Development
| "I tried to put myself in the character’s shoes and see the world from his point of view. After all, villains don’t think they are villains". |
| — William B. Davis talking about his character. |
When first cast for the role, portraying actor William B. Davis thought a show about the paranormal wouldn't last for long. Before joining The X-Files cast, Davis had not smoked a cigarette in twenty years. For the first two episodes he appeared in, he smoked "real" cigarettes, but later changed to herbal cigarettes, giving the reason that it was "dangerous" for his health. In at least one early script draft from the "Pilot", a Special Agent named Lake Drazen is present at the meeting near the start of the episode, having chosen Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) for an assignment to evaluate the validity of Fox Mulder's (David Duchovny) work on the X-Files. The scene was eventually deleted and replaced, and several crew members have hinted that Agent Drazen became the Smoking Man.
Kim Manners said that it seemed all the prominent pieces created for The X-Files were created by "accident". According to Manners, Davis was nothing more than an extra leaning on a shelf. At the start, the producers of the show were not sure about making the Smoking Man the main antagonist. Paul Rabwin commented once that he didn't know if Davis could handle the role, because he was not sure if he was a "good enough" actor for the role. Manners later commented that Davis knew that the Smoking Man had two different characters, the first being the one played by Davis and the second was the cigarettes. He further stated that the cigarette smoke could tell a "whole story" by itself, thanks to Davis' talent.
Fans of the series were active in debating if the Smoking Man was actually dead after the events of the season five premiere "Redux". In his first response, Chris Carter said he had left clues in the episode, and he later officially announced that the character would appear in The X-Files movie. In one of his last comments on the matter, he said "Not that we haven't brought deceased characters back before, in flashbacks or more paranormal ways. The great thing about The X-Files is that anything can happen".
The Smoking Man is the only character in the series, in addition to Mulder and Scully, to appear in both the first episode, "pilot" and the last, "The Truth" of the series. Portraying actor William B. Davis was listed as CIA Agent in the first season episode "Young at Heart", instead of his usual character, the Smoking Man. Actor Chris Owens for a time portrayed the Smoking Man as a young man in flashbacks. He later plays his son, Jeffrey Spender. Young Cigarette Smoking Man was first played by Craig Warkentin, with Davis's voice dubbed over in "Apocrypha".
Read more about this topic: The Smoking Man
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“Good schools are schools for the development of the whole child. They seek to help children develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)