Walter Skinner
From X-Files Wiki
| Walter Skinner | |
| |
| Walter Skinner (1994) | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Spouse: | Sharon Skinner |
| Occupation: | FBI Assistant Director |
| Actor: | Mitch Pileggi |
| |
| Walter Skinner (2002) | |
Walter Sergei Skinner was an Assistant Director within the FBI. One of the sections under his control was the X-files. He was previously a member of the United States Marine Corps. (TXF: "Tooms")
Contents |
[edit] Vietnam & Marriage
On the same day as his eighteenth birthday, Walter Skinner enlisted in the US Marine Corps on a blind faith, believing it was the right thing to do. He went to Vietnam to fight in the war there while still aged eighteen. Three weeks into his tour of duty, he shot and consequently killed a ten-year-old North Vietnamese boy who had walked into camp covered with grenades. Skinner blew the boy's head off from a distance of ten yards. The incident caused him to lose faith in everything, not only in his country and himself. He started to believe that there was no point to anything any more. (TXF: "One Breath")
Skinner survived the horrors of war by numbing himself with whatever was around, including drugs that he inhaled. He saw lots of things during the war, none of which he gave credence to due to his drug-taking. Years later, he recalled that he had been "no choirboy" and had got through the experience of war "like most eighteen-year-olds". (TXF: "Avatar")
Skinner did hold the hands of fallen soldiers, though, including bodies that seemed like they had essentially been turned inside out, and he told them it was going to be okay. In 2002, he recalled that he had always thought that talking to the soldiers was "like praying; even if they can't hear maybe God can". (TXF: "Providence")
One night when he and his unit were on patrol, they were ambushed by the enemy in thick jungle and everyone fell, including Skinner. In the morning, other Marines arrived and put Skinner in a bodybag. (TXF: "One Breath") He awoke in a Siagon hospital two weeks later, the only survivor of the ambush. (TXF: "One Breath", "Avatar") He was left with the assumption that the Marines who had placed him in the bodybag had found a pulse before they had been presented with an opportunity to bury him.
Skinner believed that, while he had been lying in the thick jungle, he had looked down at his body from outside it. Apparently, he had initially failed to recognize his lifeless body, but he had later watched the Viet Cong strip his uniform and take his weapon while he had remained peaceful and unafraid, watching his dead friends and himself. (TXF: "One Breath") He also believed that he had seen an old woman who had been with him, watching him as he was watching himself dying, while blood spilled from a hundred different places in his body. According to Skinner, the experience had ended when the woman had lifted him up and carried him back, away from "the light". He did not believe the event had been a near-death experience as he was convinced that he actually had been dying, and initially tried to dismiss the woman as another hallucination but ultimately couldn't. (TXF: "Avatar")
Skinner began a romantic relationship with a woman named Sharon, who he married in 1979. The couple would remain married for at least the next seventeen years. (TXF: "Avatar")
- On March 7, 1996, the date on which "Avatar" begins, Skinner reveals that he and his wife have been married for the past 17 years. It can therefore be determined that 1979 was the year they married.
[edit] FBI Career
[edit] Early Career
Skinner joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation sometime before 1986. On at least one occasion in that year, he and one or more of the organization's other members talked about the exceptionally talented Fox Mulder, who was in the FBI Academy at the time. Skinner ultimately became an Assistant Director within the FBI and was appointed an office in Washington D.C.'s J. Edgar Hoover Building, the FBI's headquarters. (TXF: "Tooms")
- In "Tooms", Skinner says to Mulder, "We were talking about you when you were in the Academy," referring to the FBI as "we". "Kill Switch and "Unusual Suspects" establish that Mulder attended the FBI Academy in 1986.
[edit] Supervising the X-Files
In early 1994, Skinner called Special Agent Dana Scully into a meeting which the Cigarette Smoking Man also attended. Skinner revealed that he and the Cigarette Smoking Man had reviewed Scully's reports but had been displeased by the unorthodox investigation methods that she and Mulder, now her FBI partner, had been using to research the X-files. Even though Skinner accepted Scully's claim that atypical methods ensured a high success rate on the cases that the agents investigated, he instructed her to increase the frequency of her reports and to ensure that work on the X-files was conducted in a conventional manner.
Skinner later learned of allegations that Mulder had recently attacked Eugene Victor Tooms. During a meeting between Scully, Mulder and Skinner with the Cigarette Smoking Man also in attendance, Skinner listened as Mulder claimed he had been framed for the reported assault on Eugene Tooms. Skinner asked Scully to leave the room after she lied to him that she had been with Mulder at the time the attack was first reported.
