Somewhere in the Skies - Dean Haglund: X-Files: Season 11, Lone Gunmen, and UFOs

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

On episode 39 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan speaks with the one and only Langly of X-Files and Lone Gunmen; Dean Haglund. They talk about his recent season eleven appearance, his favorite moments from the entire series, and they then navigate their way through alien abduction, UFOs, and the impact of possible disclosure in today's world. Haglund then gives his thoughts on the future of The X-Files and what comes next for The Lone Gunmen! Guest Bio: Dean Haglund is probably best known for his eleven seasons playing Langly, one of the computer geeks known as "The Lone Gunmen" from the hit FOX TV series The X-Files. He also starred in the The X-Files spin-off series The Lone Gunmen. His character is so popular that, he is a main attraction at X-Files and Sci-Fi conventions all over North America. A long-time comedy improviser, he got his start in the international award-winning Vancouver TheatreSports League. To learn more, visit: www.deanhaglund.com Closing Song, "The X-Files Theme" provided by Mark Snow and P.M. Dawn Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Official Store: CLICK HERE Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with eOne Entertainment. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here. As you all know, the Somewhere in the Sky's podcast is always free to consume. But it isn't free to create. That's why I've started the Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only growing. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a beautiful.

patron. To contribute and to learn more, visit www. www. patreon.com backslash Somewhere Skies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Brian's Bread. How do I explain how I'm here without spoiling everything? Let's just say Glenn Morgan, who originally created the lone gunman, has come up with an amazing, brilliant way that brings Langley back from the dead. Does anyone ever die in science fiction? Is Langeley alive? Alone gunman Langley? You and I buried him in Arlington

along with buyers and fro hacking. You didn't answer my question. Normally the gunman came in, hack into something, Go Mulder, here's the access code to that top secret facility he'd run in,

beat up some aliens, save the day. This time, it's all about Mulder and Scully finding Langley. What are we looking for, Mollah? Knowing Langley, breadcrumbs. Oh, his birthday is wrong.

It's a grave date at work at night. How's this happening? How am I back? We're old friends. Richard Langley. We received a message. You should go. They're watching. Who's watching? Langley's state of mind now is, well, it's confusion for sure. Langley? It's Mueller and Scully. Yeah. Am I dead? I'm thrilled to be here. Reviving Langley back from the dead? Am I dead? That's the whole question of the episode, isn't it? Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. Today, I mark one off the old bucket list.

I am speaking to one of the nicest actors out there about his recent appearance on last week's brand new episode of The X-Files. You know him as the long-haired bespectacled conspiracy theorist hacker Richard Ringo Langley. That's right. I'm talking to Dean Hagland. We talk all about his return to the show, his thoughts on UFOs, and we even discuss the future for the X-Files and the lone gunmen. So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Dean Hagland. One of the most memorable X-Files, I should say some of the most memorable X-Files episodes, came in the form of the lone gunman. Everyone knows it.

Everyone agrees. I'm sure for the most part, so, you know, every week we waited to see if they'd show up to help Mulder and Scully in their pursuits, and the same could be said for the current season. And today, we have one of the gunmen here to discuss his episode this past week, and that is Langley himself, Dean Hagland. Dean, thank you so much for joining me today. My pleasure. Thanks for doing this. Absolutely.

I know we're almost a day apart time zone-wise. And I know you're probably getting barraged. So thank you for taking the time to do this. My pleasure. Well, I mean, a lot of feedback. Your episode is aired. That episode was entitled This. We will definitely get into that.

A lot of feedback. And it's been very positive. This is the X-Files back in Trow. form in many ways. And that included your character, making a very unique return. So before we get into the episode itself, I'd absolutely love to just maybe hear how the experience was finding out that you were coming back again, man. I know we saw you briefly in season 10.

We can definitely touch on that. But this was you, man. This was just you. So I'd love to hear what you thought about when you read this new script. Well, you know, it was even before I read it, I was told that Glenn Morgan was back. And of course, James Wong and Glenn Morgan created the lone gunman. The Ramon shirt, all of that was in the very first script back in season one. So I knew that not only would it be cool, but he has a handle on the whole Langley character and the gunman because they created it, right?

