Background

Ethnicity: Gillian Anderson has English, German and Irish ancestry.

Gillian Anderson was born on August 9, 1968, in Chicago, Illinois, the United States, to Rosemary "Posie" Alyce (née Lane), and Homer Edward "Ed" Anderson III. Soon after her birth, the family relocated to Puerto Rico for 15 months and then moved to England. Gillian spent the next 9 years of her childhood growing up in London's North End - first in Stamford Hill and later in Crouch End - while her father Edward studied film production at the London School of Film Technique in Covent Garden for 2 years. Eventually, the family moved back to the United States and settled in Grand Rapids where her father ran a film post-production company and her mother worked as a computer analyst.

Education

As a child, Gillian showed a flair for drama but was more of a tomboy who harbored dreams of becoming a Marine Biologist rather than those of movie stardom. Gillian's love for acting began when she decided to audition for a community play while attending City High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Anderson thought about becoming a marine biologist, but community theatre participation whetted her appetite for acting. She was voted "Class Clown", "Most Bizzare Girl" and "Most Likely to be Arrested" by her classmates in high school. In fact, she was arrested on graduation night for trying to glue the locks shut at her high school.

After graduating from City High School in 1986, Gillian studied acting at the prestigious DePaul University's Goodman Theater and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. In the summer after her freshman year, Gillian was selected to attend a three-week workshop run by the National Theatre of Great Britain at Cornell in Ithaca, New York. Upon obtaining her degree, Gillian headed to New York at the age of 22 to pursue a career in acting.

Career

Gillian's first big break came when she landed a role in the off-Broadway play Absent Friends. She won a Theater World Award in 1991 for her performance in this production. She did one more play, The Philanthropist, at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven and a low budget film starring Tess Harper and Karen Allen called The Turning before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film.

After a few motion-picture and television appearances, Anderson got her big break when she auditioned for a part on The X-Files. At the insistence of the show’s creator, Chris Carter, she landed her first starring role, playing Dana Scully, a skeptical scientist and doctor working as an FBI special agent alongside Fox ("Spooky") Mulder (played by David Duchovny). Together the partners investigated paranormal events and government conspiracies. The storylines, as well as the chemistry between Anderson and Duchovny, made The X-Files one of the most popular shows on television in the 1990s, averaging 20 million viewers each week. In 1998 the motion picture The X-Files: Fight the Future took in more than $30 million in its first weekend. Although the television series ended in 2002, a second movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, was released in 2008.

In the 21st century, Anderson worked frequently in the United Kingdom, where she had spent much of her childhood. She was widely praised for her starring role as Lily Bart in the film The House of Mirth (2000), a British adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel. Other films in which Anderson appeared included the Irish drama The Mighty Celt (2005); The Last King of Scotland (2006), which centers on Ugandan dictator Idi Amin; and Johnny English Reborn (2011), a spy spoof starring Rowan Atkinson. In 2017 she starred in the historical drama Viceroy’s House and in Crooked House, an adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery. She then played an MI6 agent in the comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018).

Anderson also took roles in several miniseries on British television. Among her portrayals were Lady Dedlock in Bleak House (2005), based on Charles Dickens’s novel; Wallis Simpson in Any Human Heart (2010); and, in another adaptation of a Dickens work, Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (2011). Beginning in 2013, she starred as a detective in the Northern Ireland-set crime drama The Fall and also had a recurring role on the American series Hannibal (2013-15). In 2016 Anderson portrayed Anna Pavlovna Scherer in a television adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and reprised the role of Scully in a six-part X-Files miniseries. Ten additional episodes, starring Anderson and Duchovny, aired in 2018. She also appeared in American Gods in 2017, playing Media, a god who transforms into various celebrities, including Lucille Ball, David Bowie, and Marilyn Monroe. Anderson was then cast as a pubescent’s oversharing sex therapist mother in Sex Education (2019-).

