The confusion around "Californication" begins with its title.
"I didn't think the show was about sex, you know? I didn't want to lead with that," says star and executive producer David Duchovny, looking startlingly fit between takes on the series' Culver City set. "I thought the show is more about the heart of this family that he's trying to raise. We just couldn't come up with a better title. I blame myself. But I'd rather have a good show and a bad title than vice versa."
Despite perhaps putting the wrong foot forward, the Showtime series has garnered major nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the British Academy of Tilm and Television Arts and the Golden Globes, at which Duchovny won a lead actor award as Hank Moody, the conflicted, smart-mouthed jerk and loyal, loving family man with the impulse control of a tumbleweed.
"There's this heart in the show that he's truly in love with this one woman and that he's a good parent, in a really horrible way. These are paradoxes that I thought were mature," says the Yale- and Princeton-educated Duchovny. "This was more adult, more articulate, less of a man-boy and more of a man. Comedy for grown-ups, starring a grown-up."
Hank is the unflatteringly candid picture of the romantic-turned-cynic, struggling to rebuild the family he let slip away with his estranged girlfriend, Karen (Natascha McElhone), and their daughter, Becca (a sullen teen captured to a T by Madeleine Martin). But ask those who didn't give "Californication" a chance and you'll probably get a curled lip and a description of a sexist show about a sex-addict writer who treats women like sex objects.
That's not this show.
"Separate 'sexist' from 'sex.' There's a lot of discussion about sex on the show, and I think people have a knee-jerk reaction: 'Oh, my God, that's sexist!' Duchovny says. "People kind of lose their minds as soon as they hear the word or prefix 'sex.' The fact that Charlie Runkle [Evan Handler] has so much sex is evidence that women are seen as very sympathetic creatures," he says, laughing, of Hank's less-than-studly agent who uses his handsome client as an enticing wingman.
"Hank's lack of respect is really for himself, not for anybody else. There's a line in the next episode that says, 'We're all grown-ups, there are no victims here.' It's not like anybody wakes up with Hank and he's a different guy than he was the night before."