So it was going to be fantastic. But, of course, the question always is, really? How are we going to come back this time? It's like, there was, you know, I couldn't wrap my head like, how was he going to do it? I was excited to read it, just like everyone was excited to see it. And, of course, it was brilliant. And Glenn has always had such a wide variety of interests. And, you know, his library in his writing office was always filled with so many different subjects, you know,

like the ancient rituals of Mithra and, you know, how 22 laws of branding, like all of these. crazy thing. So it was really cool then to see that he was up on the quantum computing d-wave whole brain emulation as it's known, where you can, there's services now that you can apparently upload your personality onto a server, onto the cloud, so that an avatar can continue living being you in an artificial intelligent kind of way long after you're dead. Wow, that is insane to think that we're absolutely. that point. I mean, we look at like Twitter, Facebook as almost an avatar, but this is like multiplied by a million. So that's... Exactly. And so, yeah, so it's, yeah, the actual services

that they're, they're out there as we talk, we're providing you value, you pay to get your personality somehow emulated by an artificial intelligent system. And then that emulation then continues on your social media platforms, right? So even after you're dead, you could still be theoretically posting on Facebook and Instagram and all that sort of thing. Oh, wow. I know, right? I don't even know how to comment.

I know, right? So that it's not that big a jump to go, well, if you have that done voluntarily, could you have that done involuntarily? And then your genius is then, you know, mind and utilized for nefarious means. You know, how cool is that? That is pretty cool. I mean, well, then let's kind of dive into that, Dean. I mean, you know, spoiler alert from here on out, if anyone hasn't seen the episode yet. But your return to the show this season was much, much more prevalent than season, the season 10 miniseries. So let's go through this if we could. If you could maybe just give us a primer on how they brought you back, how this differs from what we saw in the comic books by Joe Harris, which was ingenious. Yeah. But yeah, what did Glenn Morgan decide to do with this one?

This was pretty awesome. It was awesome. So the idea that then Langley, along with, theoretically, I say, Steve Jobs and all of these other geniuses, after they die or upload it into a cloud server that is like, you know, in the monologue, I see it's like a heaven I designed. But including my friends who are New England Patriot fans are quite pissed. for that joke that was Glenn Morgan by the way

that was scary yeah yeah so we create this world or we're trapped basically in this world and I manage a way to hack back to real world into Mulder's phone to tell them to try shut down the server

but of course there's a backup spoiler alert you don't have to watch it to the end though yeah so so that leaves that open too so you know there is now theoretically a sinister virtual world that's worse than the syndicate of the X-Files of old, you know. So this idea of layers, you know, the whole thing with the X-Files was there's always layer upon layer of conspiracy and all these different shadowy characters that would come up from time to time that would, you know, have this ability to keep going deeper and deeper. And so Glenn just added a new layer.

this virtual world that seems even more crazy and dark than anything that we'd seen previously. Absolutely. And what I thought was really interesting is, you know,

we sort of got used to this with the season 10 is that the episodes in between are sandwiched by Carter's, you know, mythology. What I thought was really interesting is that this, what we all as viewers,

not knowing, like you did, what was coming next for episode two, is that this does tie in to the mythology pretty interesting. And I'm sure this isn't the end we're going to see of sort of what Glenn Morgan was going for with this.

So I guess my question would be, what do you think of the whole shift in the X-Files? You know, we've had over a decade since the show, you know, left the air. And now we have this entire new conspiracy that's happening. How do you personally feel about where the show has headed? And, yeah, what do your thoughts on that? Well, I think I like it, actually. and I think it was necessary for the natural growth of the show. I think there's going to be a lot of potential for exploration, too,

which Chris has always said, you know, there's more stuff than ever that's relevant to the X-Files. So I think, you know, even though there was the thank you fans and everything at the end, that Easter egg at the end of the first episode of season 11, right, sort of made it sound like it was all over. Jillian said she's out too, but she said that before. That, you know, I think this new layer is really a fascinating way to go. And it seems rich for potential exploration.

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, we could literally go anywhere at this point, which you're right. The X-Files has always been very ambiguous in terms of, like, what the rules are. It's a show that sort of broke those boundaries time and time again. That goes with the lone gunmen as well. So, yeah, it's fascinating. And I think it's exciting for viewers who have been following it for so long to be like, oh, you know, yeah, we do live in a new generation. Some people don't know the previous X-Files.

So, yeah, yeah, I think it's pretty interesting. In terms of... I like it. Yeah, yeah, me too, man. I was so excited to see where it was going. So, you know, one X-file'll do another. Approved for whatever that's worth. Totally.

