Gillian Anderson Steals The Show
Cool. Composed. Intimidating. In the new season of Netflix’s The Crown, Gillian Anderson delivers a pitch-perfect performance as Margaret Thatcher. Her frosty turn as the British prime minister is just the latest in a series of stand-out roles for the one-time star of The X-Files.
We loved her performance as DSI Stella Gibson in three seasons of the BBC crime drama The Fall – described by one critic as “steely and precise, priding herself on being in control” – and laughed out loud at her comic turn as sex therapist and boundary-busting mother, Jean Milburn, in another Netflix series, Sex Education (currently shooting season three).
On the surface, those two characters couldn’t be more different. Look more closely, however, and they share a number of traits. Both of them are confident, composed and high-intensity. They also prefer a certain degree of isolation – witness their shared penchant for emotionless relationships. (Jean has a hilarious morning-after “this is not a relationship” speech that she delivers to a string of one-night stands in the early episodes of Sex Education.)
No one does intelligence and control quite like Gillian Anderson. It’s why you can’t help rooting for her characters. You can see the emotion beneath those composed features – but also the steel core that lies beneath that. Even Kristin Scott Thomas, who also built a career on her ability to project icy self-control, doesn’t deliver quite the same degree of sangfroid.
Under pressure, you imagine a typical Kristin character would keep it together in public but would retire to bed weeping once she was alone. Gillian’s characters are tougher than that. They might wallow in a glass or two of red, but then they pick themselves up and carry on. No wonder The Crown’s creator, Peter Morgan – who is Gillian’s partner in real life – said she was his first choice to portray the Iron Lady.
That trademark cool was apparent all the way back in her first major role, The X-Files’ Dana Scully. Aged just 25, she was cast by series creator Chris Carter against the wishes of the network, which reportedly pushed for someone more conventionally sexy. Carter chose her, he says, because her audition had “a seriousness and intensity that I knew the Scully character had to have.”
Part of Gillian’s appeal is that although she has been famous for a quarter of century, we know relatively little about her. There is even some confusion about her nationality. In the UK, she does interviews with a crisp English accent; in the US, she speaks with an American drawl. (Born in the US, she spent much of her childhood in the UK, where she now lives.)
She says she learnt to guard her privacy when she gave birth to her first child during the height of X-Files fever. She now has three children – a daughter with first husband Clyde Klotz and two sons with former partner Mark Griffiths – and does not live with Morgan. “If we did, that would be the end of us,” she told the Sunday Times. “It works so well as it is – it feels so special when we do come together.” Off-screen as well as on, Gillian Anderson needs her space.
Words_ Ute Junker
Photo_ Sourced