This iconic photo of two top billing Hollywood famous stars holding their minifigs has been making their rounds in Lego-sphere, re-shared and re-surfacing. Once again, my curiosity got the better of me… was it a conspiracy from the LEGO Group in Billund? Is it a tease on an X-files upcoming theme? No, it’s never been established or anyone from LEGO claiming to do so. So much mystery clouding over this single photo. So many questions, we know the TRUTH IS OUT THERE, we’ve just got to keep digging.
Turns out, a quick google image search and this mystery weren’t hard to solve, a query shows many others did the sleuthing of the photo back in 2015, being shared on the popular image hosting site, Flickr by a LEGO fan aficionado Brent Waller. If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because it should be. Brent is the creator of the Ideas 211008 Ghostbusters ECTO-1 set.
If you visit his Flickr feed, you’ll find a whole Album dedicated to the X-Files theme. It was his next Ideas project and venture into getting X-Files to go down in history with brick made LEGO sets for his love of the iconic series.
Even Gillian was providing her support for the series with a tweet that went viral.
Unfortunately, LEGO deemed the theme too dark and did not approve of the Ideas set.
But that’s not what you came here for, you probably knew all of the above if you’ve been in the LEGO scene long enough, what we came here for was how EXACTLY did those mini-figures land in those fingers of Hollywood’s top billing stars. So we tracked Brent Walker, and cuffed him onto a chair and shone a spotlight into his face (just like you see in those old detective movies), forcing the nitty gritty details out of the REAL STORY – what you really came here for.
Ed: Brent, tell us, how did you get Gillian’s attention? (We don’t quite care about David) 🙂
I made 2 sets of figures as a test as I was considering making custom minifigs. I made Mulder’s office to go with it, and that ended up online on my Flickr page. Lucky enough, someone from her staff contacted me saying she (Gillian) loved them!
Ed: (*Mindblown*) All these years I’ve been tagging and tweeting to her and all it took was a minifigure to get her attention? I need to learn lots from you, Brent.
So, I sent her my spares, under the condition that she could get Gillian to pose with her minifigure. Her staff took it even further and got David Duchovny – both dressed up in their X-files attire, and the rest is what you see going down in history!
Ed: That’s a great story, Brent! Let’s backtrack a little on the timelines. The Ideas submission was before or after that photo going viral?
Before, the photos she saw of the minifigs and Mulder’s office I put together for the Ideas project, when it was rejected I just posted them on my Flickr page.
Ed: Did you officially inform her staff on the rejection by LEGO Ideas? What was their reaction, if any?
Yeah, she was well aware it was rejected when she saw it and was encouraging me to try harder but I knew there was no real recourse for rejected projects and let them know that it wasn’t really a back and forth process. She was disappointed but there’s not much that could be done.
Ed: When did you submit the Ideas for the X-files? We don’t see it on the Ideas page. Was it rejected outright upon submission?
I submitted it in June 2015, it was only a few days after that it was rejected. It was rejected outright upon submission.
Ed: How accurate is Mulder’s Office? How much time did you spend on it researching it? Any particular reference or episode you used?
It’s as accurate as I could get it, I was rewatching the show in Netflix for the probably 5th time and grabbed a lot of screenshots and found some images from the set online. It changes a bit throughout the series a bit so I tried to get the most memorable details in like the “I Want to Believe” poster, trophies and the astronaut poster.
Ed: Did this custom set ever reach Mulder or Scully besides the minifigures?
No, just the minifgures, I just have my own personal Mulder’s Office MOC I made. David Duchovny asked for his own set of minifigs too which I sent through as well via Gillian’s staff. I did recreate the office itself in LDD and released the file online for free though.
(Ed: All is not lost, Brent now runs his own site, Waller Productions producing the Mulder and Scully figures for fans)
Ed: I think the most important question I have for you Brent, did you get Gillian’s number?
I wish!
Ed: Gillian, if you’re reading this, would you care to share your side of the story? (See how hard I try?) Thank you again, Brent, for your time! It’s always great to hear the story and we wish you luck and can’t wait to see what your next Idea may be!
Brent Waller together with his custom minifigures, Scully and Mulder!
