'Time to Talk with...' Gillian Anderson
from X Files Latest News by tiffany_devol@xfilesnews.com (Adam Chamberlain - Guest Writer)
“Time to Talk with…” Gillian Anderson: Rose Theatre, 17th October 2011
Gillian Anderson stepped onto the stage of the Rose Theatre in the London suburb of Kingston last night for what proved to be an intimate, insightful and entertaining evening. The event comprised an interview conducted by English theatre directorStephen Unwin, followed by a Q&A session with the audience. I was afforded the privilege of a front row seat, and am more than pleased to be able to share some highlights here for X-Files News.
Unwin proved to be well rehearsed for the interview in part—notably regarding Anderson’s stage career—whilst a little uninformed in other areas, but the conversation was nonetheless fluid and entertaining throughout. Gillian first discussed her induction into acting, revealing that she had all but given up on any dreams of so doing for four years after being passed over in an audition for a production of Alice in Wonderland at a community theatre in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the age of twelve. She talked too of lengthy spells of waitressing both before and after her early success in an off-Broadway production of Absent Friends (1990-91) before once being offered three roles in a single day.
Inevitably, though, and with Gillian quipping, “Oh, so that’s what this is all about,” talk turned to The X-Files. She spoke of the long road to winning the role of Dana Scully, recalling that she remembers where she was and what pajamas she was wearing when she first read the script for the pilot, plus borrowing a suit on one of many call backs during the audition process on the advice of Chris Carter! She talked too about retaining her focus on the role throughout the series’ nine-year run by focusing on the work that was right in front of her at any given time, and cited “Bad Blood” as her favorite episode. This had been in response to a question from a member of the audience, but as an aside she revealed that she had been giving press interviews for the UK release ofJohnny English Reborn all day and had been surprised to be asked about doing comedy for the first time givenThe X-Files’ frequent forays into such material, exclaiming quite rightly that “we were extraordinarily funny!”
The interview also included significant talk of the potential future for the franchise, with Gillian re-asserting her strong wish to reprise the role of Scully for a third movie and going on to stress a sense of urgency to that desire. Specifically she suggested that it was “clear what [the movie] needs to be, but making it happen is difficult” and that whilst a December 2012 release date was the obvious one suggested by the series’ mythology, in order to meet such a date filming would ideally start as soon as January. In terms of the potential project’s current status, she said that she had “been told there is something in the works,” but added that she did not know “how true that is or what it means” and that she was not sure whether or not a script had been written.
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