When Em and I made the very snap decision to put in for tickets to ‘Down and Dirty With David Duchovny’ back in February we had no idea what to expect. Having never gone to what some people were referring to a ‘cencom event’, we thought we were in for an evening of DD talking about ‘Californication’. Which was perfectly fine even though neither of us have watched a minute of the show. What we weren’t prepared for was to be as educated and interested as we were.

David said, while still answering interviewer questions, that he wanted his talk to be informative about the industry and how to get into the industry. He asked that all questions be directed toward that end and there were a lot of interesting questions asked (more on those in a moment). He talked about how he came to acting considering he has a Masters in English Lit, the struggles he faced when trying to shoot his own indie film and what it is that makes acting a job sometimes. He talked about writing and his own struggles with the craft and found the words to encourage the ’24 year olds’ in the audience, even when saying he was not the one for giving advice.

I have to admit, I leaned a lot about David Duchovny tonight that I didn’t know. He is articulate, funny, interesting and passionate in his own way about the film industry, like so many actor/directors/writers are. I just hadn’t been paying attention before tonight. He genuinely wanted to convey to everyone in that room that he, at ‘our age’, needed to hear some things that he was going to say. He encouraged the actors in the room to not sell themselves short and believe in all the work they put forward. That can translate to any facet of the film industry, IMO. Being a struggling makeup/wardrobe chick myself, these were words I needed to hear.

David started out wanting to write and got into acting by not saying no to the little things along the road. He encouraged everyone in that room to go outside their comfort zone. If you’re a writer, step in front of the camera and give it a try. When it came time for the audience to ask some questions, there were a lot of very intelligent and interesting questions asked. David answered question for 45 minutes before the moderator said there was only time for a few more. David insisted we had time for everyone. Stand up guy, David Duchovny.

By the end of it, David had talked for two hours straight which astonished us. We expected an hour of ‘Californication’ not two hours of ‘this is how I did it, now you try’. Overall, The School Of Visual Arts put on a lovely talk. We throughly enjoyed our evening and would love to return to another Cencom event.

To find out more about the evening’s talk and for further Cencom events visit http://www.cencom.org.