Well, I have to ask, how was it, you know, being in Australia and having to fly back twice now for the revivals of this show? How is the filming process been? I know it was probably different for season 10 in this new one. How was that, man, stepping back into those shoes, into those classes? Oh, great, actually. Yeah, like riding a bike, really. You never forget. The season 10 was a little more fun because it was the three of us did.

David, Mitch, everybody was there. A lot of the same crew and all of that. For this one, because I'm all on the phone, it was Glenn, the special effects guy, and maybe three crew members. And it was first thing in the morning, 6 a.m. So I got up at 4.30 in the morning. My ride was there at 5, and then hair and makeup. And at 6 a.m., we start shooting. Wow.

All of that you see, yeah, is like in a small room before a lot of the crew, I didn't see David or Jillian at all because their call time was 8.30 and I was done by pretty much 645, I guess. That's a professional right there. Yeah. Well, you know, that was always the thing. We were, particularly the gunmen, we were often, you know, last on the call sheet after they have done UFOs and alien blood and, you know, all sorts of special effects. The last thing they wanted us to do was to sit there and not know our lines or screw around or anything like that. So for the sake of the crew, over the 10 years of shooting the X-Files, Bruce and I would always make sure we had our lines down. Word perfect, ready to go from take one.

You know, just because you saw how dog-tired these, you know, crew of 200 would be after, you know, stay up all night. and the production values were so huge back in the day. And so because I was so used to that, I came to set, knew all my lines, word perfect, wait, you know, everybody was like, oh, yeah, I think we got everything. That was fast. Well, that's a wrap on Dean, everyone. Okay, well, I will say hi. And then I was like, well, I was going to wait around, but then my driver said,

no, I got a whole bunch of other people to pick up. So you either stay out here all day or, I take you back to your hotel now. I'm like, well, I'm not going to stay. What am I going to, you know, it'll just seem weird. Some. Buts around. Yeah, exactly. Just looking on set. So, so I left it.

Yeah, I was back in my hotel by 7.30. Went back to bed. It's like it was all a dream, I can imagine. It was like, literally, it was like all a dream. It certainly was. It was like, hey, did I just do that? That was fantastic. Yeah. And then saw some old friends of Vancouver and then flew back to Australia.

So it went really. really smoothly. Wow. But I know, but it was great. It was like, it's always like riding a bike. Like the character's, you know, easy to get into.

And there was no, oh yeah, how do I do this again? It was sort of like fast and dreamlike. Well, I have to ask, Dean, how, are you one of those people who, all right, so the episode aired, and immediately every website comes out with their own review.

Every viewer has their own opinion Do you ever follow that stuff online, like, as it's happening or the day after? How does that work in terms of you as an actor? Well, here's something I haven't told anyone yet. I haven't seen the episode yet. Wow. Okay. I know.

We don't, our cable package here in Australia doesn't have Fox on it. Okay. So we have to go and dig it up somewhere or download it illegally, which I am not willing to do, because theoretically that's, you know, biting my own hand that feeds me. Right. So I got to figure out how to see it. So that said, I have my Instagram account that's a little more active than my Facebook. Because Facebook, I just advertised my podcast, the Jill Pack Hollywood Hour, and then some other tidbits here and there.

And my artwork goes up on my Facebook page, the Dean Hagland page, not Dean Hagelin. That was such an early adopter. I just said yes to everyone. and are my 5,000 friends. Yeah, that happens quick. Yeah. I know. Gee whiz.

You're like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And now you feel bad going, oh, yeah, I'm unfriending you because I don't know who you are. Right. That's rude. So when those threads come in, I'll look at one or two of them. But generally, I find reviews start making you self-conscious. And when you become a self-conscious actor, you're kind of wrecking your own ability to act.

because you should really be outside of your head when you're in a scene, you know, you should be in the scene and not in your head going, hey, did I say that? How you? Am I looking cool at the moment? Right. And if you're reading reviews, all of that gets into your head, you know, particularly if somebody goes, you suck, then forever this is like, oh, no, I suck. Then you're like, full of judgment and self-doubt and that sort of shit.

So I tend not to, positive or negative, I tend not to read any of reviews. I think that's a fair assessment I think that's a good way to go about it as well That's the way we were trained in acting school too We were told never Read your stuff Particularly if you're doing a play You got to do that play every night

You read something bad that night Or you read something a bad review during the date That night your performance is totally going to be off Because that's going to be rattling around in your head Absolutely I mean the organic process of a play Changing night to night I can imagine it You know, it's similar to television in some ways, even though the episode has been filmed.

