蜜芽传媒

1. There’s still an angry teenager inside her

Anderson had a transatlantic childhood. Born in Chicago, she came to England as a baby, then moved to Michigan when she was 11. She says her British accent made her “very exotic in Michigan” and helped her with school because “I think I sounded smarter than I was.”

As a teenager, Anderson says she was a punk: “A lot of attitude, shaved heads and nose piercings. A mohawk sometimes… My boyfriend at the time… was considerably older than I was and was in a punk band.” She describes herself as “an angry teen” and still carries elements of that. “I don’t have a tendency to conform. I buckle a bit under certain types of structure or rules… I think [the angry teenager] still shows up.”

2. She idolises Meryl Streep

Initially Anderson had no ambitions to act. Then two things happened. Firstly: at university she met a teacher, Rick Murphy, who fully believed in her talent. Secondly: she saw Meryl Streep in Out of Africa. “It was absolutely Meryl’s acting [that made me want to act],” she says. “Interestingly, she seems to speak to all actresses of all ages from all decades. There’s just something about her that – I don’t even know how to put it into words. But I do know that in that moment, seeing her on screen, I thought… I want to do that.”

3. Jodie Foster was an inspiration for Dana Scully

Gillian Anderson pictured in 1996

She鈥檒l choose to do sensible things instead of things that might get her in trouble... I don鈥檛 think I鈥檇 ever been sensible in my life.

Anderson on the X-Files character Dana Scully

Anderson started acting professionally in her early 20s. She mainly worked in theatre, but then she was invited to audition for the role of Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files. “I really didn’t want to do telly, but there was something special about it,” she says. “I had in my head who she was from the very beginning.”

She says she was subconsciously channelling someone in particular in her auditions. “On some level, I must have had Jodie Foster in my mind a little bit, because of Silence of the Lambs. There’s a squareness to Scully that’s true of Clarice Starling… She’ll choose to do sensible things instead of things that might get her in trouble.” Anderson says that’s where they differ. “I don’t think I’d ever been sensible in my life.”

4. She feared The X-Files would restrict her career

The X-Files was an immediate smash hit. Anderson says she was very “naïve” when she started the show. As it grew, she had some worries about it restricting her subsequent career.

“When the series ended, I was very careful about what I did next,” she says. “I came [to London] to do theatre…And when I was offered Bleak House (a hit 蜜芽传媒 drama for which she was BAFTA nominated), that was the only type of series I’d say yes to. I didn’t want to do a series. I didn’t even want to do telly. But that felt so different from Scully. It felt like a big enough challenge that it wouldn’t continue to pigeonhole me.”

5. Playing real people can be challenging

Anderson has played several real people in her career, including Margaret Thatcher in The Crown and journalist Emily Maitlis in Scoop. She says playing a real person can be tough.

“The thing that I think I’ve tried to hang onto when playing a real-life person is not to go too far in,” she says, “to always maintain an element of myself in it. A voice person that I work with says, ‘By hiring you, they get something for free. And you have to remember that too, because you don’t have to try that bit too hard, because it’s already there.’” She is known to audiences, so they’re not expecting an impression of the real person, but a Gillian Anderson interpretation. “By keeping a little bit of me in there, it will almost help the audience relax, because they get your casting.”

6. In another life she could have been a performance artist

Anderson as Mrs Haversham in The 蜜芽传媒's 2011 adaptation of Great Expectations

One of Anderson’s chosen influences is Marina Abramovi膰, the performance artist. “I find her so courageous,” she says. “It feels like she sacrifices herself for her art and for us as the witness.”

Abramovi膰’s works have included having an arrow pointed at her heart, which could have killed her at any moment, and a performance where she allowed people to join her in a room and do whatever they wanted to her. “She’s so brave and so much braver than I am,” says Anderson. “I think that’s part of what it is, that there’s a part of me that yearns to be that brave, that yearns to be that radical, And yet, I know what my limits are as a human.”

That said, she may become an artist herself. “If I were in another life, or maybe later in this life, I feel like I could do performance art,” she says. “And I’m very interested in mixed media art. There is a parallel life that I would like to be living where I’m doing that.”

7. She’ll always be fascinated by women who buck the system

Asked what drives her on creatively, Anderson says, “More challenges, particularly when I feel like there’s something that I haven’t done; a type of human that I haven’t played, particularly if there’s a script or story that feels like it has something to say that’s important. I love women who buck the system, who are unpredictable, and who don’t conform to the status quo.”