TV David Duchovny recalls losing out on all 3 male lead roles on Full House: 'I've got to get one of these' How rude! By Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen. EW's editorial guidelines Published on July 9, 2024 06:16PM EDT Whatever happened to predictability? In the case of David Duchovny, he faced an unpredictable future when he auditioned for all three of the male lead roles on Full House and landed none of them. "I auditioned for all three parts on Full House,"he said on his Lemonada podcast Fail Better. "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.'" David Duchovny feels like he had a hand in 'discovering' Angelina Jolie: 'I just knew she was a movie star' Spoiler alert — he didn't and it did not. But Duchovny also noted that it was par for the course for his early days as an actor in Hollywood. "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 added."I just needed to be able to pay my rent too." David Duchovney; Dave Coulier, John Stamos, and Bob Saget on 'Full House'. Getty; Everett However, Duchovny also admitted that the style of acting required for a sitcom at that time was not really in his wheelhouse. "I was really bad at that kind of stuff," he said. "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 for that kind of, energetic performance that they need." Instead, Duchovny ended up breaking out on a 1990s TV series that was much more his speed, The X-Files, which first premiered in 1993. He remained with the series through its initial run, as well as reprised his role as Agent Mulder in a reboot series from 2016 to 2018 and two feature films. The 25 best episodes of The X-Files Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more. Though he felt inept at sitcoms, he has since tackled some comedy in his career, albeit of a quieter, subtler variety — first, in TV dramedy, Californication, and then, more recently, opposite Meg Ryan in romantic comedy, What Happens Later. Full House, which ran from 1987 to 1995, ultimately starred Bob Saget, John Stamos, and Dave Coulier. It did return for five seasons in the sequel series, Fuller House, but Duchovny didn't throw his hat in the ring that time.