It's immortalized at that point. But, yeah, I think that's a good point. Yeah, either way. Well, in terms of looking cool, I'd love to ask, I heard you in another interview say that you're filming for this episode, you were literally staring into the lens of the camera the whole time. I can imagine as an actor that had to be tough. Yeah, for sure. Well, and not just the lens. They put a filter over it that was reflecting back at me.

So I'm actually staring almost into a mirror saying the lines. And in terms of the self-consciousness, there's nothing worse than saying your lines into a mirror. That's the one way you're not supposed to rehearse anything because then you're only looking back. So you really have to concentrate by blurring and trying to look. look past that reflection deeper into what you would theorize would be Mulder on the other side of that glass. Right. So you were trying to establish that connection, even though there was nobody reading the lines

back to me. It was basically one long monologue, which is why I could do it all in about 45 minutes, because it was like two or three takes, do it in sections, and you're out of there. So, yeah, so having a reflective glass really was a challenge for sure. Because, and, you know, they said get close. The one direction was get closer to the camera so that light, they just gave me a sort of a light bar frame around my face. So I was lit sort of flatly. And if I went too far back, I would immediately be too dark.

So I had to be forward leaning into a reflective mirror and get all the lines down, not flog up while staring at yourself. So yeah, that's something they don't teach in drama school at all. I was just going to say, yeah, it's like every actor's worst nightmare that they never prepared for. Well, yeah, that and green screen, right? Like all these special effects now that you have to just run around a big green room with a couple boxes here and there and some guy chasing you with an ex going, that's a dinosaur. Right. This is, you know, all of that stuff.

I mean, theater helps for that because often you'll work with the minimalist stage or just, just a black box, but when you're supposed to be, you know, scared of a giant monster chasing you that's going to be added later, you really have to depend on your imagination on that one. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I have a good friend who was recently in the, I won't say the name, but a very large DC property movie. And, you know, he's theater trained. And that's how I, I knew him. And I asked him, I'm like, man, how did, what was the hardest thing? about, you know, performing in this big budget, you know, superhero movie. And he said exactly that.

It's a whole new breed of acting is everything's green screen now. So they actually teach classes just on how to act with green screen. So it's interesting. Yeah. And you could see at two where in particularly earlier versions, I can't remember there was one movie that it was like a supposed to have a retro Superman feel to it. But there you saw a lot of the actors getting, lost in green screen technology.

And it's really obvious when it happens. Yeah, very interesting. Well, I mean, stepping away from the filming just a little bit, Dean, I'd love to just touch briefly on the audio dramas that you were part of. As a theater-trained actor, I mean, how was that process? How was the experience doing that project? That was actually really good. I did it here in Sydney, and so I didn't have any of the other actors with me.

There was a famous, well, he's a really good voiceover actor here, but trained in London. He was in 39 steps, that long-running play on the West End? The Alfred Hitchcock, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they did it as a stage version, but it was a comedy. Right. I don't know if you saw that one. I did. I actually worked at it in New York now that you mention it.

Oh, is that right? Small, small world, yeah. Saw it about 80 times, yep. Brandon was supposed to come from London to the New York one, but they recast them with the New York actor. Yep, that tends to happen. Yeah, yeah. So he read all the other parts, and then I had a director who was patched in from Vancouver in my headphones, and then we just sort of went as you do, and, you know, I don't know if you've done any animation, but it's often,

okay, line 165, give me three takes, A, B, and C, and you're rolling. There you go, watch out, watch out, watch out. Okay, we'll use B. Okay, line 194, A, B, and C, go. And so you have to piecemeal it like that. Right. So doing the books was kind of disconcerting, but again, because we knew the character so well. And even with random reading, I knew exactly what it would sound like when it was completed.

So I really enjoyed the process a lot, actually. Yeah, it was very awesome to hear everyone's voices together again. And like you said, everyone was all over the world recording this. So props to whoever edited and produced this thing, it was incredible. Yeah, yeah, it was a Herculean feat for sure. Absolutely. Well, I mean, sort of moving away from all that, Dean, I'd love to talk briefly about your documentary, getting back to UFOs what we know best here at somewhere in this guy's.

