`X-FILES' WILLIAM DAVIS TALKS WITH SEMO X-PHILES

The script of "The X-Files" feature film was so closely guarded that the actors were given numbered scripts printed on red paper so they couldn't be photocopied, the series' chief villain said Thursday night.

William B. Davis, who plays Cancer Man -- or the Cigarette Smoking Man, if you want to be politically correct -- shared his philosophy on the Fox Network's hit with fans at Southeast Missouri State University's University Center.

"What I can divulge about the movie next summer is there is going to be one," Davis joked. "It will star David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, and I do have a role in it."

Davis joked with fans about the contrast between his character, a sinister and secretive government agent linked to presidential assassinations and an apparently government-sanctioned colonization effort by aliens called "The Project," and Agent Fox Mulder, the hero desperately in search of the truth -- whatever that might be.

The series veers from suggesting aliens are among us to implying that no, ET hasn't arrived, but the government wants to plant that suggestion to hide some much darker plot.

Along the way, the characters dodge Agent Scully's mysterious cancer, a few non-conspiratorial aliens and the paranormal, including the Flukeman, ESP and the occasional fat-sucking vampire.

He jokingly suggested fans consider the characters from a new perspective.

"It seems that many people think that Mulder and Scully are the heroes," Davis said. "We don't know why they think this, but we need to correct this image."

Cancer Man -- Davis himself leans toward CSM or "Il Fumatore," as the character is known in Italy -- has been unfairly assigned the role of villain, he said.

"(Mulder) seems to want to find the truth. OK. What do you think he'll do when he finds the truth?" Davis asked. "I think he'll go on Larry King Live and blab it to the world. And then what will happen? Panic will happen. People will terrified when they hear Mulder's report of the truth."

Cancer Man would handle the whole thing more discreetly, Davis said.

"Let's suppose I get what I want. Well, we don't know exactly what I want," he said. "I seem to want to cover up the truth. Suppose I succeed in covering up the truth. What would happen?

"Nothing! You wouldn't know! Your lives will go on just as they are. You'll continue to have the same problems, the same issues, that you have now. There'll still be a few kooks out there who think there are aliens among us, and we'll all get along fine."

Mulder, he said, "is a chicken-livered pup!"

Davis, 58, served as the director of the National Theatre School of Canada's English acting school after a stint in Britain's National Theatre, where he had worked with Lawrence Olivier and Maggie Smith.

As director of the acting school, he taught Lucy Lawless, now the star of "Xena: Warrior Princess," and returned to acting in the 1980s.

With his role as the Cancer Man, Davis has achieved fame that goes beyond the cult to something near obsession for X-philes around the world.

Recent reports that Duchovny wants the show moved to Los Angeles so he can be closer to wife Tea Leoni have prompted uneasy rumblings among fans.

Davis could only report that the series is scheduled to finish its fifth season in Vancouver and that no one has told him there won't be a sixth season.

Davis appeared Thursday night as his character always does: enveloped in a haze of smoke, half-obscured by sinister lighting.

He clearly enjoys the role. The Cancer Man doesn't even have a real name.

And episodes have only hinted at the extent of his supposed misdeeds, linking him to John F. Kennedy's assassination, the death of Agent Mulder's father and the fix of several national sporting events.

Davis doesn't think Cancer Man's such a bad guy: Just another Cold Warrior determined to stick to his mission, however unsavory it may prove.

"And even if he did kill Kennedy, I don't think he fixed four Super Bowl games, and I don't think he fixed the hockey games," Davis said. "I find that hard to credit. He doesn't seem to be interested in those things."

At this point, Davis said, he doesn't want the character to have a name. It would, he said, ruin the way he identifies with him.

Davis, who gave up cigarettes himself more than 20 years ago, smokes herbal cigarettes -- clove, he insists, and he does inhale -- on the series.

He has a plan for cleaning up the Cancer Man's image, he said.

"I've been working on my smoking all summer so I can blow smoke rings, so that whenever I appear, there'll be a halo around my head."