Chris Owens in DreamWatch #53
"Isn't it neat?" 37 year old Chris Bradley Owens, who plays Agent Spender on
THE X-FILES, relaxes in a Victorian chair in a hotel suite in Marina del Rey, the
upmarket seaside resort west of LA. The actor tells us that he's just bought a
computer. "I've recently joined the Nineties. It took me three days to learn
how to turn it on," he quips. "I found my site on the Internet. It's fun. I
heard some of the actors have tried to respond. I know David [Duchovny] and
William [B Davis] have tried it in a chat room, but no one in the chat room
believed it was them. I suppose because everybody says 'I'm David!'"
Originally from Toronto, Owens lived in Vancouver - the X-FILES home for its first five seasons - for two years before he moved to LA. Owens is no novice to show business. His father was a jazz drummer and his mother was a singer. Although his parents expected their son to hold down a stable job, Owens chose acting. "I didn't choose to be in the music field like my parents were, but acting is fascinating to me. I think my first hero was Bruce Lee," Owens says. "I studied Martial Arts when I was a teenager. I was hooked." He studied drama at the HB Studio in NY and began his career on the stage, eventually earning a Dora Award nomination for John Patrick Shanley's "Italian-American Reconciliation."
Owens started acting almost 15 years ago. He has appeared on more than 40 TV series and movies, including PSI Factor, Stargate SG-1 and Chris Carter's Millennium. "It wasn't easy," Owens muses. "One time I signed a contract with a series, but after the first episode aired, that was it. No more episodes were made. I was so disappointed. I had to go back to being a bartender."
Owens has spent many years doing TV and movies between bartending and waiting tables, just hoping for that big break to come to him. Finally Lady Luck smiled on him, and Owens signed the contract giving him regular star status for Season 6 of THE X-FILES, placing him above the many veteran actors who have played key characters on the show. Only three other X-FILES performers can boast the lofty status: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson and Mitch Pileggi.
"It's very nice to study my pay cheque," Owens grins. "I think it's a real honour. Not only because I've been given the opportunity to be in a show I admire, but because it's such an important position. Naturally I've got many aspirations. I'm scheduled to appear in about half of all the episodes to be broadcast in season six so I've got to make sure I'm in the best condition possible for the job." Half of all the Season 6 episodes? Will the show replace Agent Mulder with Spender? "I've remembered all [David's] lines, but no!" the actor laughs.
Before he started playing Agent Spender, Owens was already familiar to audiences from his previous roles on the show as the young CSM ("Demons"/"Musings of a CSM") and Mutato, the hideous creature ("Post-Modern Prometheus"). "It took six hours to get the make-up on my face. Half of it was controlled by computer so that it can easily move in any direction. But it was really uncomfortable, so heavy and irritating. Nobody recognised that creature was me unless you saw my name in credit. If you did, oh, I would be scared." Owens smiles widely. His previous acting on the series paved the way for Agent Spender. "That's why I like Mutato so much," he laughs.
In the final episode of season five ("The End"), Agent Mulder loses his life's work. The CSM burns Mulder's office - and all the X Files therein - taking Samantha Mulder's file with him. Then in the movie M&S are common or garden FBI agents, but still manage to get the X-FILES reopened by the end of the film. What's new in Season 6? Agent Spender gets his desk plate!
"Mulder is having difficulty with higher-ups. He sometimes runs off to investigate cases he isn't officially assigned to, so they punish him by making him do ordinary work. They put me in his old office instead. I've got my little 'Agent Spender' stamps, too. I sit down there and do my job. As soon as I saw my desk plate, I thought, 'Oh, they can't fire me now. They've invested a lot of money.'" He giggles.
THE X-FILES has already shot five episodes by October. "One of the things that I think is great, is that it takes a chance. Each script is different, so we go into many different worlds," Owens says. "In episode three of Season 6 ["Triangle"] what Chris Carter wrote was a story that took us back in time to World War II. It's sort of a Bermuda Triangle idea or Wizard of Oz. Everyone is back to the past - so is Spender - but Mulder still lives in the Nineties."
Most of the scenes were shot on the Queen Mary II, a beautiful ship docked at Long Beach in Southern California. "I play a Nazi in the episode, although I don't speak German." Owens had to take lessons from a German dialogue coach. "That was fun. Shooting on the ship. Gillian was wonderful in a long gown," he recalls. "Filming went on late into the night. The show's fans are terrific. I don't know how they heard, but they came down to watch us do the shoot on the ship. I was very surprised.
"As I told you, I've just bought a computer, which I haven't totally figured out how to use yet, but I do know how amazingly fast information travels over the Internet. I'm stunned at how energetically fans are pursuing THE X-FILES activities. But I think it's great. When you're working on the show, you need good fan support. They are very unwavering and supportive."
Before the move to LA, THE X-FILES had an energetic and efficient crew in Vancouver. Chris Carter was unable to hide his concern when the spectre of relocating production became a reality. Everyone wondered if the dark, chaotic atmosphere unique to THE X-FILES could be expressed in bright, sunny California. Losing the experienced, quality Vancouver crew left many wondering just how negative an impact that would have on the series. "I find the crew here excellent. Everything is pretty much the same. A few people moved from Vancouver, but the rest of the crew are Hollywood people," Owens declares. "Oh, and that was funny. The first day I went to Fox Studios, I took a bus to get there. I didn't have a car yet, so I took a bus and walked past all these gorgeous, parked cars and said 'Hi,' to the security at the gate. I remember the man's face. He looked at me like he was about to say 'Who are you? No, your name isn't listed,'" the actor laughs.