Right. Your documentary, The Truth is out there. You spoke to the late Roger Lear, who is someone we all know in the UFO community, but not many other people might know about. And this guy worked with removing possible implants from people who claimed abductions. I would love if you would maybe give us a little, just a little about what you think about the whole abduction phenomenon and how it was talking to Roger Lear.

Well, Roger and I knew each other before that documentary through Jordan Maxwell. Jordan, I think, advised a couple of the writers on The X-Files on a couple things. and so I would be going, hey, this is a really great script, this X-Files, where are you getting this stuff? And they go, oh, well, you want to meet some of these guys? And, you know, you should meet Jordan Maxwell. You should meet Dr. Roger Lear.

So I have lunch with these guys. They're big fans of the show, so they want to talk to me. And then I go, you know, and then I learn about their research and stuff. And so, yeah, Dr. Roger Lear told me the whole origin of how he got into it, too. he didn't believe in UFOs, but there was a Mufon convention near his office one day. And he walked in just to look around and see what, you know, all this was. And somebody recognized him, right? Because he was kind of a famous podiatrist.

Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis were all his clients. And they go, oh, hey, you're that podiatrist. Hey, you want to look at these x-rays of this abductee, but he didn't know she was an abductee at the time. So just take a look of these x-rays. Tell us what you think. And he saw between the big toe and the middle toe, or the, in the little metal tarsal area, an object, maybe two millimeters long, sort of a T-shaped thing. And it looks like she stepped on a nail or something, you know, said, oh, yeah, it looks like there's a foreign, like, piece of metal in there. And, yeah, that's pretty obvious.

Yeah. And then they go, yeah, but there's no scar on her foot. I guess, well, that's impossible. Something that big would leave an incision. or, you know, even if it's a sliver, you would see where it went in. And he looked at her foot. She took off her shoe there at the Mufoan Convention, and there was no scarring anywhere. And so he couldn't believe that x-ray was up that foot.

So he said, come into my office tomorrow. And she comes in, and sure enough, looks around. There's no scarring. There's no evidence of anything of how that thing got in there. So he's done many off-foot operations before and puts her under general antithesis. and makes an incision. And there inside was this, you know, what he called a little T-shaped thing sort of wrapped in some sort of cheesecloth.

And the moment he took the tweezers to remove it, as soon as he touched that thing, she woke up out of anesthetic screaming. I know. And it's never happened before. So he, you know, reapplied and doubled the anesthesia, put her under again, and then removed that autoimmune. object, and when he took a scalpel that he uses to cut bone, so it's a bone scalpel, when he tries to cut the cheesecloth, the blade breaks. At that point, he's now full in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, he sent it to a lab in San Antonio, I think it was, and the lab report came back that it was of rare and non-terrestrial metals, of all things. Rare Earth and non-terrestrial. Wow. I know. So then this is like in the 80s, right? So late 80s, early 90s this happened. So there was a friend of his in San Francisco, and he says, oh, this is it, the smoking

gun. This is what we all were going to do. And back then it was, the internet was so, yeah, it was just bulletin boards at the time. So we're going to do a worldwide bulletin board announcement of this findings that you've done, telling this story. And I'll set this whole thing. up. It'll take me about 48 hours to coordinate all around the world, and we're going to do this thing. And as this guy in San Francisco is doing this, sure enough, a van pulls up. He's thrown in, guys

in black suits. They drive him around San Francisco for eight hours, telling him what your friend found was just Silicon. Nothing that was Silicon. And because he was driving around for eight hours, he missed all these deadlines for all these bulletin boards. And when he got out, He was so freaked out. He called Dodge Rochlear. He says, I'm out. I'm not doing this anymore. Forget it.

And about an hour later, the lab from San Antonio calls and says, hey, we made a mistake. Is Silicon? It's just Silicon, that thing you sent us. And we're not sending it back either. So he didn't get it back the first one. And that was that. Then, from then on, he was full in doing this. He said he removed about another 21 in his lifetime.

