GILLIAN ANDERSON TELEVISION ICON

From her early success in The X-Files to this year’s gripping return in The Fall, Gillian Anderson continues to mesmerise audiences. By Elizabeth Day

It would be something of an understatement to say that 2016 has been busy for Gillian Anderson. In January, she stole scenes with effortless panache as the magnificently bitchy Anna Pavlovna Scherer in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace. That same month, she reprised the role of the FBI Special Agent Dana Scully for a sixepisode X-Files revival miniseries.

Then Anderson returned to the stage as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire – a role that saw her nominated in 2015 for an Olivier and that later transferred to New York. As if that weren’t enough, she also starred in the third season of BBC’s The Fall, once again portraying the empowered, strong and deliciously sexy DSI Stella Gibson alongside Jamie Dornan’s sadistic serial killer, Paul Spector.

At 48, an age when some actresses might struggle to find interesting parts, Anderson continues to be inundated with offers. Her versatility is astonishing – she is equally at home in cult sci-fi as she is in the corsets and wigs of period drama.

Her looks lend themselves to both big and small screens: aquiline profile, clear blue eyes, a slightly wonky nose that serves only to highlight the perfection of the whole. In her twenties she was voted the ‘Sexiest Woman in the World’ by FHM: ‘I never understood that,’ she says. ‘I mean, I was wearing pastel Lycra and just really unappealing suits for the first years of The X-Files!’

In any case, she has always sought out darker material. Complexity is what draws her to a character. She finds Stella Gibson ‘elusive and evasive… She’s not without flaws. You see her lie, you see her make choices that are dubious.’ Those idiosyncrasies, says Anderson, are what make her intriguing.

Anderson herself is similarly fascinating: an ethereal beauty with a cast-iron strength of will. When she discovered her co-star David Duchovny was being paid double her salary on the original X-Files, she demanded equal pay for the comeback season. ‘I’ve always behaved more like a traditional man than like a woman,’ she says. Little wonder she was touted as the first female James Bond. It certainly would be inspired casting.

She tries to maintain a healthy sense of perspective about the awards with which she has been showered. She recalls the moment, last year, that the theatre director Michael Grandage called her seemingly out of the blue.

‘I said, “Hey Michael, why are you calling?” and he said, “Why am I calling? For the Oliviers! I’m telling you that you’ve been nominated.” And I said, “Well, how am I supposed to know that?” But apparently,’ Anderson says, laughing at her own absurdity, ‘people do know these things.’

She considers herself under ‘constant evaluation… And there are other things in my life that I identify as bringing great meaning and worth… You know, I don’t generally go after awards.’ But Bazaar’s accolade is ‘a really lovely honour,’ she says, ‘and I’m flattered.’

Needless to say, as far as we’re concerned, Gillian Anderson deserves all the recognition that she gets.