Gillian Anderson Biography

An Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actress,Gillian Anderson has long delighted audiences and critics alike with her versatile skill and classic beauty.  Comfortable with any genre, from science fiction to period drama, Anderson will soon star in several prestigious projects on both stage and screen.

            In August 2010, Anderson appeared in a television adaptation of “Moby Dick,” alongside Ethan Hawke, William Hurt, Charlie Cox and Eddie Marsan.  The telepic premiered in two parts on the Encore network. 

            Anderson recently finished shooting the action film Shadow Dancer, with Clive Owen, Rebecca Hall and Andrea Riseborough, in Dublin, Ireland.  Anderson stars as Kate Fletcher, the boss of an MI5 officer played by Owen.  Anderson will soon be filming a PBS/BBC adaptation of “Great Expectations,” set to air in April 2012.  Anderson will play Miss Havisham, the insane heiress who mentors young Pip.  The production boasts an impressive cast, including David Suchet, Ray Winstone and Rupert Graves. 

            Anderson, best known for her work in Fox’s The X-Files, earned two SAG Awards, an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama Series, and received numerous additional nominations.  In 1998, she carried her role of Dana Scully over into the motion-picture adaptation based on the show, The X-Files: Fight the Future.  In 1999, she made The X-Files history by becoming the first woman to write and direct on the series, on an episode titled “All Things.”  In 2008, Anderson reprised her role once again in The X-Files: I Want to Believe. 

            Her other film credits include the critically acclaimed The Last King of Scotland, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, Duncan Ward’s Boogie Woogie, The Mighty, Playing by Heart and The House of Mirth, directed by Terence Davies.  In 2000, critics from Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, New York Daily News, The Village Voice and the New York Press listed The House of Mirth among the top-10 films of the year.  For her portrayal of Lily Bart, she won the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress, and the Best Performance Award from The Village Voice Film Critics’ Poll.  Anderson also won the Audience Award at the IFTA Awards for her role, starring alongside Robert Carlyle, in the popular film The Mighty Celt, directed and written by Pearse Elliott.  She also had a cameo role in the comedy Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, which gained rave reviews in North America and overseas. 

            In addition, Anderson’s recent television work includes the 2011 miniseries The Crimson Petal and the White as Mrs. Castaway, opposite Romola Garai and Chris O’Dowd.  Anderson also worked on the television adaptation of William Boyd’s novel “Any Human Heart,” for which she earned a BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the Duchess of Windsor.  Anderson also appeared in the BBC miniseries Bleak House, in which she starred as Lady Dedlock.  The critically acclaimed performance earned her a nomination for Best Actress at the British Academy of Film and Television Awards in 2006.  Anderson also provided the voice of Queen Vorkana in the animated comedy short Robbie the Reindeer in Close Encounters of the Herd Kind, for U.K. television.

            In 2002, Anderson made her London stage debut in Michael Weller’s What the Night Is For, and then went on to continued success and critical acclaim in the Royal Court Theatre’s production of Rebecca Gilman’s play The Sweetest Swing in Baseball, in 2005.  In 2009, Anderson portrayed Nora in Zinnie Harris’ adaptation of A Doll’s House, at London’s prestigious Donmar Warehouse in the West End, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress.

            Anderson obtained her BFA degree from the prestigious Goodman School of Drama at Chicago’s DePaul University.  In 1991, she performed in the Manhattan Theatre Club production of Alan Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends, for which she won a Theatre World Award.  In addition, she appeared in Christopher Hampton’s The Philanthropist, at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. 

            Over the last 15 years, Anderson has been strongly involved in many charity organisations: as a board member of Artists For A New South Africa, a spokesperson for Neurofibromatosis, Inc., a founding member of Off The Street Kids and a patron of the Alinyiikira Junior School in Uganda, amongst many others.