David Duchovny is a low-key, guy’s guy, charming from the word go. Dressed in jeans, shirt out and jacket, he even pulled his pants up before sitting down, just like a real guy.  It’s that brand of relate-ability that made him a winning guest during a recent visit with Jimmy Kimmel.  And as we are often say, relate-ability equals like-ability.

He started out his visit by saying he almost went through the wrong door backstage and wondered where he would have ended up.  When Kimmel suggested the Ellen Show, Duchovny quickly replied that he might, then, have been “a little less flirty.”  Duchovny felt right at home with Kimmel and readily offered up that one of his summer activities, in addition to finishing up the second season of his Showtime series Californication, was pimping “The X-Files – I Want to Believe.”

As the “pimping” part of the interview came around, Duchovny said that getting back into the role of Fox Mulder after six years only happened when he started working with Gillian Anderson again.  “[She] keyed me into the whole vibe.”  Kimmel then asked if he stripped everyone down as he seems to do on Californication on the X files set, and Duchovny said no, it was Vancouver, it was too cold for that.

The final bit of banter centered on the difficulty of keeping the X Files script secret for so long. Duchovny explained that basically he WAS irresponsible and that director Chris Carter was right to not trust him with the written script, as he confessed to losing the first draft.

As an anecdote master and with a casual, approachable attitude, Duchovny knows how to be a good talk show guest.  He remained himself, got his numerous plugs in and showed how a pro can use the art of the appearance to stay popular in the public eye.

In 1996, readers of FHM voted Gillian Anderson the “Sexiest Woman in the World.”  Over a decade later, now 40 years old and sporting an admitted baby bump, Anderson is still major sexy, and she scored big in her Late Show appearance by making David Letterman look sexy, as well!

Although she began her career as a young actress with a punk edge, Anderson has always walked the line between rebellious counterculture icon and respected mature professional.  That balance was evident when she walked onto the Late Show stage, dressed in sleek taupe and black, but with stray wisps of hair escaping her do, looking both elegant and mom-like.  Flirty and irreverent from the start, she asked Dave if he was sucking up to her.  He denied it but, glancing at her b-bump, replied “It looks to me…”  “…like someone else has sucked up to me!?” she finished.  The big laugh that got paved the way for the story of how she and Dave had made out the last time she was on the show.  (A clip provided proof.)   “You didn’t write, you didn’t call,” pouted Anderson, while Dave blushed and ate it all up.

Anderson connected to the show’s ongoing comic campaign coverage with a story about meeting Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.  When Dave turned the focus back to her motherhood, she still kept him tightly in the circle of attention by asking about his being a father.  And she always maintained the flattering flirtatious edge to the banter.  Referring to her ex-pat residence in London, she rued, “After you rejected me, I decided I was going to move…countries.”  By the time a clip from “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” was shown, all it needed to provide was a reminder of her chemistry with David Duchovny; she had already won us over as a star.

How does a deft display of talk showmanship like this pay off?   Anderson’s presence was so memorable that when Simon Pegg came on after her (it’s always good to have a comedian as a closer), he and Dave spent the first part of his appearance talking about…Gillian Anderson!