David Duchovny auditioned for all three male leads on Full House: “It’s going to change my life”

Could you imagine David Duchovny as Danny Tanner, Joey Gladstone, or Jesse Katsopolis on Full House? Well, it could have happened, as the actor recently revealed on his Fail Better podcast that he auditioned for each one of those roles.

Duchovny obviously didn’t get the parts, but at the time, he was certain it was going to happen. “I auditioned for all three parts on Full House,” Duchovny said. “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.’” At the time, Duchovny was a struggling actor who was auditioning for a lot of different pilots. “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 said. “I just needed to be able to pay my rent too.“

While it must have been disappointing not to get the gig, Duchovny admitted it was probably for the best as he wasn’t adept at sitcom acting. “I did not know how to do that sitcom stuff,” he said. “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.” Thankfully, the actor’s career would start to take off with roles in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Twin Peaks, Chaplin, Red Shoe Diaries, and, of course, The X-Files.

In some alternate universe, we might have seen David Duchovny as one of the main leads of Full House, but would The X-Files have been a success with Lori Loughlin and Bob Saget?

One of the actor’s most recent projects was Reverse the Curse, a comedy-drama which Duchovny wrote and directed based on his own novel Bucky F*cking Dent. He also starred in the movie alongside Logan Marshall-Green and Stephanie Beatriz. You can check out a review from our own Alex Maidy right here, as well as an interview with Duchovny, Marshall-Green, and Beatriz.