David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is a two-time Golden Globe Award-winning American television and film actor.
Duchovny was born in New York City, New York, the son of Margaret, a school administrator and teacher, and Amram Ducovny, a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee. Duchovny's father was Jewish and his mother a Lutheran immigrant from Scotland. His father dropped the "h" in his surname because of frequent mispronunciations of the name. Duchovny's siblings are Daniel and Laurie Duchovny. He attended The Collegiate School For Boys in Manhattan and ultimately graduated from Princeton University. He also holds a Master's degree in English Literature from Yale University and began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished. At Princeton, Duchovny was a member of the Charter Club, one of the University's eating clubs, where upperclassmen take their meals. The title of his senior thesis was The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels (1982).
Duchovny appeared in an advertisement for Lowenbrau beer in 1987. He had a recurring role as a transvestite DEA agent on the series Twin Peaks and played the narrator/host in the long-running Showtime erotica/softcore TV series Red Shoe Diaries.
Duchovny married actress Tea Leoni on May 6, 1997. On April 24, 1999, Leoni gave birth to a daughter, Madelaine West Duchovny. Their second child, a son, Kyd Miller Duchovny, was born June 15, 2002. Though their children's names are Madelaine and Kyd, Duchovny and his wife call them by their middle names. The Duchovnys make their home in Malibu, California.
Duchovny is a former vegetarian and wears contact lenses. He suffered an eye injury due to a basketball accident years ago, which caused the enlargement of one pupil. Duchovny keeps in shape with a variety of different activities, including swimming, yoga and boxing.