The Interview
DANA SCULLY, the power-dressing strawberry
blonde half of The X-Files' paranormal investigating FBI team, is the
smartest woman on TV. She's a trained medical doctor, a dab hand with
an autopsy scalpel and the finest student in her FBI class. And she's
sexy too, in a sultry and appealingly natural way.
She's the calming influence on The
X-Files, reacting in a motherly fashion to Mulder's excitable and
outlandish boy scout theories about man-eating worm beasts - raising
just an eyebrow to register her utter disbelief. And although she has
an infuriating habit of looking the wrong way whenever aliens land or
ghosts appear, she's always prepared to blow way perps to save
Mulder's arse when he gets in too deep. So far she's been chased by
pre -historic bugs and flesh-eating cavemen? Experimented on by
sinister government forces, been terrorised, shot at and kidnapped by
aliens. And yet despite, everything, she manages to keep a cool head
offering a plausible solution when the implausible seems the only
answer. And did you know that she's laughed only once, and that was
in the pilot episode more than two years ago? So perhaps because see
does it so infrequently one of her smiles is worth a million of
anyone else's.
Trying to think of an equivalent anywhere
on TV is near on impossible: there are few enough heavyweight roles
for women, even less that don't require some kind of contractual
cleavage shots in every episode. Scully is renowned for her wits, not
her tits. Even in such contemporary top-rated shows, such as ER and
Friends, the females are seen before they're heard. If real-life
nurses looked like the ones in ER, no one would get saved male
doctors would just stand around all day gawping at them; and isn't it
just fantastic that three leggy, sexy drop-dead stunners: (a blonde,
a brunette and a dark-haired one) would end up sharing an apartment
in Friends? And what of the almost obligatory 'caught in the shower'
and 'waking up in the middle of the night to answer the door' scenes
that most shows have to deal with? Nobody knows if Scully sleeps with
her gun and we'll probably never see. But there are plenty of guys
who'd like the chance to find out.
The X-files is unique in many ways, not
least because it's the first TV show in living memory where the
sexual tension between the leads is distinctly to go unconsummated.
The tide of TV history is against them; tradition demands that Mulder
and Scully get the shags in. But lets hope not: remember the tragic
way that Moonlighting fell apart once David and Maddie got it
together between the sheets, or how Cheers hit the skids once Sam and
Diane did the dirty? By comparison, the relationship between Mulder
and Scully remains simmering in its underpants.
Gillian Anderson's most ardent supporters,
the Internet-based Gillian Anderson Testosterone Brigade call her "a
role model for women and an object of complete, unabated affection
for men". Furthermore their motto runs "Gillian Anderson Is
Intellectually Drop Dead Gorgeous". And they're not wrong.
Yet we all know of Anderson in her
portrayal of Scully. She has risen seemingly without trace to star in
the coolest cult hit on TV and yet there are no salacious tabloid
rumours of a pre-X-Files career as a Hollywood stripper, and no lurid
ex-lover's tales of coke-fuelled orgies to spice up the gossip
columns. The Gillian Anderson Testosterone Brigade would have us
believe that Anderson and Scully are one and the some person. Let's
find out, shall we...
Some facts about Gillian Anderson. She can
juggle, "but not very well". She won a World Theatre Award for her
role in Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends. The song that means the most
to her right know is Hand in my Pocket by Alanis Morissette. The
first boy she kissed was called Adam and her favourite actors are
Robert De Niro, Jessica Lange, Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman. She's
27, married to a man called Klotz, has a daughter (Piper, 18 months
old), her hair colour is naturally ash-blonde and she wears black
jeans, white T-shirts and scuffed tan cowboy boots on her days off.
And her favourite expletive is 'fuck me'.
"Fuck me," she says, rolling the words
around. "It's really satisfying saying it." She says it again,
louder: "Fuck me" Pauses, she smiles, and once more for luck: "FUCK
ME! It's my favourite swear word," she laughs. "I say it a lot,
really quickly like, 'fuckme!' Okay, what's your favourite swear
word?"
Fuck is always a winner.
"Do you ever call anyone a wanker?"
All the time.
"What about bollocks?"
Yeah bollocks. Bollocks.
"Hahhahaha! I was very into swearing as a
child. I remember asking my mom what fuck meant, what fucking was,
and I can't remember on my life what her response was. I remember
hearing it in the playground when I was eight, off a kid who was 12.
