Gillian Anderson has built her career out of playing women who command space, whether it’s The X-Files’ skeptical scientist Dana Scully, Sex Education’s frank and fearless Jean Milburn, or her award-winning turn as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. In every role, she brings a quiet, measured strength: women who question, challenge the status quo and persist in the face of adversity.
That same conviction runs through her life off-screen. As L’Oréal Paris ambassador, Anderson embodies the brand’s longstanding message of self-worth and empowerment, but she approaches it in her own authentic way. When we speak on the evening before she walked in the brand’s annual Le Défilé show in Paris last month, she reflects on what confidence really means—and why, for her, it’s always rooted in action.
