Gillian Anderson joins WIRED to answer her most searched questions from Google. Why did she lie about her age to be casted for The X Files? How did she get honorary British citizenship? How would she describe her style on Netflix's Sex Education? The actor answers all these questions and more!Director: Justin WolfsonDirector of Photography: Jack BelisleEditor: Louville MooreTalent: Gillian AndersonLine Producer: Joseph BuscemiAssociate Producer: Brandon WhiteProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteProduction and Equipment Manager: Kevin BalashTalent Booker: Jenna Caldwell; Meredith JudkinsCamera Operator: Christopher EustacheSound Mixer: Mike GugginoProduction Assistant: Sonia ButtSet Designer: Jeremy Derbyshire-MylesPost Production Supervisor: Christian OlguinPost Production Coordinator: Ian BryantSupervising Editor: Doug LarsenAssistant Editor: Justin Symonds
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00:00Hi, I'm Gillian Anderson, and this is the Wired Autocomplete interview.
00:07That's pretty cool.
00:14What age was Gillian Anderson in The X-Files?
00:17Well, when I was first cast, I was 24 years old.
00:21I lied.
00:22I told them I was 27 because I didn't think they would hire me if I was 24.
00:27Not least because the character that I played, Dana Scully, was already a doctor and an FBI agent.
00:34Yeah, you can't be those things when you're 24.
00:37What is Gillian Anderson working on now?
00:40I'm doing a Netflix Western called Abandons, written by Kurt Sutter.
00:44I'm going to be riding a horse and shooting a pistol, and that's all that matters.
00:49What does my tattoo say?
00:51Which one?
00:52This is a tattoo, which is in Sanskrit, and it's one of the eight limbs of yoga,
00:59which is about right mind and right action.
01:02What did Gillian Anderson wear to the Golden Globes?
01:06I wore a dress covered in vaginas.
01:09Gabriella Hurst, who is a designer and a friend of mine, made the dress,
01:14and it was handcrafted by many very talented women.
01:18And I think each panel had—oh, I'm forgetting now.
01:22Each—there were a lot of vaginas.
01:25That's basically all I have to say.
01:27A lot of vaginas.
01:29Gillian Anderson.
01:30Books.
01:31I have a book coming out in September called Want that Bloomsbury is putting out,
01:36and it is a collection of women's sexual fantasies.
01:41There was a book in the 70s called My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday,
01:44and she put a call out to women asking them to submit their fantasies anonymously.
01:52I did the same thing last year,
01:53and a lot of women wrote in about 800 completed letters,
02:00and we have chosen 174 of them for the book.
02:05Gillian Anderson characters.
02:07Voice of God.
02:08What does this mean?
02:09What's one character that you had wrestled with the most?
02:13Blanche Dubois from Streetcar Named Desire in London and New York,
02:18and she goes mad by the end of the play.
02:20And going mad eight times a week for two, three months at a time can take it out of a girl,
02:27but I loved it.
02:28She still lives inside me somewhere.
02:31Gillian Anderson.
02:32Princess Mononoke is an animation film by Miyazaki,
02:36who is a Japanese animator,
02:38and he is a legend.
02:40And I have always been a fan of his films,
02:44and particularly my daughter,
02:46who's 29,
02:48that grew up on his films.
02:50And at one point,
02:52they asked me if I would play Moro,
02:56a goddess who is in the shape of a wolf.
02:59And so I do the voiceover for the English version of Princess Mononoke.
03:03Fun fact.
03:04The original voice was quite deep,
03:07and so while I was doing it,
03:09I was trying to get my voice to be that deep for the she-wolf,
03:15and never quite got there.
03:17Gillian Anderson knows how to make a fashion statement.
03:21I think what's being referred to is the thong for the Vanity Fair party, maybe?
03:28There was a jersey dress that I was going to wear.
03:32It was very low-cut in the back,
03:34and so I couldn't wear underwear with it.
03:36But then my pubic hair stuck out in the front.
03:40At that time, I didn't really want to shave it all off,
03:44and so I put on my G-string,
03:48and went to the Vanity Fair party with the low-cut dress,
03:52with the G-string showing,
03:53and it got some attention.
