Ryan Coogler’s X-Files reboot at Hulu is adding some serious names to its guest cast.
The series has officially cast Amy Madigan, Steve Buscemi, Ben Foster, Devery Jacobs, Lochlyn Munro, Tantoo Cardinal, Joel D. Montgrand, and Sofia Grace Clifton in guest-starring roles
They join previously announced leads Danielle Deadwyler and Himesh Patel, who play two highly decorated FBI agents with very different approaches. The duo is brought together when they’re assigned to a long-shuttered FBI unit focused on unexplained phenomena—essentially reopening the door to the kind of cases that defined the original X-Files mythology.
Coogler, who just won an original screenplay Oscar for Sinners, is writing and directing the pilot and executive produces under his Proximity Media banner alongside Sev Ohanian and Zinzi Coogler. Jennifer Yale serves as showrunner and executive producer. X-Files creator Chris Carter is also an executive producer on the reboot. Deadwyler and Patel are co-executive producers. The series is produced by Onyx Collective Studio and 20th Television.
This new iteration is being positioned less as a nostalgia play and more as a full creative reset—one that leans into horror, procedural tension, and the supernatural with a modern lens.
Now here is where it gets interesting. Gillian Anderson, who played Dana Scully across the original nine-season run, has already read the pilot script and is open to returning.
“The pilot script is really good,” Anderson said of Coogler’s take, adding that she has had “a few conversations” with him about the project. She also had a message for longtime fans skeptical of a reboot. “I would say, have an open mind and give it a chance because it’s gonna be fucking cool. It’s something different. It’s different, and it’s special, so give it a break.”
That tracks with what Coogler has already said about the tone. “Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really fucking scary,” he said. “We’re going to try to make something really great, and make something for the real X-Files fans and maybe find some new ones.”
No confirmation yet on Anderson or David Duchovny officially joining, but the door is clearly open.
The X-Files originally ran for nine seasons from 1993 to 2002, with two revival seasons in 2016 and 2018, totaling 218 episodes and two feature films.
Madigan comes in fresh off winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Weapons, the Zach Cregger horror film that grossed $270 million worldwide. Buscemi, best known for playing Nucky Thompson on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, recently appeared in season 2 of Netflix’s Wednesday and has Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horses Nine coming up this fall opposite John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. Foster, who starred opposite Sydney Sweeney in the boxing film Christy, brings credits including Hell or High Water and 3:10 to Yuma. Jacobs, known for her Emmy-nominated run on FX’s Reservation Dogs, is also a writer and director with a Sundance Directors Lab fellowship to her name. Cardinal brings over 50 years in the industry with 130 film and television credits including Killers of the Flower Moon, Dances with Wolves and Legends of the Fall.