Yet despite Williams' long experience with series television by that point, Morgan recalled, "At first, Steve wasn't going over all that well [either] and they were unhappy with him. I said, 'Jerry Hardin brought so much to Deep Throat and we're kind of giving X Jerry's lines.'" Series creator Chris Carter remembered it differently, saying, "We wanted someone who had a much different persona than Deep Throat."

Whichever was the case, Morgan said it took time for that distinction to take hold. "That's why, later on, they didn't use X for awhile," he noted. "But Steve is a good actor, which is why we could do the scene in 'One Breath' where he performs an execution. Deep Throat was a guy willing to lose his life for letting out the secret, whereas X is a guy who's still scared. He's somewhere between Mulder and Deep Throat.

Williams made his movie debut in the African-American teen drama Cooley High (1975) and little by little acquired parts in telefilms and episodic TV, as well as doing small roles in such movies as The Blues Brothers, Doctor Detroit, Twilight Zone: The Movie and Rambo: First Blood, Part II. He worked steadily and continuously, and after a stint as police Lt. Jefferson Burnett in the first several episodes of The Equalizer, began to get more attention.

And who is X? "I know very little about him," Williams confessed at the time. "X is an enigma. I only know that Deep Throat was his friend and mentor, just as he was Mulder's friend and mentor. And X is obligated to Deep Throat, like he owed Deep Throat a favor."

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