Get the latest gossip

‘I get into trouble’: Gillian Anderson on being brave, her resting face and much anticipated book of sexual fantasies

Her uncanny portrayals of famous women have brought her legions of fans. Now, as she prepares to play Emily Maitlis in the pivotal Prince Andrew interview, the actor talks to Eva Wiseman about acting, soft drinks and ‘side hustles’

After growing up in London and moving to Michigan at 11, she found community in the punk scene as a teenager, before lurching into wild fame in her 20s as Agent Scully in The X-Files, later being cast as Wallis Simpson, Eleanor Roosevelt and, memorably, Margaret Thatcher. “Her relentless, laser-like focus, and uncanny vocal and physical resemblance to the woman I’d been studying alongside Andrew all this time made it suddenly quite easy to squirm.” He’s worked with Gillian before: “I’ve always been a fan of hers and the palpable sense of will that she brings to a character. Specifically, she remembered trying to cry during an emotional scene in her 2000 film The House of Mirth, but they were shooting in a flight path, “and there was a fucking bumblebee in our faces!” There are so many “human scenarios” like this, Anderson says, when things don’t go to plan on a job, and in those moments “all the facts fly out of my head.

Get the Android app