Once Scully left, Skinner advised Mulder to leave the X-files for a short time. When Mulder politely acknowledged Skinner's advice, the Assistant Director brought an end to the meeting by informing him that he was forbidden to go near Eugene Tooms but, as Mulder was leaving, Skinner warned him that the incident had been "close" and that, if Mulder got any "closer" in the future, a thousand political friends of his would not be able to help him. Skinner obtained the X-file pertaining to Eugene Tooms shortly after Tooms died. (TXF: "Tooms")
Later that year, Skinner attended a meeting at which he told Mulder that word had come down from the top of the FBI's executive branch that both he and Scully would be reassigned to other sections of the Bureau, effectively shutting down the X-files. (TXF: "The Erlenmeyer Flask")
[edit] After the X-Files Closed
AD Skinner continued to supervise Mulder after the closure of the X-files in 1994 while Mulder was assigned to general assignment duties. Skinner initially oversaw Mulder's progress on a wiretapping detail and made an effort to locate Mulder, shortly after he disappeared from his assignment one morning, by questioning Scully, who did not know at the time where Mulder was. Following Mulder's return from Puerto Rico, Skinner again met with him and the Cigarette-Smoking Man in the Assistant Director's office. Skinner seemed angered that the evidence collected due to Mulder's wiretapping assignment had been lost due to Mulder's absence and warned that disciplinary action would consequently be taken. After learning that the Cigarette-Smoking Man had recently conducted surveillance on Mulder, however, Skinner ordered the Cigarette-Smoking Man to leave his office and instructed Mulder to return to his wiretapping assignment. Both of Skinner's associates complied with his instructions. (TXF: "Little Green Men")
AD Skinner indirectly relieved Mulder of his wiretapping detail and assigned him the task of investigating a murder case in Newark, New Jersey, where a decomposed corpse had been found in the sewers. Skinner was holding a meeting in his office when Mulder interrupted the gathering to complain about the triviality of the case in New Jersey. In response, Skinner reminded Mulder that the X-files had been closed and ensured that Mulder understood his directive to carry out his new assignments, including his latest case, to the best of his ability. When Mulder submitted his final report, Skinner agreed that it should have been an X-file. (TXF: "The Host")
Mulder played a recording of a 911 call for Skinner, but refused to divulge where he got the tape. In the recording, a Dr. Saul Grissom reported a fire in his apartment. When the fire department arrived, they found Grissom dead and no signs of any fire. Mulder asked to open a case on the death, but Skinner told him that he'd look into it and let him know. In the meantime, he reminded Mulder that he still had 24 hours of wiretap tape to transcribe. Skinner eventually assigned Alex Krycek to the case along with Mulder. (TXF: "Sleepless")
Skinner had a meeting in his office to discuss the disappearance of Duane Barry and the kidnapping of Agent Scully. Mulder, Krycek and four other FBI personnel were present along with the Cigarette Smoking Man who sat across the room listening. Skinner concluded the meeting by telling Mulder to turn over his file to HRT and go home. The next day, in Skinner's office, Mulder is questioned by the same people about the circumstances surrounding Duane Barry's death. Skinner ordered both Krycek and Mulder to OPC for a lie detector procedure, but with Krycek absent from the meeting, Mulder suggested that the military was covering up the fact that Barry was poisoned to hide the whereabouts of Scully. The following morning, Mulder presented his report to Skinner accusing Krycek of killing the Aerial tram operator and Barry. Skinner paged his secretary to have Krycek report to him immediately and then listened to Mulder's explanation and considered the evidence: a cigarette found in Krycek's car. Skinner then took a phone call telling him that Krycek didn't show up for work and that his home phone was disconnected. Mulder complained that "they" get away with murder. Skinner told him there's "...nothing you can do." Mulder asked Skinner "What can you do about it?" to which Skinner replied, "There's only one thing I can do, Agent Mulder. As of right now, I'm reopening the X-files. That's what they fear the most." (TXF: "Ascension")
[edit] Continuation of the X-Files
Over time, Skinner proved his loyalty to Mulder and Scully and their work. He first demonstrated this by going against the Cigarette Smoking Man and trying to use the digital tape Mulder had received from "the Thinker" as leverage to get Mulder and Scully reinstated. He even promised that if they didn't honor that deal, he would risk his life and go state's evidence and testify against them. Unfortunately, Krycek beat up Skinner and stole the tape. However, Skinner pulled a master stroke and told the Cigarette Smoking Man that Albert Hosteen had memorized everything on the tape and, in the ancient oral tradition of his people, had shared it with 20 other men. If anything happened to Mulder or Scully, he was prepared to recite everything in the files and, unless CSM wanted to killed every Navajo living in four states, he must reinstate Mulder and Scully. (TXF: "Paper Clip")
