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Tea Leoni on David Duchovny and ‘Madam Secretary’

Tea Leoni dished recently about her split from X-Files actor David Duchovny as well as about her upcoming CBS show Madam Secretary. Not surprisingly, the two topics even merge. It was in Parade magazi...
Tea Leoni on David Duchovny and ‘Madam Secretary’
Written by Kimberly Ripley
  • Tea Leoni dished recently about her split from X-Files actor David Duchovny as well as about her upcoming CBS show Madam Secretary. Not surprisingly, the two topics even merge.

    It was in Parade magazine that Leoni opened up about at least some of her feelings about the father of her children.

    “Listen, David gave me the two greatest gifts on the planet; I don’t know how I could ever hate him,” she says. “We’ve always loved each other, and we adore these kids. … I’m not playing stupid—I understand feelings can get hurt and things can get icky. We’ve had our moments like that. But these kids are too important, and he feels the same way, I know it. He’s a good guy.”

    The actress still bears a wedding band tattoo she got back in 2007 on her ring finger. It matches one David Duchovny still sports, too.

    She says their kids have tried playing one parent against the other from time to time, but they put their collective feet down immediately.

    “There was that brief moment when the kids said, ‘Oh, I can work a scam on you here and him over there,’ and we were like, ‘News flash—no!’” Tea Leoni explained.

    “Tea and I had a long time together; we’ll always be connected and there for each other,” David Duchovny says of the mother of his children. He also added that he had no doubt that Madam Secretary was a good fit for his soon-to-be ex-wife (Tea filed for divorce this past June–the couple has been separated since 2011).

    Duchovny says Tea “committed to it right away. She usually takes a long time to consider things from all angles.”

    Tea Leoni hopes Madam Secretary will pique people’s interest in how the government works.

    “I’m sorry that young people aren’t ­ignited by politics, that it’s a dirty word. My daughter is interested in the stalemate in Congress; she says, ‘So neither side budges and that’s it? We don’t do anything?’ Making a case and negotiating—that’s what we want to do in the show. Wouldn’t compromise and agreement be great things to promote?”

    Sometimes raising kids in a divorced household can be akin to the inner workings of the government. It sounds like Tea Leoni and David Duchovny are on top of their dynamic duo–at least for now. Maybe by the time the kids are really pulling the wool over on Mom and Dad, her experience in Madam Secretary will have taught her a thing or two she can use in the ongoing parenting battle.

    Madam Secretary premieres on Sunday evening, September 21st on CBS.

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