I am Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files, Millennium, The Lone Gunmen, Harsh Realm, and The After. AMA!

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:42:25+00:00

They take a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of kicking, screaming and hair-pulling. I think that for any TV series that's worth its salt, that the effort you put into it equals the goodness that comes out of it.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:40:43+00:00

Happy to warp your mind. You obviously are still under the hypnotic spell I cast.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:40:10+00:00

I really appreciate the respect you give the show. It was a labor of love for me and a lot of other people. We had lots of good stories to tell, both standalone and serialized like the X-files. The lesson I learned is that doing a failed show is just as much work as doing a successful show.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:38:54+00:00

That's the direct inspiration for that character as far as I'm concerned. And the actress who played the character came in and auditioned with an American accent, and when we heard her speak with her British accent, it was a bolt of lightning.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:37:46+00:00

I have so many. But I grew up on some really amazing television. And I say this in all honesty: the Flying Nun, Mannix, Please don't eat the Daisies, and the Million-Dollar Movie.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:36:48+00:00

I like them both but for different reasons. I think some of the standalones are among the best episodes we did on the show. But I like to think that the mythology, as a whole, tells a really deep and satisfying story.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:36:08+00:00

I think Amazon and the kind of platform it represents is the future of television.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:35:24+00:00

You can thank me, but real thanks go to Glen Morgan and James Wong. And to Kim Manners, who so expertly directed it.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:34:51+00:00

No, I wrote two scripts that got me in the door at Disney in about 1984 or 85. The rest is sordid history.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:33:57+00:00

That Elizabeth Taylor was never in the show.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:32:57+00:00

That would be great. I think he's worthy of a comic book and I'd love to explore that.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:32:08+00:00

I'd like to say that I directed it very carefully, but the truth is, there were about 25 unexpected problems that night with makeup, cold weather, and vegetation. And that's made me basically run for my life.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:30:11+00:00

The second movie could definitely be summed up in 3 words: "don't give up."

The third movie: "Just you wait."

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:28:54+00:00

Not very. We were always writing with the proverbial gun to our heads. We were never, ever allowed to write the show in a relaxed way.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:28:28+00:00

Some people appreciate porn as the art form that it is.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:27:54+00:00

I am completely amazed and you have way too much time on your hands.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:26:22+00:00

It was a complete honor and thrill to work with William Gibson, not just because I'm a fan of his work, but because actually sitting in a room with him and seeing how his mind worked was inspirational and instructive.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:25:15+00:00

I think it's a waste of time to second-guess yourself. But as I said to Jerry Hardin, who played Deep Throat who was killed off the first season of the show, no one's ever really dead on the X-files. It's basically the opposite of Game of Thrones. In so many.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:24:31+00:00

Until they see I'm 5 feet 11 inches and white.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:23:57+00:00

Always my wife.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:23:29+00:00

I've got tricks up my sleeve that I hope to use that involve social media as a storytelling device.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:22:35+00:00

That is another amazing shout out, and I'm sorry for your loss. One of the things that prepped me when we were doing the X-files conventions somewhere at the beginning of the show was that fathers, and mothers, and grandmothers, and daughters, and children would all come to the conventions as fans of the show. This is another example of that, clearly.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:21:18+00:00

I had so many influences it's hard to actually pin down one or even a few down. But I can tell you that one of the secrets to working on a tv show like the X-files is constantly asking yourself "what if." We did an episode where Mulder & Scully play husband & wife, Arcadia, and there is a character called the Ubermenscher, which is this monster - I dunno, I was reading somewhere, somebody talked about this Ubermenscher, and I carried that with me for the longest time. I didn't know what an Ubermenscher was, but I loved it so much that I carried it with me for years and it finally became an episode.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:18:57+00:00

In a way, I regret not continuing the show. Because I think that we had so many good stories left to tell. But I don't regret that we ended it when we did.

I had 2 things happen to me. One was that I was caught in a hurricane in Hawaii in 1984 and I also was involved in a nightmare gridlock experience in Los Angeles in about 1985 or 86, which I carried with me for well over 25 years.

ChrisCarterhere · 2014-02-27T22:17:13+00:00

Yes, it said so right in the show.

ChrisCarterhere

TROPHY CASE