Gillian Anderson: The X-smiles

By Alison King
The Independent
Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Cast as Special Agent Scully at 24, it is unsurprising that Gillian Anderson left for London at the end of the decade long X-FILES series. In the 10 years that followed, Anderson shunned Hollywood and reinvented her career in the UK with low-key roles in film and television costume dramas such as BLEAK HOUSE, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, THE CRIMSON PETAL AND THE WHITE and GREAT EXPECTATIONS.

It is Anderson's most recent role as DCI Stella Gibson, however, that had audiences gripped watching THE FALL. A woman that could give DCI Jane Tennison run for her money, Gibson is icily self-assured and highlighted the idea of stereotyping women in crime as either victims or vamps.

She tackles another serial killer in HANNIBAL as Dr Bedelia du Maurier, the psychiatrist to the Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). It is her first role in an American television series since 2002 and describes her psychological sparring partner, Mikkelsen as "a master of understatement".

"It's the complexity of those characters and the things going on under the surface that make it so interesting to me as an actor. Conflict creates great drama," she says.

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