He fancied me and I fancied him but I was scared to death because his
affection was like grown-up affection - he may have even done the
fuck word. And I had no idea what it meant."
For nine months of the year, North Shore
Studios in Vancouver (chosen for reasons of economy) is home to The
X-Files' cast and crew. Set off the main drag, the studio lot is made
up of a handful of gargantuan, grey and white sound stages the size
of aircraft hangers. Today it's minus 10 and the air is best
described as bracing. A gunmetetal grey) trailer home, parked just to
the left of the main X-Files set, is Gillian Anderson's sparsely
furnished, functional home-from-home. Inside, Cleo, a large black,
slavering hound of undetermined breed is throwing toys from one end
of the trailer. And she's farting. "Oh Cleo!" says Gillian. And then
to me, "It's the food we're giving her." Through the glass panelled
door we can see extras garbed as SWAT team members milling around,
their breath turning into instant mist. Gillian plonks herself down
on the sofa, dressed in her drab regulation FBI suit, cross legged,
munching on a banana.
Face to face the first thing you notice
about Gillian Anderson is that she's smaller and prettier than she
photographs - she's classy looking and beautiful in a Fifties
movie-star kind of way. She stands maybe five foot three and is
spectrally thin. It's no secret that as an FBI agent in The X-Files
her sexuality is purposefully downplayed, her curvy figure hidden in
drab suits and big coats. For someone whose star is rapidly on the
ascent, she's endearingly bullshit free, displaying not an ounce of
Hollywood head-swelling or big-star hauteur. She's fun, approachable
and easy to warm to. She seems genuinely flattered when I ask her
what it feels like to be a fantasy woman for men around the world.
"The first time I heard it, I was
surprised," she admits, learning over and dumping her banana skin in
the bin behind me. "Because I'm not sure how people get the sex
symbol thing from Scully. But somebody can be very sexy and not be
attractive to look at. There's an aura they have."
Do you like the way you look?
"I'm comfortable with my looks," she
muses. "I've had to live with them for 27 years. I've been called 'an
unconventional beauty' which is a strange sign of compliment, but I
know that I'm not a marketable beauty in TV terms. I'm attractive in
a different kind of way."
You've become the Anti-Pammy.
"I guess so," she laughs, "I've been
called 'thinking man's crumpet', which is hysterical. But it's better
than being called a bimbo like Pamela Anderson who is only famous for
her body if it is her body. I'd prefer to be known for something a
little more worthwhile."
When Gillian originally auditioned for the
role of Scully she had no idea what to expect and turned up at the
producer's office looking scruffy. Her hair half way down her back.
It was only later that she discovered they were originally looking
for a 'leggy, blonde, model type" and had to go out on a limb to
persuade the studio to give her the role. When she married production
designer Clyde Klotz and got pregnant six months into the first
series, the producers thought of bringing in a new female lead, but
decided the Mulder/Scully chemistry was too good to through away.
Hence the unflattering big coats of the last series.
There's a knock at the trailer door. A
production assistant telling her she's needed back on set. "Come on,"
she says grabbing her overcoat. "Let's see what they want."
It's just after lunch and we're playing
make-believe (it's interesting to note that she took her place in the
food queue outside the catering van behind extras, technicians and
assistants without fuss). The sun warms our backs as we sit on a
picnic bench outside her trailer. Ostensibly we should he talking
about the incredible burgeoning success of The X-Files, with series
three due to start its 24 week run on Sky One on March 5 [1996] but
getting her to talk about the show isn't proving easy. She eats,
drinks, sleeps, breathes X-Files. Up to 16 hours a day five days a
week. So we're playing make believe: pretending for the sake of
conversation that we're in a bar. "Our eyes meet," I say. "I smile.
You smile back. It's looking good. What happens next?"
"I probably wouldn't do anything," she
says. "I might make eye contact with somebody but I would expect the
other person to make all the moves."
"And if I were to chat you up?"
"Do it without me knowing you were doing
it."
"And how should I treat you?"
"Be completely selfless. Be
un-egotistical, un-egocentric and also not like 'on me' all the time,
if you know what I mean? And just let the conversation go where it
leads to go. And, umm, ignore me, ha ha! No, don't ignore me, but be
your own person and not come up to the bar just because I'm sitting
there."
