'The X-Files': Rhys Darby and Darin Morgan Preview the 'Were-Monster'
Two episodes into its Season 10 revival, The X-Files has already gifted fans with a Chris Carter-penned mythology episode and a standalone procedural from James Wong. For its third episode, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” airing on Feb. 1, the series offers up another one of its specialties: a comedy outing written and directed by Darin Morgan, who crafted such hilarious hours as “Humbug” and “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” during the show’s original run.
Like those episodes, “Were-Monster,” is laced with wonderful moments of meta-humor that give stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson plenty of opportunities to unleash their stellar deadpan comedy skills. They’re ably supported by a trio of guest stars who also specialize in bringing the funny: Reaper’s Tyler Labine as a brain-addled stoner (reprising a role he played in two Season 3 X-Files episodes also written by Morgan: “War of the Coprophages” and “Quagmire”); Silicon Valley’s Kumail Nanjiani as an excitable animal control officer; and Flight of the Conchords’s Rhys Darby as the mysterious Guy Mann, who is at the center of the FBI duo’s search for the titular creature, which is suspected of attacking residents in a small town.
Funnily enough, Darby didn’t realize that “Were-Monster” was a comedy when he got a first look at the script prior to his audition. “The segment of the script I was allowed to look at wasn’t particularly comedic,” the New Zealand-born comic tells Yahoo TV. “So when I auditioned, I didn’t realize it would be a comedy! Right up until I was on set, I approached it on a dramatic level. I remember after we did the first take on my first scene, Darin had to calm me down. He said, ‘Be a little funnier — do what you always do.’ And then I started to relax.”
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Of course, it wasn’t just Darby’s perception that he was appearing in a drama that caused him to tense up. As an X-Files fan and lover of the paranormal, the fact that he was sharing scenes with the actual Fox Mulder and Dana Scully blew his mind. “It was almost surreal,” says Darby, who finds time amidst his busy performing schedule to co-host the paranormal-themed podcast, The Cryptid Factor. “When I first got the part, I had to call my management to make sure it wasn’t some kind of cruel prank.” His casting was definitely not a joke to Morgan; as the writer tells us, Darby emerged as the obvious choice after his audition. “I had initially thought of Rhys because I’m a fan of Flight of the Conchords and his character on that series, Murray, had a certain quality of intelligence, yet was also completely unaware of what was actually going on around him. That was the kind of element I wanted for Guy as well: someone who can articulate what’s happening, even though it doesn’t make any sense to him. I couldn’t be more happy with his performance in the episode — he nailed it.”
Darby says that he also took note of Guy’s similarities to Murray, the hapless cultural attaché at the New Zealand Consulate in New York, who doubles as the equally hapless manager of the titular Kiwi folk duo, played by Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie. “Both characters of have a certain naiveté,” he explains. “But where Murray was optimistic, Guy definitely isn’t. He’s very conflicted and doesn’t want to be the person he is. It’s like how I felt when I first come to America: I felt very out of place and not sure whether I belonged or not. So there’s a little bit of me in the character as well.”
Although “Were-Monster” is an overtly comedic episode, Darby did wind up getting a chance to exercise his dramatic chops as well. The centerpiece of the hour is a lengthy monologue that Guy delivers to Mulder in a graveyard — a soliloquy with lots of humor, but also no small amount of sadness and rage. “That was the most daunting thing,” Darby says. “In addition to the pressure of being on the world’s greatest paranormal show, I had to read all of this dialogue word for word. I often improvise and go off-script, but in this case I couldn’t do that.” He credits Morgan with helping him through that challenge during the shoot, working the monologue piece by piece until he felt comfortable and occasionally changing a word here or there to make the dialogue more natural to his speech patterns. In the end, the experience actually gave Darby the appetite for tackling a full-fledged drama one day. “I auditioned for True Detective and Fargo, but walked away from those going, ‘There’s no way I’m going to get this part,’” he reveals. “Maybe after The X-Files, the phone will start ringing and you’ll start seeing me in more dramatic pieces.” How about Season 2 of Jessica Jones?
The X-Files airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.