03:55But, you know, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
04:00Gillian Anderson.
04:02Scoop!
04:03It's a Netflix film where I play Emily Maitlis,
04:05who interviewed Prince Andrew
04:07in the infamous Emily Maitlis and Prince Andrew interview.
04:11I said yes to this role because I like a challenge,
04:15and she's a pretty cool character,
04:17and the script was really, really, really, really good.
04:20Gillian Anderson. OBE.
04:23I have one of these.
04:24Order of the British Empire.
04:27When you're not a British citizen, you get an honorary one.
04:31Therefore, the queen or one of the other royals
04:34doesn't actually present it to you
04:35like they do if you're actually British.
04:37It's a medal and a title,
04:38and it's an honor is what it is.
04:41Where does Gillian Anderson live?
04:44I live in London, England.
04:46I have lived there for 22 years.
04:49I grew up there.
04:50I was not born there.
04:52I was born in Chicago.
04:53London has a lot of green spaces.
04:57You wouldn't guess that
04:59from such a massive metropolitan city,
05:02but it is incredibly green.
05:03There are a lot of garden squares
05:05and a lot of trees and very cool architecture,
05:09and I love it.
05:10It's my favorite city.
05:12Gillian Anderson's sex education style.
05:15In sex education, I played a character called Jean Milburn
05:18who was a sex therapist,
05:21and she had a very cool sense of style,
05:23and one of those things that she wore
05:25on a regular basis were jumpsuits.
05:27She can rock a jumpsuit.
05:28I can't rock a jumpsuit,
05:31but Jean Milburn can rock a jumpsuit.
05:34Who is Gillian Anderson in the crown?
05:37Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher,
05:39who was a prime minister for about 10 years
05:43in the United Kingdom.
05:44Margaret Thatcher is actually quite fascinating.
05:47She comes from a little town up north
05:50in the UK called Grantham,
05:51and her dad was an alderman,
05:53and they had a shop,
05:54and they lived above the shop,
05:55and they were very religious.
05:57They were Methodists,
05:58and she could have probably run the country
06:02when she was about seven years old, I think,
06:04based on the way her brain worked,
06:07how her thinking was already,
06:09and having already observed
06:11and experienced her father making speeches as an alderman.
06:14All of those facts of her childhood
06:17added entirely to the person that she then became.
06:24Who is Gillian Anderson in American Gods?
06:27Well, I'm a few people.
06:28The goddess Media,
06:30and I show up as Marilyn Monroe
06:34and David Bowie,
06:36and Lucille Ball,
06:39and one other.
06:42Judy Garland, that's right.
06:44I show up as those four people.
06:47That was a lot of fun.
06:48Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny.
06:51I don't know, who's David Duchovny?
06:54Oh, yeah.
06:55No, I'm joking.
06:56Of course I know who David is.
06:57David Duchovny played Fox Mulder.
06:59I played Dana Scully,
07:00a series called The X-Files for about 6,000 years.
07:03One of the coolest guys on television for a long time.
07:07People have always been interested
07:09in David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson getting together
07:13personally, privately, intimately,
07:15as they were interested in Mulder and Scully
07:18getting together intimately,
07:20and not gonna happen.
07:22When did Gillian Anderson leave The X-Files?
07:27I think it was in 2002,
07:30and why do I remember that date?
07:32Because, as I said, I've been doing it for 6,000 years.
07:35Is Gillian Anderson a redhead?
07:38I am not a redhead.
07:40Scully was a redhead.
07:42Does Gillian Anderson have children?
07:44I do, I have three children, 15, 17, and 29,
07:47and they are the loves of my life.
07:50Gillian Anderson awards.
07:52I guess recently winning for Thatcher and the Crown,
07:55I think many years ago I won awards for The X-Files,
07:59and I think I was so young and overwhelmed,
08:04and recently when I won for the Crown,
08:09after being in the industry,
08:11and for so many decades in between,
08:14it made it that much more of an honor and meaningful,
08:19and so I was incredibly grateful and happy,
08:22and I smiled, and God was good, and life was good.
08:25Thank you very much for having me.
08:27That's me, over and out.