page_title: Pusher (The X-Files)
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: Pusher (The X-Files) / Production / Casting
caption_attribution_description: English: Dave Grohl of Them Crooked Vultures; August 2009 at Austin City Limits.
context_page_description: "Pusher" is the seventeenth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It originally aired on the Fox network on February 23, 1996, and was written by Vince Gilligan and directed by Rob Bowman. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology, or overarching fictional history of The X-Files. "Pusher" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.8, being watched by 16.2 million viewers in its initial broadcast. "Pusher" received overwhelmingly positive reviews from television critics.
  The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully’s assistance is requested for a case involving a man, who goes by the pseudonym "Pusher", seemingly capable of bending people to his will. The suspect uses his mysterious abilities to manipulate Mulder into a dangerous end game.
  "Pusher" was crafted by Gilligan with the intention to feature a tense cat and mouse game between Mulder and Pusher. The final scene, featuring a game of Russian roulette, was met with some resistance from the network.
context_section_description: Several actors were considered for the role of Robert Modell, even Lance Henriksen, who went on to play the lead role in Millennium. Initially, Gilligan considered Harvey Fierstein for the role of Modell, but Robert Wisden read the script and "blew us away". Rob Bowman was pleased with Wisden's performance and said, "I thought Robert Wisden was great as Pusher. He is a very energized kind of confident actor with lots of ideas of his own. It took me about a day and a half to get him into it, and then I never had to speak to him again, because he had that look in his eyes. I would walk up to talk to him about the scene and I could see that he was already there.
  Mitch Pileggi was disappointed in the fact that the episode featured his character, Walter Skinner, getting beat up, something which had occurred in multiple episodes already by this point: "I was feeling a little uncomfortable with him getting his ass kicked so much, and I think the fans were, too." Dave Grohl, the lead singer and guitarist of the Foo Fighters and former drummer for Nirvana, made a small cameo, along with his then-wife Jennifer Youngblood, in the episode during the scene wherein Modell sneaks into the FBI building. Grohl, who has an active interest in UFO lore, called the episode "his acting debut".
caption: Musician Dave Grohl made a cameo appearance in the episode.
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