Gillian Anderson has spoken about sex, intimacy and the unexpected success of her literary project collecting anonymous women’s sexual fantasies, saying the experience has encouraged readers to be more open and honest about their desires.
The actor, best known for playing FBI agent Dana Scully in The X-Files, is preparing to release More, the second collection of women’s fantasies she has edited. It follows Want, which became a surprise success and later inspired live readings and events, including a sold-out appearance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“I’m still surprised,” Anderson said of the response to the project. “I have learned to have no expectations.”
The 57-year-old actor has built a varied career since becoming a cult figure through The X-Files. Born in Chicago and raised between north London and Michigan, she has taken on roles ranging from former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown to Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, for which she won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for best actress.
Her decision to explore female sexuality came through her work on Sex Education, in which she played sex therapist Jean Milburn. While researching the role, Anderson read Nancy Friday’s landmark 1973 collection My Secret Garden, which brought together women’s private sexual fantasies.
The book inspired Anderson to invite women around the world to submit their own fantasies for a new collection. Contributors were asked to address their letters simply to “Dear Gillian”.
Anderson initially had reservations about using her own name in the invitation. She said she worried that it might make the project appear self-centred, but eventually came to see the wording as an important part of the relationship between the contributors and the book.
Women, she said, felt they were writing to someone who would not judge them.
“I’m here with open arms, and you can tell me anything,” Anderson explained, adding that protecting the contributors’ anonymity was always a priority.
The response was far greater than she expected. Some contributors were even able to hear their own stories performed publicly.
At a fundraising event at London’s Barbican last year, actors and other public figures read selected fantasies from Want. Afterwards, one woman approached Anderson and revealed that actress Olivia Wilde had read her contribution aloud.
The fantasy concerned a married woman who found herself repeatedly thinking about another woman she saw in her new neighbourhood. The contributor later revealed that she was attending the event with a new partner — the very woman who had inspired the fantasy.
For Anderson, the story demonstrated how the books can encourage people to examine aspects of themselves they might otherwise leave unexplored.
She stressed, however, that the collections are not intended to encourage people to overturn their lives or relationships.
Instead, she said, they promote “a degree of self-reflection and honesty”.
Anderson has also included some of her own fantasies in the collections. There are two in Want and another in More, despite her longstanding reluctance to discuss her private life publicly.
Writing them down proved unexpectedly difficult, she said, forcing her to question why putting her thoughts into words felt so uncomfortable.
The problem was partly the permanence of writing, Anderson explained. Once an idea is placed on paper, it becomes something concrete rather than something that exists only in the imagination.
She also joked about the limitations of language when attempting to describe intimate thoughts, suggesting that even the vocabulary available to her did not always feel adequate.
While More marks another chapter in Anderson’s exploration of female desire, her acting career continues alongside it. Her latest projects include the offbeat horror film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, directed by Jane Schoenbrun and co-starring Hannah Einbinder.
For an actor once most closely associated with the restrained and analytical Scully, Anderson’s transformation into an advocate for open conversations about sexuality has been one of the more unexpected developments of her career.
And, judging by the response to her books, it is a role that has resonated with audiences well beyond the screen.
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