From Margaret Thatcher to Eleanor Roosevelt, Gillian Anderson has played a number of trailblazing women – all of them rebels, just like her.
From her breakout role as FBI special agent Dana Scully in The X-Files to her recent part as sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix hit show Sex Education, Gillian doesn’t do shy and retiring.
But the actress reckons she’s ready for a change now – and wants to play someone more unhinged.
”Women interest me,” says Gillian, of the real-life characters she plays. “I enjoy it. But the pressure and expectation is greater.
“I might take a break for a while and play some psychopaths.”
Gillian’s TV, film and stage career has so far spanned four decades but she says her success has been down to taking risks – which she has been doing ever since she was a child.
“I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in my lane, figuratively and literally,” the 53-year-old admits.
“I remember being in a therapy session with my mum, working through some stuff.
“The therapist asked, ‘Why did you let this happen? My mum said, ‘No one is ever telling Gillian what she could and couldn’t do. She’s going to do what she wants’. That was true then and now.”
Born in Chicago, Gillian moved between the US and London thanks to her parents’ work.
She went through a rebellious stage as a teen, taking drugs and dating a much older boyfriend before she started therapy at 14.
In the early 90s she moved to LA and tried to break into the showbiz industry.
At 24, she was sent the script for The X-Files, which went on to become a cult classic.
She decided to audition for the show because, “for the first time in a long time, the script involved a strong, independent, intelligent woman as a lead character”.
It was The X-Files that really set Gillian on her path to acting greatness and gained her a huge following.
After playing Agent Scully from 1993 to 2002, she became a feminist icon, showing fans she could do everything her male partner, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) could do.
It sparked ‘The Scully Effect’, which inspired a wave of young women to pursue careers in science, medicine and the police.
Mum-of-three Gillian, who now lives in London, said: “If I’d listened to other people I wouldn’t have ended up in the UK, wouldn’t have ended up doing theatre, The X-Files… sometimes you can succeed if you don’t toe the party line.”
After The X-Files, Gillian starred in BBC ’s Bleak House and film, The Last King of Scotland with James McAvoy.
Then, in 2016, she landed the female lead role of detective Stella Gibson in BBC drama The Fall alongside Jamie Dornan.
It was the same year she starred in the West End’s A Streetcar Named Desire.
“It felt like something changed in 2016,” Gillian recalled in podcast, The Envelope.
“In that year I was getting to play Blanche in Streetcar and in The Fall.
“I remember thinking, ‘If I die this year, I’ll be happy’. I get to play these amazing extraordinary women for different reasons.
One an absolute hot mess and the other supposedly under control. They were a real force for feminism.
“I thought, ‘If it all ends now, I’ve done what I came here to do’.
“Since then, I’ve been lucky with my gigs. I’m very lucky to have these opportunities.”
Gillian, who won an Emmy and Golden Globe for Scully and awards more recently for playing Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, is currently enjoying another purple patch in her telly career.
She’s back with a new series of comedy-drama The Great on Channel 4.
The show, which is loosely based on Catherine the Great, also stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult.
Gillian plays Catherine’s mother in The Great, and also recently appeared as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor in US series The First Lady, alongside Viola Davis and Michelle Pfeiffer.
But it was Sex Education which really captured fans’ imaginations and introduced a younger generation to Gillian’s talents.
Netflix has confirmed there will be a fourth series of the hit show, which stars Asa Butterfield and follows the sexual escapades of youngsters at Moordale Secondary School.
But Gillian – who reportedly split from The Crown writer Peter Morgan last year after four years together – admits she wasn’t convinced when she accepted the job.
“I didn’t quite get the show at first,” she confessed. “I didn’t get how a therapist, a well-respected professional, could be so morally ambiguous in her personal life.
"But once the audience embraced it, it was almost as if I saw it through their eyes. It’s been a delight.
"I wouldn’t be talking about it in this way if I hadn’t been proved wrong.
“I was worried it was too broad… the comedy was too on the nose. Then I suddenly realised I was not the demographic.
"It really has smashed through all demographics.
“I watch documentaries. So going from watching docs on the Iraq War to Sex Education… it’s a big leap. It took me a while.”
With another biopic in the offing, it looks like we could be seeing even more of Gillian, too.
“I have one other in development, but I think I might pause as I don’t want to be the go-to actress for biopics,” she said.
“What’s interesting is that because I feel there are certain things I haven’t done yet, that keeps me hungry and reaching for the ultimate goal.
“When that happens, I will be shocked…surprised. In the meantime, it feels like it’s just putting one front of the other and being grateful.”
