in a comedy is to feel safe to go off certain tangents, try certain things, knowing that that person is going to follow you," Duchovny said. "Or, in Meg's case, knowing that I'm going to follow her. So we had that trust, I think, from the very beginning."

What Happens Later's studio Bleecker Street received permission from the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for the actors to promote the film.