"We kind of live out on the edge, you know," claims X-Files actor Tom Braidwood of the Lone Gunmen, the trio of conspiracy theorists that he, as Melvin Frohike, helped bring to fame. "We're a little radical. We tend to do things in a fairly non-conservative fashion. And, well, we're all funny-looking and weird."

For Braidwood, being funny-looking and weird has become something of a career. Originally hired as a first assistant director for The X-Files in 1993, he was soon asked to fill what was to be the one-time role of Frohike, who with Langly (Dean Haglund) and Byers (Bruce Harwood) formed the paranoid, computer-hacking triad of nerddom known as The Lone Gunmen. Braidwood, whose successful decade-plus career in film and television had included numerous direction and production stints but rarely acting, agreed.

"What the director said when he was casting the role was, 'We need someone slimy, like Braidwood,'" the actor explains. "I'm sort of like, I shave every three days, I wear the same clothes..." Frohike's own trademark wardrobe -- black fedora, combat boots, and fingerless gloves -- was that of Braidwood's creation. "I decided what he would wear, the gloves, the kind of thing. It's loosely based on a film that Michael Douglas did called Falling Down. There's a character who owns a gun shop -- that's more what I based the wardrobe on than anything else. It just sort of grew from there."

As the popularity of the series has increased, so has that of the Gunmen, and Braidwood found himself the rare assistant director who could boast of his own trading card, fan club and even Estrogen Brigade. The Scully-lusting, conspiracy-craving Frohike became a particular fan favorite, an eccentric figure whose one-line witticisms belied his more sensitive side. "I don't think any of us suspected it was going to grow into an ongoing concern," Braidwood says of Frohike's unexpected appeal. "We all felt -- well, we didn't even think about it. It was a one-time thing and I only had one or two lines the first time out. Everything else came as a complete surprise."

Most shocking of all for Braidwood was the fourth-season episode "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man," the original script of which called for Frohike's death. "Yeah, it was surprising when I read it," recalls Braidwood. "I hadn't been forewarned. I just got the script and said, 'Oh yeah, we've got a part in this one' and I read it, and -- whoops!" Laughing, he adds, "I think once Chris Carter had a look at the script he thought that wasn't the way to go. I sort of went in begging on my knees: 'You can't kill me, I'm one of the good guys!'"

Overall, Braidwood has found his X-Files experience to be a positive one, and he holds a particular fondness for the Lone Gunmen-centered episodes "Unusual Suspects" and "Three of a Kind". "There's just something about them. Vince [Gilligan] wrote both scripts, and they're fun scripts and interesting scripts. He seems to have a really good handle on the characters; we couldn't really disagree with much that he came up with. He seems to really enjoy writing them. And they were a gas; both of them were a really good experience. Certainly in terms of work they were the most fun."

Braidwood is uncertain what role the Lone Gunmen will play in the seventh season, likely to be the series' last. "We don't know yet. We haven't been down yet, and I guess they're in show six or seven. We're signed on for around six episodes, but when they're going to get to us, we don't know. There was talk that they were so happy with the first two Lone Gunmen episodes that there might even be another," he says, adding, "I suspect that Vince will probably do it, since he seems to enjoy writing for the Gunmen."

Until then, however, the actor/director/producer has plenty to keep him occupied.