Anderson ventured into writing in the 2010s, co-authoring (with Jeff Rovin) The EarthEnd Saga, a trilogy following the child psychologist Caitlin O’Hara as she investigates a series of paranormal activities. The series comprises A Vision of Fire (2015), A Dream of Ice (2016), and The Sound of Seas (2016). In 2017 she co-wrote (with Jennifer Nadel) the self-help manual We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere.

Achievements

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  Gillian Anderson was awarded an Honorary OBE (Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama. She also received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6508 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, on January 8, 2018.
  
  She is also the first actress to receive an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award in the same year. In 2016, Anderson was named one of World's Most Beautiful Faces of the Year by People magazine.

Works

More photos

• book

  • We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere

    (Urgent and provocative, We: A Manifesto for Women Everywh...)

    2017
  • The Sound of Seas: Book 3

    (From Gillian Anderson and Jeff Rovin - the final book in ...)

    2016
  • A Dream of Ice: Book 2

    (From Gillian Anderson, acclaimed actress and X-Files star...)

    2015
  • A Vision of Fire: Book 1

    (Renowned child psychologist Caitlin O’Hara is a single mo...)

    2014

• movie

  • Princess Mononoke

    (From the legendary Studio Ghibli, creators of Spirited Aw...)

    1999
  • How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

    (Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Gillian Anderson Megan Fox and...)

    2008
  • Shadow Dancer

    (When a young mother and true believer from a violent IRA ...)

    2012
  • The Mighty Celt

    (Starring Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The Last King of ...)

    2005
  • The Last King of Scotland

    (Set in Uganda in the 1970's, The Last King of Scotland is...)

    2006
  • A Cock & Bull Story

    (Michael Winterbottom's witty take on Laurence Sterne's cl...)

    2005
  • I'll Follow You Down

    (After the disappearance of a young scientist on a busines...)

    2013
  • Closure

    (Driving back from a posh party at a country estate, Alice...)

    2007
  • Boogie Woogie

    (Heather Graham and Gillian Anderson star in this sexy com...)

    2009
  • Viceroy's House

    (Follow the dramatic true story of Indian independence fro...)

    2017
  • UFO

    (A college student, who sees a UFO, uses his exceptional m...)

    2018
  • Johnny English Reborn

    (Rowan Atkinson returns to the role of the accidental secr...)

    2011
  • Playing by Heart

    (A sexy romantic comedy about modern couples coming togeth...)

    1998
  • Robot Overlords

    (In a near-future where Earth has been conquered by robots...)

    2014
  • The Mighty

    (With his loving and supportive mother (Stone), 13-year-ol...)

    1998
  • Chicago Cab

    (A day in the life of a Chicago cabbie, as he picks up var...)

    1997
  • The Spy Who Dumped Me

    (After being dumped by her boyfriend who is a spy, a woman...)

    2018
  • The X-Files: I Want To Believe

    (When a group of women are mysteriously abducted, it becom...)

    2008
  • The X-Files

    (FBI agents Mulder and Scully probe events that may prove ...)

    1998

• TV series

  • Crimson Petal and the White

    (The streets of London in the 1870s are anything but a saf...)

    2011
  • The X-Files Complete Series

    (Join FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scul...)

  • Bleak House

    (In this star-studded adaptation of a literary classic, ac...)

    2005
  • Any Human Heart

    (William Boyd adapts his acclaimed 2002 novel about a man ...)

    2010
  • War & Peace

    (In a new adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's timeless novel, thre...)

    2016
  • Hannibal: The Complete Series

    (FBI profiler Will Graham is recruited by Jack Crawford, t...)

  • The Fall Complete Series

    (Called to Belfast to investigate a high-profile murder, G...)

  • Crisis

    (To bring the most powerful people in the world to their k...)

    2014
  • Great Expectations

    (Lavish adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel.)

    2011

Religion

Unlike the skeptic Anderson played in her most famous role as Dana Scully on the show The X-Files, she is a believer in the spiritual, non-religious category. She says she believes in some paranormal activity, ESP, psychokinesis, spirits, angels, ghosts, teleportation and the abilities of psychics, especially Tarot card readings.

