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The Rosie O'Donnell Show
October 9, 1996

ROSIE: Our next guest was nominated for an Emmy this year for her work as the cynical Agent Scully on the smash TV show The X-Files. Take a look:

CLIP FROM HERRENVOLK

ROSIE: Please welcome the talented Gillian Anderson. Hi!

GILLIAN: HI!

ROSIE: How are ya?

GILLIAN: I'm good.

ROSIE: Yeah?

GILLIAN: I'm OK.

ROSIE: How was your flight in?

GILLIAN: It was good. It was actually very relaxing. I don't usually sleep on flights but I slept very well on this one.

ROSIE: Good.

GILLIAN: Although I did have one experience on the plane. I came to a-a mild but shocking realization. I got up to go to the bathroom and I I got to the door and it said vacant on that little sign so naturally I opened up the door. And there was a man sitting on the toilet. So I closed the door and I backed up a little bit and I sat down and I'm sitting there like this so that I don't make eye contact with him when he walks by. And it occurred to me as I'm sitting like this that, he was sitting there on the toilet with his naked bum pressed up against the toilet seat. And this may seem like a simple realization but that was the first time that it ever occurred to me that yes, strangers do sit on public toilet seats with their naked bums in the same place I might be sitting moments afterwards.

ROSIE: Yes.

GILLIAN: And you know a lot of people ask me in interviews whether I am as skeptical as the character of Scully is and most of the time I say, no I'm pretty openminded and spontaneous and I don't-something doesn't have to be proven to me in order for me to believe it. But here is a definite case where I had to see somebody sitting on a toilet with a naked bum in order to believe that people actaully do it.

ROSIE: (Laughs) Well they do.

GILLIAN: They do.

ROSIE: They do it frequently. You know in some places they have that new Jetson thing it's got like little Saran wrap that goes around the toilet.

GILLIAN: Yeah, I never know, I never know how to-

ROSIE: Have you seen that?

GILLIAN: I never know how to operate that.

ROSIE: The red button. Hit the red button.

GILLIAN: Oh! THe red (laughs).

ROSIE: Yeah! The red button there it goes Weeeee.

GILLIAN: Missed it.

ROSIE: Yeah. I'll get you one for Christmas. That will be good.

GILLIAN: That will be very good.

ROSIE: Install one in your house so nobody has to put their bum where your bum has been.

(GA laughs)

ROSIE: The show is a smash hit. I met you when you were filming the pilot for the show up in Vancouver.

GILLIAN: That's right. I remember that very, very clearly. There's a bar in Vancouver which is in the ground floor of the hotel and celebrities usually stay in this hotel, so there's a lot of celebrities in the bar. Actually I don't frequent it very often anymore but I was there when you were shooting up there. And we were sitting at a table with David, my costar-

ROSIE: Who I knew...

GILLIAN: Who you knew from before... And uh we're having a decent conversation.

ROSIE: And a couple of drinks.

GILLIAN: I actually don't drink but you might have been having a couple of-

ROSIE: I was having a couple of drinks. I don't even remember that you weren't drinking because...I...was. Go ahead.

GILLIAN: And um there was a table of a few women, like 3 or 4 women sitting near us and um um they were from Ohio or Texas or someplace and they were having their own conversation. But they kept on looking at our table and lookin at you and then whispering and looking at you, and we were in mid-conversation at one point and one of them taps you on the shoulder and says, "Were you on Jeopardy?" And you said, "Yes." And she was like, "Oh my God, oh my God, she was on Jeopardy!" like not even knowing like that you have a history. (RO laughs) Or an occupation.

ROSIE: It was the highlight of my career, to be on celebrity Jeopardy.

GILLIAN: And we looked at each other like we were in the Twilight Zone or something.

ROSIE: And they kept saying, "Remember that cateogory and you knew all about the-" Uh huh "And remember that-" Yes I do, it was like that Chris Farley-

GILLIAN: That, Chris Farley character.

