Gillian Anderson is looking back on her rebellious teen years in which she made good on her reputation after her classmates voted her “Most Likely To Be Arrested.”
The X-Files legend, 58, admitted on Conan O’Brien’s podcast episode released Monday that she had been “doing a little crystal meth” when she was arrested as a teenager for breaking into her high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a prank in the middle of the night.
“Well, we were trying to glue the locks shut so that people couldn’t go in the next day,” the Emmy winner said. She added that her run-in with the law happened during her “punk” phase, which consisted of colored hair, a nose ring and a poor choice in shoe that led to her getting caught.
“I had pointy buckle boots on, and they had a very thin sole,” she explained. “So when the security guard was chasing me through downtown Grand Rapids, I stepped on a nail. That’s what slowed me down.”
She continued: “Were it not for the nail, I would have outsmarted him and I would not have been arrested.”
However, the Sex Education star said that the effects of the drug gave her the confidence to convince police officers to give her a lesser charge.
“Let’s just say I was doing a little crystal meth at the time and I was in a really good mood, and I managed to talk them out of breaking and entering and just into trespassing,” she said.
When O’Brien called the prank “aggressive,” Anderson responded, “Yeah... that was kind of me at the time.”
The actor said that after she got in trouble, “My boyfriend, who was with me at the time, who was considerably older than I was, went back to his apartment and smoked some more dope and just kept drinking the night away while I was in prison.”
O’Brien added, “With a nail through your foot, whacked out on crystal meth.”
After graduating from City High School in 1986, Anderson studied the arts at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. She then moved to New York City to continue her acting career, which started on the stage before her breakout role as Dana Scully in The X-Files from 1993 to 2002.
Anderson is currently promoting The Salt Path, which is set to be released in the U.S. next month after a controversial opening overseas, and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun’s slasher film which Anderson stars in alongside Hannah Einbinder.