Some of them were, you know, just pieces of wood. Some of them were actually just slivers and stuff like that. But, yeah, he had become a specialist of removing alien implants. It's a fascinating sort of journey that I think someone like Roger Lear went on fighting physical evidence to this phenomenon. It's something that is very, very rare. It's such a hypothetical topic phenomenon to begin with. So to have someone actually looking for hard evidence,

all of the respect in the world for, the late Roger Lear at this point. Yeah. I mean, we all know, you know, sort of Dean at this point that the X-Files did use a lot of actual case material or had people on set, you know, sort of advising in terms of when it came to how the military might have been involved with this or, obviously, the FBI. Right. Did you ever come across anything, I guess, while filming or in the script or even with lone gunmen in terms of that. If the conspiracy, you know, correlated a little too closely with what you guys were working on.

We all know the whole 9-11 thing. I know that's a great example. That is a great example. Absolutely. But that was just, I think that was a weird coincidence. If you're saying that, you know, I've had like when I did, when I still do stand up, but I was touring a lot while the show was on the air and people would come to my comedy shows all around North America.

and after the shows, some times there would be like, you know, I work for the FBI, do you want to come by the office? You know, I went to the San Antonio office and got to sit in the head FBI. Or no, it wasn't San Antonio, it was Al Paso. You know, so there's pictures of me in Kevlar vests and wearing FBI stuff. And those guys would say, so these stories, particularly, and they would like say an episode and stuff like that, said, where did that information come from? And then I go, I don't know, the writers wrote it.

Yeah, yeah, okay. And I go, why is it close? Well, we can't say. So they would never tell me exactly what was co-related so closely. But they were curious enough to actually specify specific examples and specific episodes to go, how did you get that information? So either it is just luck of the writers or, you know, somehow some classified information. got onto the airwaves. Right.

Well, I mean, we recently heard Chris Carter's comments on this, Dean. So I would love to know if you have been following this story at all. No. The Pentagon story here in the United States with a secret UFO program. Oh, yeah. And you've been following this at all? No, I haven't. I just heard about it on another podcast guy told me about it, that they just, yeah,

have admitted that they've been tracking UFOs for years. $22 million they've spent on this. And yeah, and they're all up on it. And, of course, I think of Mr. Steve Bassett and the Disclosure Project, the idea being that if there's aliens out there trying to contact the human race, this information should not be classified if it's going to, you know, move the evolution of the species forward. it's it goes beyond the need for secrecy and you know one country's espionage against another sort of thing

yeah which i agree absolutely it's an interesting sociological thing i think yeah for sure because you know but as richard dolin said okay so if the government comes out tomorrow and says yes there's aliens and UFOs are real two things how did the keep it secret for so long and how did the press be so complicit in this. So Richard Dolan and I, he's in the documentary as well. And, you know, I think specifically, is our sociological, is our society so fragile that just the sheer realization that aliens are real, would that cause us all to collapse? And he said, absolutely, we would go completely anarchy crazy.

I'm like, really? I can't imagine. But he seems to think that this is why. all of the secrecy is kept in place because of the fragile nature of the sociological fragility of the whole system. So I think it's more robust than that, but he seems to, from his research, and he's a learned PhD, so I'm not going to argue with him on that one. That's a tough one. Yeah, I mean, Dolan actually published my book. So I do have, I do have some somewhat of an allegiance to the man, but I do, I would take him to task on that as well, Dean,

saying that the entire society would crumble. I mean, as a historian himself, he's probably seen this throughout history. Society's crumbling when things happen and then being rebuilt. Something like this, I do wonder, it would be so paradigm shifting. But again, we always hear that idea that, you know, the world would go on. We've got to go to our job the next day, even if we knew there were aliens out there. So it's fascinating. Yeah, it's fascinating.

And so, and then this is also the argument of why there's, you know, so many TV shows that have aliens in them. It's like, oh, we're slowly being broached on the idea that they're one day will walk amongst us. And, you know, we're going to be fine with it just like all these TV shows have been fine with it, you know, that it's not 1950s. We've got to zap them with guns and, you know, and War of the Worlds kind of thing. Right, right. That's a good point, too. Yeah. Well, I'm going to sort of put you on the spot here, Dean.

I have to ask, you know, as we're sort of wrapping things up, in all of your time with the X-Files and the lone gunman, what is the most memorable moment that you can say you had, where it was like, this is it? This is why I did all of this for so long. Yeah, you know, it's hard to single one out. It was all so fun. And, you know, there's oddly lots of laughs on set,

considering how dark the show was. It was always like, boy, we're having really a great time. And then when you see it all cut together, it's like, wow, this tone is way darker than what fun we were having on set. But, you know, it's really been the fan interaction that has been most memorable.

