Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the long-running and widely popular series The X-Files, ill-fated socialite Lily Bart in Terence Davies' film The House of Mirth, and Lady Dedlock in the successful BBC production of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Among other honours, Anderson has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth9 August 1968
CityChicago, IL
CountryUnited States of America
In England, it's much easier to flip between doing television and film. It doesn't ruin one's career the way it sometimes does in America. I had to take that on faith, but from the moment I started working on it, it was the best fun I'd had in a really long time.
I'm a massive fan of Sunshine. Oh my God, I love that film.
People always ask if I was really voted Most Bizarre Girl in high school. But that one's actually true. I was living in Michigan in a very conservative town and had a nose-ring and a shaved head and did kind of strange things.
I've got huge tubs full of stuff that I can sell on eBay. If there are people out there that are interested, I want them to come my way and buy my jackets and hats and scripts that are signed by everybody.
I've seen productions where it feels like the actors are just tired and want to go home. That is one of the challenges doing theater - especially a long production - how to keep it alive for yourself and the audience.
Every now and then we'd meet up and reminisce about the characters. At the beginning, shortly after we started shooting, someone sent me some clips put together on youtube. It was the first time I'd seen something like that. "The intimate moments of Mulder and Scully."
In retrospect, I think that I've been given quite a few scripts over the years that had dark elements to them but most of them took place in the countryside with a haunted house. I think I've probably had that script about six to 10 times over the past few years. Or it was something to do with the supernatural.
Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.
Directing was a transformative experience for me, one that I really enjoyed.
I always felt I wasn't completely American and I wasn't completely British: there was a feeling of having my feet in both places.
What happens in our lives is not really anybody's fault but our own... When I was in high school, I was in an atheist crowd, and it was the consensus that religion was a crutch.
When I finished the series, I wasn't going to do television again. I never wanted to do television to begin with, and I was so exhausted by the process that I was wary of being in front of the camera again.
There is a difference between being listened to and being heard.
I became an actor because it was the only thing I could do. I didn't have any friends, I didn't fit in. But when I started acting everything in my life shifted and I felt happy.