William B. Davis hopes X-Files returns to Vancouver

Known for his role as the Smoking Man, Vancouver actor William B. Davis hopes rumours of an X-Files reboot have some credence. "I think it would be successful if it did," Davis told CBC Radio's The Early Edition.

Davis said he hasn't heard anything from Carter, or from Fox executives. "Your guess is as good as mine," he said.

(Charlie Cho/CBC)

There have long been rumours of a third X-Files movie, but Davis was surprised to hear it might

return as a television show. "This rumour is different — and it's more serious — that they would actually reboot the television series."

Davis expects if the show did return it would probably be a mini-series of 10 or 12 episodes. "I don't think Gillian and David would sign on to do 22 episodes a year again — that would surprise me, it drove them crazy before."

Davis said if the TV series does get revived, he hopes it doesn't start where the original series left off — and instead goes back to an earlier time. "The question really for me is — if they reboot the television series, what does that mean dramatically? Do they take the story as far as it went and continue from there, which I hope not, because I am dead." 

Davis said the tension in Mulder and Scully's relationship — the series ended with them in a romantic relationship —  and the presence of villains like himself was key to the original series. Davis said the success of the show turned him into a full time actor "of some repute." He said it also cemented Vancouver as a place to shoot film and television shows. "To have a show that was that big, that popular, that employed that many people ... definitely put Vancouver on the map as a production place."

[Source] 


William B. Davis is playing Alec Sadler (elderly in 2077) on Showcase's Continuum. As the founder of SadTech company and sending Kiera Cameron, a cop from 2077 who is transported to the present day and attempts to stop a terrorist organization as she finds her way back to the future.

The Rachel Nichols-led time-travel drama will return for a fourth and final season. The final six episodes, which will debut on Canada’s Showcase network in 2015, will air stateside on Syfy.