You know, some real close friendships have developed from it. Being able to go anywhere in the world, literally, like just moving to Sydney and not having, you know, miss a step, as it were, having lots of friends down here. That's been amazing, too. No matter where you go in the world, somebody's going to know you, or know about you anyway. But yes, probably the most memorable was the week we shot the first episode that was just the Long Gunman,

because David was shooting some movie down in Los Angeles, and Gillian was going to be stuck in London for two more weeks at the beginning. of season five. So they said, well, what do we do? I think, well, let's do it all Long Gunman Origin episode. So they shot, they wrote unusual suspects, and it was just the three of us leading the thing. And we got the big trailer. Tom brought his video game system.

And we sat all, we shared one trailer. So it was like the dorm room I never had. Yeah. And it was really fun. And that was such a fun episode, too. So I'd say that was probably the one that sort of encapsulated how the fun, the hard work, for sure, you know, staying up until all hours watching the sunrise because you shot all night. And then the satisfaction, too, of having a really great episode come out of it. Oh, my God, man.

I mean, I can admit I probably watched it four days ago or something. It's just it's one that you just always land on. when you're re-watching the X-Files. It's like, you know, I got to watch a Darren Morgan one. And then I got to go back to the lone gunman. It's just such a well-crafted episode. And whenever the X-Files did go back to origin, I thought that was some of the best work they did.

So I know we're going to get one for Mr. Skinner coming up soon, so that'll be exciting. That will be excited, yeah. I'm interested to see that one. I am, too. Well, in terms of Julian Anderson, we did point out earlier that she said, this is it for her man she is done i get it i respect that as a as an actor that she wants to move on

so i have to ask you do you think this is the end of the x files on television gosh you know maybe in this incarnation but uh it seems that all the writing is trying to frame something so that it can carry on now to say that this is already a plan and in the works. Of course not, because executives at Fox, now Disney, now that we're technically a Disney product. That's crazy. That's crazy too, right? So. Scully is now a Disney princess. I know, right? I know. What would that make you, I guess? Yeah, I guess with that blonde hair. I love it. Yep, yep, yep. So, yeah, I guess those decisions, like anything, the way. The way.

we consume entertainment now has changed the way executives look now at licensing and products you're looking for product locomotives now you know this term so you don't look for a movie script you're looking for a locomotive that can drive the world so that you can hook tv shows movies action figures comic books so that it can all sit on a platform right so that's the dc universe is that Star Wars is that, Harry Potter's that, you have these certain worlds that are created, beg you then go out of your way to then do multi-level franchising. You know, nobody just makes movies anymore. Right.

That's my point. Right. So is the X-Files potentially a product locomotive? I think it is. Will they want to, and is Chris Carter willing then to have Disney do their product locomotive machine on it? We'll wait and see. but potentially it's there for sure. Yeah.

Well, you know what, man, you got my money. Carter, Disney, Fox, whoever, I will consume whatever they give me. Oh, fantastic. That includes something I know you're working on. You can't talk much about it, Dean, I understand. But you are working on a graphic novel. This is so cool, man. Anything you can give us, even just like, you know, when to maybe expect it,

what it might be a little bit about what do you got for us? Well, let's see. I'm saying May it's going to be completed. Now, this has been four years in the works. And, of course, it's gunman-related. However, because of, you know, every time Glenn or Chris writes something, then I have to change up my writing a bit so that, you know, so I've gone back and rewrote the thing more than once. So it's going to be cool. And it's going to be. alternate timeline, but I'm writing and drawing it myself. Hence why it's taking so bloody long to get it done. So everybody who contributed on my Kickstarter four years ago, don't worry, it's coming, and I'm going to make it happen. And I have everybody's email address from four years ago. I hope you haven't changed it.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure nobody has. Well, it'll be worth the weight. I have no doubt. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well, in terms of the podcast, where can we find the Chopeck Hollywood Hour? is the show about Dean. I've been listening for a long time now.

For any of our listeners who haven't, yeah, please, let us know what it's about. It's, you know, we talk about movies, but also sociological stuff. There's always celebrity death in there. We do school closures. We can't talk about anything. And the, you can find it at chillpackholywood.com. Or we're on Facebook, iTunes, anywhere. You can follow us on our Twitter at Dean and Phil, spell out the word end, because Phil Lerness, who used to have an office beside my production office, and every morning we'd sit around the water cooler, yakking about movies or whatever,

and our assistant thought it was really fascinating, loved listening in, said, why don't you guys start recording that and just putting it up as a podcast? They were like, well, okay, and that's how that show started. So basically it's our water cooler chat. of our week, and it's been going on for 11 years now. Absolutely free. I know. Every Monday for 11 years.