ROSIE: Exactly. We had fun up there.

GILLIAN: Did you?

ROSIE: I had fun up there.

GILLIAN: It's a beautiful city. It really is. It rains a lot.

ROSIE: It does. Are you still shooting up there?

GILLIAN: We are indeed.

ROSIE: In Vancouver?

GILLIAN: In Vancouver.

ROSIE: How's your little daughter.

GILLIAN: She's amazing. She just turned 2 last week. She's doing really, really well. She's talking a lot, she's bossing everybody around.

ROSIE: Is she on the set with you?

GILLIAN: Every day. I saw Parker running around.

ROSIE: Yeah but you know here there aren't any freaky, scary things like on your set. There's all kinds of freaky, scary weird things.

GILLIAN: That's true. You know she's pretty good about that, in general, she's really good with the freaky scary stuff. You know she can be walking on set and somebody six feet tall will walk up to her with prostethic make up and oozing blood coming out of their brain and an eyeball down here, and she'll kind of look at them and be a little cautious, and then she'll say, "Owee". A gross understatement, but you know she's on the right track. (RO laughs) You know, I was actually going to bring you a decomposed hand that she walks around with, um she holds one end of it, like the stump end of it, and she like shakes people's hands.

ROSIE: Um, therapy.

GILLIAN: I'm not sure how proud of that I am. I know, well what I'm afraid of is years from now she's going to have all these memories of these gruesome things happening in her life and think they actually happened in her life.

ROSIE: Exactly. She's going to be telling her therapist in 25 years, "My mother used to put fake eyeballs and gooey blood on me and laugh." (GA, crowd laughs) You know?

GILLIAN: Well I was actually I was going to bring you the decomposed hand to put on your little desk collection there, but somebody stole it out of our trailer.

ROSIE: Really?

GILLIAN: Well, now it's gone. So instead-

ROSIE: Look under your daughter's pillow. (Crowd laughs) Could be there.

GILLIAN: So instead I brought you some flukeworms.

ROSIE: Eew.

GILLIAN: These are, um, if anybody's familiar with the show, there was an episode called The Host which we on the crew conveniently call it Pooh Man because it took place in the sewer a great deal of the time. And there was one scene where a man is having a shower and he starts to feel nauseous and he regurgitates, this thing comes out of his mouth and goes down into this drain. So I brought you a couple-

(Crowd eews)

ROSIE: Thank you very much. Really nice. This has been thrown up by an actor. That's very sweet of you. (Crowd claps) Thank you very much. Oh two of them. Even better. Ok. There you go.

GILLIAN: Male and female. They might be hemophroditic, I'm not sure, but you know they could be male and female. You could put like little lips on one of them.

ROSIE: No I think I just might leave em there till the prop guy comes and gets em, but it was sweet of you, thank you.

GILLIAN: And here-

ROSIE: What is that?

GILLIAN: It's your own FBI Special Agent identification badge. Has Rosie's face on it.

ROSIE: Let me see that.

GILLIAN: You can sign it if you want.

ROSIE: I will be using this if I ever get pulled over by a cop. "Yeah that's right, I am a talk show host but I'm just doing that for the government. I really work for you people!" (Crowd cheers) I'll be doing that.

GILLIAN: I've got a little note that I have to mention. It's from our property master. He wrote: Rosie, you're the funniest, sexiest, and coolest talkshow host in television history.

(Crowd cheers, claps)

ROSIE: Woo! I love him. Ken, I love you. The X-Files is on nine o'clock on Fox Friday nights, but it's moving, right?

GILLIAN: It's moving to Sunday nights on October 27th.

ROSIE: On October 27th goes to SUnday nights. The Truth Is Out There, the official guide to the X-Files. Pick up the book, too. Gillian, thank you so much for being here.

GILLIAN: Thank you.


Transcript appears courtesy of The Rosie O'Donnell Show.



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