David Duchovny reveals he auditioned for all the male lead roles on Full House

Actor says he wasn’t ready for the ‘energetic performance’ a sitcom required

David Duchovny has revealed that he auditioned for and subsequently lost out on the roles for all three male leads on the 1987 sitcom Full House.

The Emmy-nominated actor said on the recent episode of his Lemonada podcast Fail Better, that he auditioned for the role of Danny Tanner first, then Jesse Katsopolis and Joey Gladstone, roles that ended up going to Bob Saget, John Stamos, and Dave Coulier who played these roles on the eight-season show that ran till 1995.

“I auditioned for all three parts on Full House,” he said.

“At first, they had me for, I think, the dad. And then they had me for the Stamos character. And then they had me for the other guy. I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to get one of these, and it’s going to change my life.’”

While the Californication star ended up getting none of the roles, he pointed out that he was just starting out in Hollywood at the time and wasn’t particularly good at the kind of acting a sitcom required.

“I had plenty of those pilots that I went up for when I was first out in L.A. and I thought each one was going to be the break,” he said.

“I just needed to be able to pay my rent too. That was an important thing ’cause I just wanted a job.

“I was really bad at that kind of stuff. I did not know how to do that sitcom stuff. I don’t know what they were thinking, that they thought I was going to exist in that world. I mean, I guess I could have learned, but I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready for that kind of, energetic performance that they need.”

Dave Coulier, Bob Saget, John Stamos in promotional photo for ‘Full House’ (ABC)

Duchovny ended up getting his break when he landed the iconic role on The X-Files, playing Agent Fox Mulder opposite Gillian Anderson’s Agent Dana Scully, which premiered in 1993 and ran for nine seasons till 2002. The hit show revolved around two special agents investigating unsolved cases, which often involved unexplained, paranormal activities.

Duchovny also reprised his role in a reboot that ran from 2016 till 2018 and two feature films.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in ‘The X-Files’ (FOX)

In an interview with The Independent in 2004, he recalled working on The X-Files, and said he’s “never worked that hard before”.

“Every year had its own hurdle. The first year it was just survival. I’d never worked that hard before. Fifteen hours a day. It was enervating. How do I work to memorise these lines? In The X-Files there was always something new to memorise, but once you’d got the character there wasn’t really anything new to act,” he said.

“The second year it was a matter of working out how to have fun while I did it. The third year was, ‘Well, OK, I’ve survived - so how can I start to be creative again?’ It was only at that point that I had any energy left to do anything other than go home and prepare for the next day’s work.”