Fierstein for the role of Modell, but Robert Wisden read the script and "blew us away". Rob Bowman was pleased with Wisden's performance and said, "I thought Robert Wisden was great as Pusher. He is a very energized kind of confident actor with lots of ideas of his own. It took me about a day and a half to get him into it, and then I never had to speak to him again, because he had that look in his eyes. I would walk up to talk to him about the scene and I could see that he was already there. Mitch Pileggi was disappointed in the fact that the episode featured his character, Walter Skinner, getting beat up, something which had occurred in multiple episodes already by this point: "I was feeling a little uncomfortable with him getting his ass kicked so much, and I think the fans were, too." Dave Grohl, the lead singer and guitarist of the Foo Fighters and former drummer for Nirvana, made a small cameo, along with his then-wife Jennifer Youngblood, in the episode during the scene wherein Modell sneaks into the FBI building. Grohl, who has an active interest in UFO lore, called the episode "his acting debut". Themes Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, wrote that the episode helps to illustrate the idea that "evil [is] a mundane and human and somewhat pathetic thing", a concept that they note is rooted in many third season episodes of The X-Files. The two reason that, despite Modell's ability, he is ultimately, "something of a loser" who wishes to "be special" rather than be cured of his brain disease. Furthermore, they argue that Modell's boasting of being a samurai "is just a fantasy" that he plays up; he really is a "little man" who yearns "to be big". Critic A.J. Black notes that the character of Modell can be compared to the main characters in Gilligan's later shows, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: This sociopathic strain is clear in all of Gilligan’s male monsters and such traits certainly bleed later into Walt and Saul/Jimmy. They are both underachievers who ‘break bad’ to prove something to themselves, let alone the world. Pusher is no different [...] Crucially, in the most acute parallel with Walter White, Modell is dying. “And