If I said you had a beautiful body would
you hold it against me?
"That's certainly not the way - and if you
tried that I'd probably throw a drink over you."
What about bedroom tactics - do you like
being tossed around or does the Scully in you take over?
"Both. Initially I like the battle play. I
like switching back and forth between being in control and being
submissive. It's fun that way, that kind of role-playing, because you
never know what to expect. It's more exciting."
Are you adventurous?
"Uh huh."
And as my imagination goes into overdrive
picturing exactly what 'adventurous' could possibly mean, I decide I
need clarification. I mean, Gillian. do you, ur, "break the law' as
Paula Yates so memorably put it recently?
"Yes," she says without a moment's
hesitation. And then she bursts into fits of laughter: "Ha ha! Yeah.
Umm, how we did we get to this conversation, ha ha?"
On set. Shooting is in progress. The
Pusher, as this episode is called, concerns a brain cancer patient
who discovers his tumour has unlocked the latent areas of his mind
lending him heightened extra-sensory powers. In today's big scene, he
forces Mulder and Scully to play Russian roulette. The director
motions for action and Scully explodes. "You bastard! Damn you! Damn
you" she screams, diving out of the way of a gun shot. The scene
calls for Gillian to run full pelt at a wall, wearing a bullet proof
vest. She is called upon to do it time and time again as camera
angles and lighting are adjusted. She does it would complaint.
Filming the X-Files is no picnic; the day's are long and conditions
are on the Spartan side. Consequently there is no room for inflated
Hollywood egos, tantrums, mollycoddling or star hand holding.
Everybody involved with The X-Files loves the Show. Still, it doesn't
look that much like fun.
"It can he," she says unconvincingly,
after a suitable pause, back at the trailer. It's getting late and
the strain is starting to tell. We find out later that shooting
continues till after 2.30amn. "It can be fun," she says, "but not
always . It's pretty gruelling most of the time, actually" Being
cocooned away in Vancouver for most of the year means that the stars
of The X-Files live in a bubble and have little idea of the show's
popularity. When tall returns to Gillian's 'real life' she raises an
eyebrow." What life?"
From Gillian Anderson's Personal File.
Born: Chicago, 1968. Father: Edward. Mother: Rosemary. Raised in
Puerto Rico, England (from two till 11) and the American Midwest.
Went to school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Schoolmates though she had
a funny accent and bullied her. An only child until she was 13, she
remembers being "withdrawn" and "unpopular" at school. I was always
off in my own little world or being sent to the principal's office
for talking back." Her parents had two further children in quick
succession (a boy and a girl) which, she says. only served to further
her sense of alienation. She shaved her head, got a three-foot purple
mohican, a nose ring and wore $2 dresses. She hints darkly at times
of loneliness and despair, of identifying with Jane Horrock's
character in Life is Sweet, and mentions "hurting myself in different
ways."
When she was 13 she lost her virginity to
"a punk guy who has since become a Neo-Nazi. It was awkward, stupid,
unadulterated crap."
I think you'll find that most people's
first time are less than mind-blowing.
"Yeah, I can't imagine saying at 13 that
it was incredibly romantic and that the best lay I've ever had was at
13. No. that's not the case."
When she was 14, she went the whole hog
and shacked up with a penniless punk muso, ten years her senior. They
used to sleep rough "in warehouses with no heating and on friends'
apartment floors," she remembers. "I guess I felt comfortable in that
relationship because I felt dirty and grungy and angry. I used to not
like myself," she says matter of factly. "I spent time overweight,
underweight, wearing black, hiding. But in the past couple of years
I've started to open up. What's scary is that I'm doing it in front
of millions of people."
Where you promiscuous as a teenager?
"I was, yes. During college I was some
what promiscuous. Not in a bad way. But it wasn't fun. I like the
real stuff, I love the romance of the first courting period, all that
kind of stuff appeals to me."
So why did you do it?
"I think I felt that if somebody liked me,
then I was supposed to. I didn't realise I had a choice in the
matter. If they liked me, even if they were a complete asshole, I
thought that I had to sleep with them! It was anothe � #
Ãñ�L�ðWB v 2 öæÇ' v�V
$î�.N�¬��äm .̤ When she was 13 she lost
her virginity to "a punk guy who has since become a Neo-Nazi. It was
awkward, stupid, unadulterated crap."
