"I read [for Rawles] really well," Hawkes remembers. "I went home and my agents called and they said, 'Oh about The X-Files, they chose someone else.' I said, 'That's hard to believe. Oh well.' The next morning they said, 'Chris Carter called and wants to meet you for the next episode.' He'd written the first 25 pages of it and they [sent] that to me. I read it over the weekend and was happy because it was maybe even a better part."
It seemed inevitable that Hawkes would appear on the series at some point. He originally auditioned for the part of Eugene Victor Tooms, losing the role to his good friend Doug Hutchison. Years later, after a successful turn on Millennium, the actor was offered an audition for the lead in one of Season Four's most memorable outings, "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man." Unwilling to cut his hair for the part, Hawkes declined. Instead, he went on to appear in three films with ties to The X-Files: Playing God, the action/drama starring David Duchovny as a former doctor forced to work with a mobster; the Vince Gilligan- penned Home Fries; and A Slipping Down Life, with co-stars Veronica Cartwright and Lili Taylor, both of whom enjoyed guest star turns on the series.
Now, Hawkes is bringing to the screen the lovelorn Padgett, an odd but appealing recluse who harbors a deep-seated passion for Scully. "It's exhaustive," Hawkes says of the role. "The first 20 pages, the character doesn't speak. The the first time he does speak, he doesn't shut up. It's these long, long monologues which you never see in television unless a lawyer's doing a summation or something like that. It's wonderful because he says nothing and then when he does speak it's all about Scully and what he knows about her from lots and lots of time observing her. It's interesting because it's not a typical kind of stalker role. I think the mistake would be to play it menacingly or figuratively twist you mustache. I think it's very neutral in in fact the guy just tells the truth throughout the whole episode. The guy's just steadfastly straight-forward and truthful. I think that's what Scully likes about him and why she is drawn into his world."