Himesh Patel Set to Star in Ryan Coogler's THE X-FILES Reboot at Hulu
The truth is still out there, and now it has two new faces chasing it.
Ryan Coogler's highly anticipated X-Files reboot at Hulu has locked in its second lead. Himesh Patel is joining Danielle Deadwyler as co-lead on the series. The two will play brand-new FBI agents original to this iteration of the show, so don't go looking for a next-gen Mulder and Scully here.
Deadwyler, whose star has been on a serious rise since her work in Till and The Bear, was attached to the project back in February 2026. Patel is a natural fit alongside her.
You also likely know him from Yesterday, Don't Look Up, and his decade on the BBC soap EastEnders, but sci-fi fans will recognize him from Christopher Nolan's Tenet. He's also got Nolan's The Odyssey coming this summer and Enola Holmes 3 on deck, where he plays John Watson opposite Henry Cavill's Sherlock Holmes.
The show itself centers 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. That's the classic X-Files DNA, just with a fresh engine under the hood.
Coogler, who is developing the series and directing the pilot, has assembled a serious team around this thing. Jennifer Yale serves as showrunner and executive producer alongside X-Files creator Chris Carter, Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Zinzi Coogler.
As for the original series, the creative team hasn't made it clear how connected this reboot will be to the 11-season run that aired on Fox from 1993 to 2002 and briefly returned in 2016.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson aren't expected to appear, which honestly makes sense. This isn't a sequel or a passing of the torch; it seems more like Coogler is using the mythology as a launchpad and going somewhere new with it.
The project received its pilot order from Hulu last month, and if you need to catch up on where it all began, the original X-Files is streaming on Hulu now.
Source: Deadline