Can you imagine? That's insane. The dedication is just, I'm on like episode 39, and I'm like, I've got like a noose around my neck. So I respect that fullheartedly. And it takes a love for it to do it for that long. So I'm sure it's a pleasure every week. Well, yeah. And Phil and I have, you know, we've just produced a new movie called The Lady Killers, which is doing the festivals right now.

We're working at other projects. So it's also, we have our production meeting on the air, as it were. So we're talking about not just movies we saw, what we're reading, things that are influencing us, stories out there. You know, we're a lot on this, the Me Too talk. Phil is a violence prevention specialist who has been trained in that. So a lot of the ideas of misogyny and stuff like that are discussed. And every Monday somehow a show magically gets on the air. That's awesome, man.

Well, again, a loyal listener. So everyone, go check that out. And as a recent transplant to L.A. from New York City, I'm always looking for stuff to do. And I heard you've got an installation going on here, man. When can we look for that here in L.A.? Well, this is – I had an art show at the Fine Arts Building. on 7th Street in downtown LA of my artwork of

when I was in L.A. And when I get back, I give tours. Maybe, Ron, you want to go on this tour. It's of the historical vaudeville houses and movie palaces. The largest collection of on Broadway, 12 blocks long. And so I do a walking tour,

hour and a half walking tour of downtown Los Angeles. And all of the really gorgeous movie theaters, I painted each one of them and put them in a book. which you can get off my website. And that, those pieces of art are now up at a salon in the Eastern Columbia building right at 9th and Broadway. And if you go to art meets architecture.com, you can call to get a private viewing. It's by appointment only.

So it's on the ninth floor. You have to get past security and all that sort of thing. So if you want to see my artwork, you can just by going to. art meets architecture and called to make an appointment. That's awesome. I mean, I literally was walking past the Orpheum, I believe. Yes. Maybe 20 minutes before we started recording. And, you know, all of these beautiful venues are now urban outfitters or a Starbucks.

So to know that you captured them in their prime, in their essence, that's amazing. I'll definitely be signing up for that very soon, probably when we hang up here. Excellent. Yeah, you know, it's really fascinating. It's kind of hard, if you're just walking down Broadway, you've got to have people actually, you know, stop and point this stuff out because some of it's so close together. Yeah. And some of these elements are kind of, it's overwhelming the amount of detail and stuff to see. So when I give a tour, you got to stop, you frame, you go, okay, I'm pointing your attention across the street to this building now.

everybody look at this. Here's a great story of what happened here in the 20s. And then I will carry my iPad and we'll actually have clips from silent films like the location and then show you the building that it was filmed on. You know, like the like when Harold Lloyd's hanging from the clock and safety last, that famous shot, that building is still on Broadway. The clock was a set piece, but the building's there. That's amazing. A frame of reference is always needed. That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, so enjoy that. You can go, I think the books for sale off my Facebook page too, but definitely at Dean Hagelin.com. You can buy the book, my comic book, why the lone gunman was canceled, is there in digital form, 8 by 10s, all of that stuff, at Dean Hagland.com.

Perfect. A very interesting story indeed, why the lone gunman was canceled. So definitely check that out too. Well, Dean, this past week's episode of the X-Files, it was an indication of where we are, both story-wise, and, you know, finding the true essence of the X-Files again. And I can't wait to see where the show might be heading and in what many consider, maybe final installment, who knows? But I'm also super excited to see what you've got going on in and out of the X-Files and lone gunmen. So, again, thank you for joining me today on some of the stars. Ryan. Exciting news I learned today, the podcast is now available on Spotify. So, if you can,

please take a moment to head on over there and subscribe, rate, and review the show. We're also available on all major podcast platforms, and always at the website, somewhere in the skies.com. While at the website, you can also contact me with any guests or topic suggestions, or to order my book, Somewhere in the Skies, A Human Approach, to an alien phenomenon. The show is on Twitter at SomewhereSkies and on Instagram at Somewhere SkiesPod. I will see you here next Monday,

and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies. Also, the truth is out there.