I think you'll find that most people's
first time are less than mind-blowing.
"Yeah, I can't imagine saying at 13 that
it was incredibly romantic and that the best lay I've ever had was at
13. No. that's not the case."
When she was 14, she went the whole hd to
realise that, 'Hey, I can enjoy this.' Yeah..."
The week before her 21st birthday she gave
up drinking.
"I loved alcohol," she says. "I actually
liked alcohol a bit too much. I gave up because it was becoming... it
was just getting too much," she falters. "I just realised that all I
wanted to do was drink."
Were you a good drunk or a bad drunk?
"I was very introverted. It would've been
fine after the first three drinks if everybody just left. But also it
was a sexual stimulant for me. It made me feel much stronger and more
confident and sexier and I relied on that for a while."
How much were you drinking?
"Too much. But that's another story and I
don't want to talk about it."
Her road-to-Damascus moment came at
college -when she made a startling discovery. She could act. "My
outlook changed, my grades went up and I was voted 'most improved
student'," she recalls. Later graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts
degree from Chicago's DuPaul University, she moved to New York and
"did theatre". After moving to LA on the urging of a friend, she
spent a year auditioning, doing the odd bit-part in a soap or TV add
and generally getting nowhere fast. She was about, to jack it all in
and move back east when she heard about The X-Files casting call. She
got the part the day her last dole cheque arrived.
Today she says she feels comfortable with
herself and generally considers herself a "positive person. I have to
be. I still sometimes have silent freakouts," she says. "But I'm not
as hard on myself as I used to be."
And then the intercom crackles into life,
summoning her back on set to play Russian roulette again. She tells
me that the TV standards people are having trouble with the scene
they're filming. Apparently it's against TV guidelines to point a gun
at someone if only one round is chambered. Six bullets is fine, mind
you, but one is a no-no. "This is very un-Scully." It's two days
later in a bright, secluded Hollywood photo studio. Gillian has flown
down to audition for a major film role and to be shot for the FHM
cover. Right now is wearing little more than an indecent low-cut
black lace number, she looks every inch the movie star she's about to
become in real life. She wanders past, muttering something about
having "a big butt". Nothing, let me assure you could be further from
the truth. She looks trim and in shape. Her make up is natural and
low key, her hair tousled, free of the straight-jacket Scully bob.
She looks fantastic.
She says she wants to do a film during the
early summer hiatus from shooting The X-Files. A role in an action
adventure with Morgan Freeman is mooted, and also, bizarrely, someone
has asked her to appear in an unlikely flick about, ahem, a giant
snake. For her part Gillian would be happy playing a bit-part in a
big movie - just to test the water. She's yet to make the break from
small-screen TV success to big-screen movie stardom, and is nervous
about her chances. But it, won't be to long now. Stardom beckons. The
X-Files is only scheduled to run for another couple of series. "I
just hope it's allowed to end when it needs to, and it's not pushed
beyond its expectations," she says while the make up and styling
people fuss around her. "I'd be happy for it to go on for as long as
it needs to go. But I'm sure the sixth and seventh years would be
gruelling - if it ever goes on that long."
Someone jokingly mentions that the first
shot we should do is Gillian handcuffed to a bed. "Great," she says
to gobsmacked looks all around, "where do we start?" She picks out
some classy black lingerie that she likes, jokes that her Caesarean
section scar is "too low down for you guys to see today" and climbs
the stairs into the studio room. The bed setup is first. She lounges
on the covers, "like I just roll out of bed," she says, poking fun at
the fact that it's taken two hours to create this "totally natural"
effect. She want her hair up for the next shots, and while it's
teased into shape, takes a peek at an Internet page showing her high
school pictures. "Some of this stuff is so embarrassing," she moans
as an ex-boyfriend's poetry comes up next to picture of her at 16.
For someone who spends most of her time in
straight-laced suits and heavy overcoats in Vancouver rain, the
opportunity to play vixen in the LA sunshine is a chance not to be
missed.
Having seen the work-in-progress
Polaroids, she's keen to, carry on, fitting in as many last minute
poses before being virtually dragged into a waiting limo. She grabs a
pair of handcuffs and asks if` anyone has a gun she can use. Somebody
nervously mentions that no one is going to believe this is Scully.
Gillian throws them a sideways glance. "Good. That's the point."
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