David Duchovny's Real Name: David William Duchovny

Quick answer: David Duchovny's documented full name is David William Duchovny. Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Los Angeles Times Hollywood Star Walk both record that form and date his birth to August 7, 1960, in New York, New York (Encyclopaedia Britannica; Los Angeles Times).

Real name and early life

He is known professionally as David Duchovny. Britannica says he earned a B.A. at Princeton University and an M.A. in English literature at Yale University, where he began work on a Ph.D. The Los Angeles Times reports that the planned dissertation topic was "Magic and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry." He added acting classes in New York, appeared in a beer commercial and Off-Broadway plays, left Yale in 1987, and later that year moved to Hollywood. The Times says he was 28 when he committed to acting full-time after an agent asked him to take a class.

Career highlights

His first movie roles were in Working Girl (1988) and the independent film New Year's Day (1989). Other early credits included The Rapture (1991), Chaplin (1992), and Kalifornia (1993). In the early 1990s he played Jake on The Red Shoe Diaries and, as Britannica and the Times both note, the detective Dennis/Denise on Twin Peaks; he later returned as Denise in the 2017 revival. In 1993 he was cast as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files (1993–2002, with revivals in 2016 and 2018), opposite Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully. The Times says he won a Golden Globe and earned three Emmy nominations for the role. The series also produced two films, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). While still on the series he starred in Playing God (1997), Return to Me (2000), and Evolution (2001). In 2004 he wrote and directed his first feature, The House of D. Later television work included Californication (2007–14), in which he played a self-destructive writer, and Aquarius (2015–16). He has also published novels, including Holy Cow (2015), Bucky Fcking Dent* (2016), Miss Subways (2018), and Truly Like Lightning (2021), Britannica records.

Name notes for searchers

David William Duchovny is the documented full name; the professional name is David Duchovny. Searchers looking for Fox Mulder on The X-Files, or for the star of Californication, are usually aiming at the same person.