Gillian Anderson Bio
GILLIAN ANDERSON
Date of Birth: August 9, 1968
As the skeptical Scully of TV's (and the big screen's) The X Files, Gillian Anderson is the pin-up girl of gazillions of X-philes worldwide.
Surprisingly, the sedate, doe-eyed Scully was the local riot girl during her high school years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Anderson's English accent—the result of spending most of her childhood in London—was ridiculed in small-town America. She rebelled by becoming a punk wannabe, sometimes singing in her boyfriend's band wearing bandages— and nothing else. "I got into a heavy punk scene," she says. "I had a nose ring and my hair was purple and black and blue. I dressed in black. I was very confused, and a loner."
Anderson soon found herself on another stage, performing in community theater. She took her newfound interest to the Goodman Theatre School of Drama at Chicago's DePaul University. From there it was offto New York, where she worked off-Broadway (when not waiting tables) before moving to Los Angeles.
But being a TV snob, Anderson found auditioning for pilots beneath her. She was finally convinced to try out for a new sci-fi show, a little something called The X Files. The no-nonsense actress had just the quality creator Chris Carter was looking for, and Gillian Anderson became Special Agent Dana Scully.
Anderson's international fame reached absurd proportions—at the height of her fame, along with the countless Web sites devoted to her, there was a Barbie doll of Anderson's Agent Scully.
Since the series ended in 2002, she's preferred to devote her talent mostly to low-key, small budget films. In 2004 she married photojournalist Julian Ozanne on Lamu's Shella island, off Kenya's Indian Ocean coast. Anderson's 10-year-old daughter from her first marriage served as her bridesmaid. Unfortunately, the second marriage ended in divorce in 2007 after three years.
Filmography
I'll Follow You Down (2014)Room on the Broom (2014)
From Up On Poppy Hill (2013)
Sister (2012)
Johnny English Reborn (2011)
Moby Dick (2011)
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008)
The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
Boogie Woogie (2008)
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Straightheads (2006)
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006)
The Mighty Celt (2005)
The House of Mirth (2001)
Playing by Heart (1998)
The X Files (1998)
The Mighty (1998)
Chicago Cab (1998)
Princess Monoke (1997) (voice)
The Turning (1992)