Politics

Gillian Anderson supports the Democrats. Outside of her $2,000 campaign contribution to Obama’s 2008 bid for the White House - her only one on record - she said she might consider moving back to the United States from England if he won the election because she’d "want to be a part of it." And in 2011, when asked which living person she admires most, she said: "Obama, because against all odds, he’s getting the job done with grace and integrity."

Views

Alongside her impressive achievements on stage and screen, Gillian is a supporter of social and environmental causes and is passionate about human and animal rights.

Gillian Anderson is an honorary spokesperson for NF, Inc. and is a supporter of the Neurofibromatosis Association. Gillian is an active representative of PETA and shows support for animal rights. In November 2018, Gillian gave the opening remarks at our #SheInspiresMe Auction reception, hosted by Sotheby’s. She also generously donated two lots to the auction.

Quotations: "Be of service. Whether you make yourself available to a friend or co-worker, or you make time every month to do volunteer work, there is nothing that harvests more of a feeling of empowerment than being of service to someone in need."

"To me, a relationship is about loving another human being; their gender is irrelevant. I'm leaning towards the idea that it's time for somebody to be brave enough to ask me out."

Personality

Gillian Anderson is bi-dialectal and that is the reason why her accent changes depending on the situation. For instance, in an interview with Jay Leno, she spoke with an American accent but changed it with Michael Parkinson.

Once received an offer to appear on the cover and pose nude for Playboy. According to an interview in FHM magazine, she was offered an impressive amount of money to take off her clothes, but Gillian refused it. "I turned it down. But it was very flattering," she said.

Anderson is an avid art collector. Her collection includes work from such artists as Diane Arbus, Francesco Clemente, and Kiki Smith. As a teen, her favorite music bands included Skinny Puppy and Dead Kennedys.

She told The X-files (1993) executives that she was age 27 so that she would appear more credible as an FBI agent with a medical degree.

Interests

• Yoga

• Politicians

  Barack Obama

• Writers

  A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Women Food and God by Geneen Roth

• Artists

  Francesco Clemente, Helen Levitt, Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus, Kiki Smith

• Sport & Clubs

  Tai-Chi, hiking

• Music & Bands

  Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, The Rolling Stones, Jeff Buckley, London Grammar, Nina Simone, The Animals, Radiohead, Skinny Puppy, Dead Kennedys

Connections

On the set of The X-files, Gillian met Clyde Klotz, the series assistant art director at the time. On New Year's Day of 1994, Gillian and Clyde flew to Hawaii and got married on the 17th hole of a golf course. The only other person present was the Buddhist Monk that performed the ceremony. Their daughter, Piper Maru, was born on September 25, 1994. Anderson and Klotz divorced in 1997.

On December 29, 2004, Gillian quietly married former journalist and documentary filmmaker Julian Ozanne. The low-key affair took place on Lamu's Shella island, off Kenya's Indian Ocean coast. The event was attended only by her immediate family and a handful of close friends. Anderson announced their separation on April 21, 2006.

Anderson and former boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths, have two sons: Oscar, born on November 1, 2006, and Felix, born on October 15, 2008. She ended their relationship in 2012.

Father:

Homer Edward "Ed" Anderson III

Mother:

Rosemary "Posie" Alyce Anderson

colleague:

James McAvoy

ex-spouse:

Clyde Klotz

Daughter:

Piper Maru Anderson Klotz

ex-spouse:

Julian Ozanne

ex-boyfriend:

Mark Griffiths

Son:

Oscar Griffiths

Son:

Felix Griffiths

colleague:

Sharon Stone

colleague:

Kerry Washington

colleague:

Rosamund Pike

colleague:

Felicity Huffman

References

• Gillian Anderson on Twitter
• Gillian Anderson on Instagram
• Gillian Anderson on Facebook
• Gillian Anderson Official Site