Marita Covarrubias is a fictional character on the American science fiction television series The X-Files. She was initially introduced as an informant, leaking diplomatic information to FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder to aid his investigation of paranormal cases, dubbed X-Files. However, she was revealed to be an agent of the secretive Syndicate, although ultimately betraying that organization on several occasions. Introduced in the fourth season opener "Herrenvolk", the character remained a recurring presence until the series' finale, "The Truth". The character of Marita Covarrubias was portrayed by Laurie Holden in all her appearances. She was introduced as a replacement for Steven Williams' character X, after the latter was killed by a Syndicate assassin. The character has received mixed criticism, being compared unfavorably to similar characters from the series. Conceptual history The X-Files creator Chris Carter felt it would be "more interesting for Mulder's next contact to be a woman", noting that he "wanted there to be some suspicion about whether Mulder would become involved with her romantically. X, the character who had previously filled Covarrubias' role as an informant in the series, had originally been cast as a female character. However Natalija Nogulich, the actress cast in that role, was replaced by Steven Williams after shooting her first scene. When auditioning for the role of Marita Covarrubias, Laurie Holden was not allowed access to an episode script, instead simply being told that her character worked for the United Nations and had an air of "intelligent seriousness". The actress had never seen the series before she auditioned for the part, and was required to audition using only three pages of scripted material from what would be her debut episode. Holden was required to learn Russian for the episode "Patient X", and commented that roughly fifteen seconds of screen-time took hours to rehearse. The voice coach responsible for instructing Holden and Nicholas Lea in their Russian dialogue tested their proficiency by asking them to speak to Russian-speaking friends of his over the telephone. Holden felt that the two-part episode "Two Fathers" and "One Son" offered her "cold, emotionless, private" character a chance to come across as "vulnerable, exposed and raw". Character arc Marita Covarrubias is introduced as an informant to Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) after the death of his former source, X (Steven Williams). X scrawls the letters "SRSG" in his own blood as he dies, leading Mulder to the Special Representative