Agent Spender is ambitious, keeping a sharp eye out for promotion opportunities to come his way, and when they do he seizes them. He's also, like Sir Lancelot, the last of the pure-hearted knights, and he's easily hurt. Is CSM really his father? Mulder his half-brother? (making William B. Davis's character Mulder's father?) "I still don't know," Owens answers. "We've done five episodes so far, but Chris Carter likes to keep us all guessing..."
Spender has a lot of pain inside of him. "What's in my mind is to create the role using my sense of truth, supposing what he would want to do. He feels that he is different from Agent Mulder. Agent Spender is at odds with Mulder because there are differences of belief. Agent Mulder firmly believes in the paranormal, but right now Agent Spender believes the fact that can be proved. Also Mulder is pretty gushy himself, and Spender thinks Agent Mulder is pretty," Owens laughs.
Owens joined THE X-FILES family in the middle of Season 5 as Agent Spender. Since the show was already a great success and had beautifully firm relationships, wasn't it hard to get a foot in the door? "Everyone who works there is great," he says. "That's amazing. Several actors have their own doubles and David even has his 'hand' actor. Whenever Mulder types on a computer or open the files, his 'hand' actor does it all. At the wrap party of Season 5, David gave expensive basketballs to us. He autographed the balls and wrote very touching words. I keep the ball in my room but I don't think I can use it on games," he smiles. "When I moved to LA, I was thinking of sharing an apartment with Nic [Nicholas Lea], but people said, 'No, no. You should think twice...unless you like having a party every night.' Everybody knows he is such a nice guy, and I like parties, but every night is...er...unacceptable," Owens smiles widely. "I enjoy working with him! I really do."
As soon as the actor made his appearance on the show, Duchonvy was aware of his talent and spoke to Carter about getting Owens involved in the show more deeply. They decided to make more use of him. In Season 5's Patient X, Agent Spender and his mother add a mysterious and wounded essence to the episode. Also contributing to PX was the return of AK, who now harbours a hidden passion for MC, Mulder's UN contact. Spender's conflict with Mulder leads the audiences deeper into the conspiracy, questions lead to questions, and everything is wonderfully convoluted. But Owens thinks there should be another aspect of the show. "Frankly, I'd expect Spender to get more involved in romance situations. I don't think he would have many opportunities for romance like Mulder does, but Scully, I think she may be a possibility. She's beautiful and intelligent. No doubt Spender eventually feels sentiment over her." Owens grins with great expectations. "Oh, Mulder is also cute. I like romantic comedy."
Owens wants to play as many characters as he can. "Whether you work for one day, five weeks, one whole season. I don't know where Spender has been taken episode to episode. Some episodes are more involved and some others he has maybe one scene. If I were given the choice I would prefer to do movies," Owens muses. "The writing in THE X-FILES is quite rare. Of course there are other top quality writers like in ER or The Practice but there aren't many. For the independent future, I'd like to do movies, and in between, just for myself, I'd like to do more theatre, because it's how I got started. That's a challenge I always enjoy."
Owens made a short appearance in Disturbing Behavior, the movie by the former X-FILES director, David Nutter, launched in cinemas in America during the summer of 1998. "Oh, my God, you recognised me? It's quite a small part. I'm only in the first ten minutes, that's all. David Nutter wanted to hire a few X-FILES actors in the movie. I'm not sure who else is in it, though."
Many actors state that it's fun playing bad guys, anti-heroes or twisted men of fate. Portraying mental suffering or creating the psychological depiction of a character is something actors take seriously. "Bad guys tend to be interesting to play." Owens pulls a menacing face. "Although I don't really think about it. When I'm playing someone else, I think I try as best as I can. X-FILES fans expect Agent Spender to be more dark, but I'm just doing my job."
Agent Spender's popularity gets a boost on the cyber world. Some of his biggest fans are attentive enough to dedicate their websites to him. "It's amazing how they get all the information. I have heard that Chris Carter and Fox's Publicity Department knows the fans' activities, so they sometimes release wrong information to keep up the mystery, and it comes to the Net immediately. Unbelievable."
"There's something else amazing out there," the actor smiles shyly. "Someone sent me a story about Agent Spender. At first I thought, 'Hey, it's great!' and started reading. It was a story on Agent Spender and...another agent. I read several lines and then stopped. That's...er...I can guess what's going to happen to these agents next," Owens laughs loudly. "But I think it's great if that makes fans happy."
Carter has mentioned that they have started thinking about the sequel to THE X-FILES movie,
released this summer worldwide. The first movie was just an introduction.
Whether they were familiar with the series or not, the audiences were never
left in the dark. The number of cast members were limited so as not to confuse
first-time viewers. What fans expect in the sequel would be more information on
the questions that have never been answered, exposing the deep involvement of
villains and key characters, exposing the relationships of Mulder/Spender/CSM or
Marita/Krycek/Mulder. "I think it will be all about Spender," Owens jokes. "In Season 6 the
dark element in the relationship between the Cigarette Smoking Man and Spender
will probably be brought to the fore, so the next movie will most certainly be
a more complex production. That is, of course, if David and Gillian agree to
appear in the sequel. We'll see..."
