Redhaired sexbomb on a mission to make it in movies. And escape the role of Scully...

  "At the beginning I was scared and enthusiastic," begins Gillian Anderson, clad in a decidedly Scully-esque black suit, about her fame giving TV show. "But, five years is exhausting, and I´m ambivalent about continuing for longer than one more season. [She is contracted to do three more seasons.] I will commit myself to it but it gets harder and harder to...get it up, so to speak."
   Despite the outgoing innuendo, today there is zilch that is firtatious or ebullient about Anderson. Yet, broaching a subject she must have faced ad nauseam, such reticence is understandable; be it her similarity to her character ("She´s taller than I am"), the possibility of a Scully-Mulder consummation ("It would disturb the flow of the series") or being the centre of 90s male obsession ("How do I cope with it? I just don´t think about it"), her responses are polite, measured, and a tad weary.
   Still, she warms up talking u p the series´ first big screen incarnation - an entertaining cocktail of conspiracy, aliens and torches, including a sequence in which the detective duo are strafed by winged creepy crawlies.
   "We had 3,000 bees in the same room and we had some little old bee keeper throwing buckets of the onto us. It wasn´t really frightening. It was just a case of holding your breath and doing it. Y´know, what´s a bee sting? I´ve had a baby."
   Other discomforts Anderson had to deal with encompassed learning her lines from almost illegible script pages printed on red paper to rule out the possibility of them being faxed or photocopied ("It added to the intrigue") and the sexist nature of Hollywood. She even threatened to walk over the size of the paycheque compared to that of her co-star...
   "I fought that," she admits. "It´s inappropriate and absurd. It was a matter of principle." Considering the longevity of their partnership, how would she currently describe her relationship with co-star David Duchovny?
   "It is detached," she says matter-of-factly, "because of the intensity of the work and the amount of hours we put in. At the same time, we have a lot of fun. We´ll occasionally invite each other to events or parties but seeing him on a weekend? Christ...
   Away from The X-Files, Anderson has been consistenly seeking movie projects ("I was actually very interested in doing Sliding Doors. But Gwyneth Paltrow was considered a more bankable celebrity than I was") and soon will be seen as an "eccentric alcoholic" in The Mighty. With an upcoming role in indie flick Dancing About Architecture opposite Sean Connery, her future path seems set.
   "I´m not interested in being a movie star," she explains. "But I´m interested in working in movies. That´s where my focus is going to be."
   Relishing the prospect of life beyond Scully, her inevitable departure will send the army of X-Philes hunting for the razor blades. Few modern stars have generated such commited devotion - 95 web sites wax lyrical about her pierced navel or the Tahitian tortoise tattoos on her ankles - and many obsessives have been too quick to demonstrate their passion.    "I´ve been sent a lot of stuff," she says, obviously wary of upsetting the hardcore faithful. "It´s a little odd to have people send you pencil renditions of you. It´s not a scary fan base, it´s just, intense...

Ian Freer