GILLIAN: IFEEL LIKE I’M THE PROUD MUM OF DOCTOR WHO STAR
Gillian Anderson’s delighted that Scot Ncuti Gatwa is the latest Time Lord, but she’s also excited by her latest role, as First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
GILLIAN Anderson has called herself a “proud mum” when she sees the success of Scots actor Ncuti Gatwa. The 29-year-old Rwandan-born, Scotland-raised actor will join X-Files star Gillian and become a sci-fi legend when he takes over the upkeep of the Tardis as the new Doctor in Doctor Who.
The pair have become very close in series Sex Education and Ncuti even calls her Auntie Gil.
Gillian, 53, described him as a “natural on camera” and loves the fact he is going to become the first black Doctor to helm the show as it celebrates its 60th anniversary next year.
She said he was hitting his stride “at the right time when people are finally starting to pay attention to how they’re casting and to cast responsibly and accurately”.
Ncuti, who was brought up in Edinburgh and Dunfermline, will become the Fourteenth Doctor when he takes over from Jodie Whittaker.
Already fans are hopeful he might entice Gillian to cross sci-fi franchises and take a role in Doctor Who.
She thinks he’s a natural. Across the three series of Sex Education in which she plays Jean Milburn, a sex therapist and he plays Eric Effiong, a friend of her son’s – which earned him a BAFTA Scotland award for best actor – the pair have bonded.
It seems backstage Ncuti is the life and soul of the cast.
Gillian, who called him a “ray of sunshine” in her congratulations tweet when he was announced as the Doctor, said: “If I’m working on a day that Ncuti is also working, and I arrive, into my trailer, to start getting ready and hair and make-up, if he’s anywhere in proximity, whether he’s in his trailer or in the hair and make-up trailer, you can hear him.”
She is happy to see her friend Ncuti break down doors as a black man in charge of the Tardis. She had her own glass ceilings to break back when she got the X-Files role of FBI agent Scully aged 25 in 1993.
She said: “I was expected to walk behind [co-star David Duchovny] when [our characters] walked up to the front doors of the people we were investigating. There were things that I rebelled against.”
By the time the series ended in 2002 she had become a worldwide star and had helped change the way female characters were portrayed on TV.
But while she returned for additional series in 2016 and 2018, she has closed the door and another return “will never happen. X-Files: it’s over”.
She added: “It just feels like such an old idea. I’ve done it.”
Not that she needs to go back – Chicago-born Gillian, whose grandfather on her mother’s side was of Scottish origin, is always in demand.
She has done period dramas like Bleak House and Great Expectations, crime series The Fall and Hannibal and won an Emmy as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.
Sex Education also made her popular with a new, younger generation. She said: “I just feel very lucky and grateful to be busy, although I’ve just had six months off so it feels like I haven’t really been busy at all.”
From playing the Iron Lady, Gillian will next up be a First Lady in a new series as another formidable woman Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, US president from 1933 to 1945.
The First Lady will also star Michelle Pfeiffer as Betty Ford and Viola Davis as Michelle Obama.
While Gillian is playing another famous female, she doesn’t see much to compare Thatcher with her new role. She laughed: “Eleanor is someone who is probably 100 per cent loved by everyone rather than 50 per cent hated for a start.”
Gillian added: “Eleanor is one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever had the opportunity to play and it was fascinating to be in her shoes.
“The dialogue and the costumes are so wonderful. I have never had the opportunity to show off in a role like I got to do as Eleanor.”
The role enticed Gillian to film in Georgia last year and venture away from London where she has been based since 2002 with her three children, daughter Piper, 27, and teenage sons Oscar and Felix.
She admitted: “I want to stay close to my children. London is like a small island where all the television professionals know each other. Whereas with the big American studios, there’s a whole bureaucracy just to book a plane ticket.”
The fourth series of Netflix’s Sex Education is expected to begin next month but viewers won’t see what has been going on at Moordale Secondary School until next year.
Gillian, who this week signed a first-look deal with the streaming giant, understands the success of Sex Education is the broad fanbase.
She said: “There’s the teenagers who are probably too young to watch it right up to people who are probably too old to watch it.
“Everyone seems to love it. But mostly, I think it’s popular because it’s a show with so much heart and a show that says we’re all OK, no matter whatever what we look like or who we are.”
The First Lady streams on Paramount Plus from today.