There were times when Skinner was unable to help Mulder. When Mulder was investigating the case of the alien autopsy in Allentown, Skinner told him he was on his own. He also warned him that the case was bigger than either of them or the FBI and that Mulder should exploit any other sources he had. (TXF: "Nisei") However, Skinner always had Mulder's safety at heart. When Mulder became much too involved in a case involving gargoyles that John Mostow claimed had possessed him, Skinner told Scully he was as concerned as she was about Mulder's increasingly erratic behavior. (TXF: "Grotesque")
In 1996, Skinner had to tell Scully that the investigation into her sister's death had been made inactive. Scully was understandably angry and upset about this and Skinner told her he would appeal the decision and go over the evidence himself. Later, Skinner was warned by three MIBs that he should know that, as an employee of the FBI, he, like those under him, was supposed to obey orders and that, if those above him had decided that there was nothing more to pursue in Melissa Scully's case, who was he to question that decision. Skinner, however, did not relent and he was shot by Luis Cardinal, the same man who had killed Melissa Scully. Since Skinner survived the shooting, Luis Cardinal later tried to kill him again when he was being tranferred to another hospital. A tip given to Mulder by the Well-Manicured Man allowed Scully to be there to stop Luis Cardinal. She chased him down and he was arrested by the police. Mulder was very grateful to Skinner for risking his life and job to help Scully in her pursuit of her sister's killer. (TXF: "Piper Maru", "Apocrypha")
The day Skinner was asked yet again to sign his divorce papers, he went for a drink after work and ended up in bed with what turned out to be a prostitute. While he was having sex with her, he hallucinated that an old woman with long grey hair was on top of him. Later, he woke up to find the prostitute dead. Skinner continued to have sightings of the old woman. Skinner's wife, Sharon, was attacked by the men who seemed to be setting Skinner up and Mulder surmised that maybe the grey haired woman was trying to protect Skinner. He came to this conclusion after Skinner told him about how the grey haired woman had stayed with him while he was floating in the jungle in Vietnam; that she had "carried him back, away from the light". (TXF: "Avatar")
[edit] Career History
[edit] Relationships
[edit] Family
[edit] Romantic Interests
[edit] Sharon Skinner
Main article: Sharon Skinner
[edit] Associates
[edit] Fox Mulder
Main article: Fox Mulder
[edit] Dana Scully
Main article: Dana Scully
[edit] John Doggett
In 2000, John Doggett was placed in charge of the FBI task force to recover Mulder after his abduction. Skinner was questioned for being present at the time of Mulder's disappearance, and both he and Scully were initially distrustful of Doggett, viewing him more or less as Kersh's enforcer. ("Within")
[edit] Monica Reyes
Main article: Monica Reyes
[edit] Alvin Kersh
Skinner and Alvin Kersh were professionally polite to each other, but there was an undercurrent of animosity between them. This was increased dramatically when Kersh was promoted to deputy director in 2000 immediately after Mulder's abduction. ("Within")
[edit] "The Lone Gunmen"
Skinner met the Lone Gunmen through Mulder and dealt with them a number of times, such as when Mulder brought them to the FBI to investigate a crashed UFO in Oregon. ("Requiem")
[edit] Enemies
[edit] Cigarette Smoking Man
Main article: Cigarette Smoking Man
[edit] Alex Krycek
Skinner had a very personal hatred of Alex Krycek. Krycek was involved in trying to kill Skinner and once assaulted him in a stairway. Mulder once caught Krycek and brought him to Skinner's apartment for safekeeping, whereupon Skinner punched Krycek across the face and handcuffed him to his balcony railing. When Krycek obtained a nanovirus, he infected Skinner with it, only furthering Skinner's intense hatred of him. In 2001, Skinner shot Krycek dead. ("Existence")
[edit] Miscellaneous Information
[edit] Background Information
The role of Walter Skinner was played by actor Mitch Pileggi, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for two or three other characters on The X-Files before winning the part. At first, the fact that he was asked back to audition for the recurring role slightly puzzled him, until he discovered the reason he had not previously been cast in those roles - Chris Carter had been unable to envision Pileggi as those characters, due to the fact that the actor had been shaving his head. When the actor had attended the audition for Walter Skinner, he had been in a grumpy mood and had allowed his small amount of hair to grow back. Pileggi's attitude fit well with Walter Skinner's character, causing Carter to assume that the actor was only pretending to be grumpy. After successfully winning the role, Pileggi thought he had been lucky that he had not been cast in one of the earlier roles, as he believed he would have appeared in only a single episode and would have missed the opportunity to play the recurring role of Walter Skinner.
Following the broadcast of "One Breath", in which Skinner recalls serving as a Marine during the Vietnam War, Pileggi received several fan letters from Vietnam veterans.
[edit] Appearances
See here for a list of appearances or here for all absences listed.
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