The following is a list of characters in The X-Files. The X-Files is an American science fiction television series, first broadcast in September 1993, and followed by two feature films—The X-Files and The X-Files: I Want to Believe. These characters defined the series' overarching mythology, or fictional history, and appeared in a range of episodes across several seasons.
For series' first seven seasons, the main characters were FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). A supporting cast of secondary protagonists was gradually introduced, with the agents' direct superior Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), conspiracy theorists The Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund and Bruce Harwood) and secretive informants Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) and X (Steven Williams) forming a core of recurring characters. Following Duchovny's departure from the series, actor Robert Patrick was introduced in the eighth season as the replacement character John Doggett, who was later accompanied by Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) in the ninth and final season.
Although the series initially lacked a recognisable antagonist, this role was eventually filled by The Smoking Man (William B. Davis) and the shadowy Syndicate. Syndicate member Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) was introduced in the second season as a partner for Mulder to fill in while Anderson was pregnant, growing to become a recurring villain appearing in all subsequent seasons.
Characters who had a lesser degree of importance on the series can be found at List of minor The X-Files characters, while characters who had no bearing on the overarching storyline can be found at List of Monster-of-the-Week characters in The X-Files.
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list and/or characters:
“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
“Lastly, his tomb
Shall list and founder in the troughs of grass
And none shall speak his name.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life—the first twenty years of it—had about them something semi-fictitious.”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)