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Ryan Coogler’s ‘X-Files’ Reboot Casts Danielle Deadwyler as Lead
The acclaimed actress will be one of the two main stars of the upcoming reimagining of the popular sci-fi franchise.
Ryan Coogler’s X-Files has cast one of its leads. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Danielle Deadwyler has landed one of the series’ two much-coveted starring roles. Coogler has also been officially confirmed to write and direct the pilot. Jennifer Yale (The Copenhagen Test) has come on board as showrunner, Deadline reports.
The project falls under Coogler’s five-year exclusive television deal with Disney, the parent company of Hulu, 20th TV and Onyx. The new show’s official description: “Two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.”
Deadwyler has earned raves for her performances in projects like Till, The Woman in the Yard, The Harder They Fall, and she earned a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for best supporting actress for Netflix’s adaptation of The Piano Lesson. She is also set to appear in a pair of HBO projects: the third season of Euphoria and the upcoming comedy series Rooster.
The X-Files premiered back in 1993, starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully, respectively. The series lasted for 11 seasons, with the pair investigating cases involving the paranormal. The show became a cultural phenomenon and led to two feature films: The X-Files in 1998 and 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
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Back in April 2025, Coogler confirmed that the project was coming and explained his involvement.
“I’ve been excited about that for a long time, and I’m fired up to get back to it. Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f*cking scary,” he said at the time.“We’re gonna try to make something really great and really be something for the real X-Files fans, and maybe find some new ones.”
Around the same time, Anderson voiced her support for Coogler and the project.
“I spoke to him, and what I said was, ‘If anyone were to do it, I think you are the perfect person and best of luck, call me,’” Anderson said on ITV1’s This Morning. while promoting her latest film, The Salt Path. “At some point, if the phone rings and it’s good and it feels like the right time — perhaps.”