(Photo Credit: Fox)
Ryan Coogler‘s X-Files reboot for Hulu has found its pair of lead stars.
First announced in March 2023, the new X-Files will be a fresh take on the original Fox series, which initially ran from 1993 to 2002 and then from 2016 to 2018 for a total of 11 seasons. It’s unclear how connected the new series will be to the original, if at all, although David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are not expected to appear as former leads Fox Mulder or Dana Scully.
Who will co-lead Hulu’s X-Files reboot with Danielle Deadwyler?
Instead, Coogler will front the reboot with new stars. Danielle Deadwyler was the first actor attached to the production in February 2026. Now, Himesh Patel has come aboard the project as her co-lead, per Deadline, who notes that they will be playing new original characters in the series, as opposed to succeeding Duchovny and Anderson in the roles of Mulder and Scully.
Patel is best known for his decade-long role as Tamwar Masood in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, as well as for the comedy films Yesterday, Don’t Look Up, and Greedy People. In 2020, he starred in Christopher Nolan’s trippy sci-fi flick, Tenet. He reunited with Nolan on the upcoming The Odyssey, which arrives in theaters this summer. Also ahead for the actor is Enola Holmes 3, in which he appears as John Watson opposite Henry Cavill’s Sherlock Holmes.
Coogler is developing the X-Files reboot and will direct the pilot. The new series will focus on two highly decorated but vastly different FBI agents who form an unlikely bond when they are assigned to a long-shuttered division devoted to cases involving unexplained phenomena.
The X-Files reboot received a pilot order from Hulu last month. Jennifer Yale will serve as showrunner. She will also executive produce alongside The X-Files creator Chris Carter, Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Zinzi Coogler. Francine Maisler, who previously worked with Coogler on his Oscar-winning horror movie Sinners, is handling casting.
The original X-Files series is available to stream on Hulu.
