William B. Davis

For the first two seasons of The X-Files, the Cigarette Smoking Man didn't even have a character name. The credits listed him as 'Cancer Man' or left him off entirely, lurking in government hallways without dialogue. Davis had spent twenty years directing theatre before the role found him, including a stint under Laurence Olivier at Britain's National Theatre. The producers kept expanding his part because he did so much with so little screen time. The character eventually got entire episodes built around his mythology, but the original draw was simpler: a man in a suit making every room feel dangerous.

The skeptic who played the center of TV's defining conspiracy mythology still lectures at universities debunking paranormal claims. It's the longest-running irony in his career, and he seems to enjoy it. He returned as the Smoking Man for The X-Files 2016 revival after a 14-year gap and slipped back in without visible strain. He runs the William Davis Centre for Actors Study in Vancouver and published a second book in 2022. He spends the attention the character built arguing that none of it was real.

Before The X-Files made him a recognizable face, Davis had spent two decades running theatre companies and training actors. At 28, he ran the English acting section of Canada's National Theatre School, and later founded Festival Lennoxville. He smoked real tobacco cigarettes for the Smoking Man role before switching to herbal to avoid re-addiction. A former national champion water skier, he still holds records in older age divisions. The X-Files found him in his fifties and made a career out of what he'd built in obscurity.