Making Movies

TORONTO (Reuters) - As William B. Davis, the Canadian actor who plays the malevolent "Cigarette Smoking Man" in the top television series and new movie "The X-Files", answers the phone, you imagine his craggy face wreathed in smoke.

In reality, William B. Davis (the B. stands for Bruce) is a reformed nicotine addict who puffs away on herbal cigarettes in the show. If, as the show's slogan goes, "the truth is out there," then the truth is the Canadian thespian is warm, witty and totally unlike the manipulative, cold-hearted, chain-smoking killer he portrays in "The X-Files" film called "Fight the Future", widely released Friday.

Despite the menace invoked by his infamous raspy voice traveling over the phone line from his Washington-state hideaway, it's difficult to imagine Davis as a perpetual meanie who generally foils but occasionally and perversely helps out FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.