Gillian Anderson, Curator of Women’s Desire, Is Ready to Talk About Sex

It’s 8 a.m. in Alberta, Canada, when I reach Gillian Anderson by Zoom, but a more apt descriptor might be that I’m meeting her during a time of “yes”—she’s in fact maybe saying “yes” too often these days, she eventually tells me. This month, the actor will launch her new book, Want, which is filled with what Anderson has described as “sexy, tender, funny, eloquent, beautiful, and heartbreaking fantasies” written by anonymous contributors. She’s also working on “a space to connect with ourselves and each other through the power of story” called G Ode (pronounced “geode,” and still in beta). The day we speak, she’s in Calgary while shooting Netflix’s The Abandons, but is due to board a plane in a few hours to meet her partner, Peter Morgan, in Copenhagen. She’s also helming a pleasure-centric soft drink brand. (“For way too long, the wellness industry has been missing that fulfilling sweet spot where true sensorial satisfaction meets tangible benefit,” the website reads. “Well, we’ve found it. That exact spot. And it feels so good.”) She’s raising her kids. She gets a little teary, talking about how full her life is. “It’s making me emotional! It’s making me emotional,” she says. “It’s all the boxes. I’m in all the boxes.”

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Maybe her emotions always ripple right under the surface, or maybe it’s the raw edge of sleep deprivation. She spent the previous day shooting multiple takes of a scene in which she gallops a palomino across a prairie. In the picture she shows me, she’s clad in period garb—a black wide-brim hat and billowing black dress—and purple mountains soar in the background. “We had planes, trains, automobiles, horses,” she says of the long day, and then in the wee hours, “a weird lightning storm on the way back.” It was “intense,” and understandably it’s taking her a moment to fully acclimate to the task at hand—which is discussing sexual fantasies, basically. “No, it’s a pleasure. I’m…yes.” She trails off, laughs. “Coffee.”

While she wakes up, let’s turn to the text. Want, out from Abrams Press in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK, was inspired by Nancy Friday’s groundbreaking 1973 work, My Secret Garden—and cooked up after publishers starting pitching Anderson’s agent a sex-positive book, written by Anderson, in the wake of her role as the charming commitment-phobic sex therapist Jean Millbury on Sex Education. Its content ranges from a boyfriend’s proposal, to diaper play, to having sex with a best friend, to being tied up and “menaced.” (Anderson and others raise the importance of real-life consent multiple times.) Bloomsbury received letters “from Colombia to China, Ireland to Iceland, Lithuania to Libya, New Zealand to Nigeria, Romania to Russia,” Anderson writes in her introduction. (This is reflected in the published letters, though the most-represented racial identity is “white.”) “Letters from women who are pansexual, bisexual, asexual, aromantic, lesbian, straight, and queer.” They are also trans and nonbinary. “Though an imperfect term,” Anderson writes, “‘women’ is used throughout.” To me, she calls the book “a platform for everybody,” and one that she hopes will spark conversations about “not just desire in the bedroom, but desire of what one wants for oneself in one’s life.”

Anderson included her own anonymous fantasy, but she also writes with some openness under her own name. “For me, sex has never felt like a static entity but rather something that adapts and changes as I grow and change, with every new phase and stage of my life. A huge part of this has always been in the thinking and the feeling, not just the doing.” She references various roles she’s played, from Dana Scully in The X Files (which first aired in 1993), to Jean, to The Crown’s Margaret Thatcher. “The women whom I embody, whose worlds I step into, also have inner lives, desires and fantasies, which are vital to understanding what makes them tick. And a fair few of them have taught me about sex and sexuality.”

Here, we chat about all that, and more.

Vanity Fair: In Want, you address up front the idea that there’s still a lot of shame attached to women—and all people’s—sexuality.

Gillian Anderson: I guess my preconceived notion was that based on how far we have come culturally and societally in terms of conversation about sex in a public forum, that somehow that might translate to more of the taboo of fantasy, or sexual proclivities, being diminished. For me, the deeper conversation is about how much fear and shame we, particularly as women, tend to have—not just around this topic. What we choose to share, what we hide.

I’m hoping that this book starts a bigger conversation, particularly amongst women, and in the conversation we start to get to the crux of that shame and fear and guilt and diminishment of self, because when we share it, it weakens. When we can recognize that other people feel the same way, the burden of it and the intensity of it could potentially lessen. I was reading Georgina Lawton in The Guardian, she wrote an article recently about loneliness, particularly in young women between 16 and 29. That demographic is lonelier today on record than 70-year-old people. So to me, all of that is what’s interesting in this conversation—through sex and desire and want and need and shame and guilt and joy and tenderness and sadness. The conversation about all of that in an intimate way, I think can be transformative.

There’s so much explicitly on the page, but then there’s also sociopolitical stuff in there, between the lines. I was reading it during the DNC, when I was also consuming a lot of political content—

Me too! I’m doing press around this at the same time that I’m consuming everything that I possibly can about what’s going on in this moment.

It feels like everything is suddenly out loud. It feels like this is a moment where, yes, obviously elements have been discussed for the last few decades and whatever waves of feminism and women’s rights, et cetera, have obviously been at the forefront for a great many people. But suddenly a shift has happened, and whether it’s Michelle Obama’s speech or Kamala [Harris]’s speech or AOC’s speech, it’s out loud. People care less about what the reaction is, what the opinions are about, what the backlash is, in a sense. It feels like there is a platform for everything to be on the table.

One fantasy in the book involves living three different lives. The first was to live her real life, raising her children with her longtime partner; the other was to be with all the bad boys; and then the third was to be with a woman. I feel like I get to live more than one life, a little bit, through writing—does acting give you that?

Yeah, I mean, I’m sure it does. It’s funny because even though I bring up the correlation numerous times in the introductions and necessarily need to point to characters rather than myself, to not end up in the tabloids, I haven’t quite wrestled with that yet, the degree to which my work life answers in real time desires that I have in my head. It feels like the fantasies that I have in my head are very different. When I’m acting, I rarely get into the mindset of the character, necessarily. I feel like I’m too out here as the observer almost because I’m aware of where the camera is, I’m aware of the director. It feels disassociated, somehow. And yet of course there must be an element of it. In this series [The Abandons], I don’t know how it’s going to play out, but my character has a young, handsome lover. Nothing necessarily transpires yet, but does that tick that box for me? I don’t know.

What really strikes me is just the degree to which I do feel like I have many lives happening, and aspects of myself that are served and satisfied simultaneously. And some of that is how fortunate I am to have a coparent [Mark Griffiths] who takes on, sometimes, the bulk of the work with the younger two of my kids. That is an extraordinary gift. I get to live my professional desires while at the same time still sharing custody of children—and when I am able to show up, show up 150% in that period of time. And also that I get to have a relationship with somebody that allows me the freedom to—yes, expectations in terms of showing up emotionally and intimately and et cetera—but it’s not controlling. I’m probably busier than I’ve ever been in my life. It feels exceptional. I guess if I stand for anything, as a 56-year-old woman, it’s that anything is possible at any age.

There’s always a parasocial thing that can happen when people see someone and connect with them on a screen. How have you handled setting boundaries?

I’ve really enjoyed the conversations that I’ve been having with women—and they’ve been particularly women—journalists talking about this book. My default is to hide and be in a dark room. There’s something about the existence of Jean out there that feels like my relationship with journalists has shifted. Some of that has to be because so many of the roles that I played before were women that were, you didn’t see a lot of their vulnerabilities, and their personal challenges, and their “failings,” so to speak. With Jean, it was all out there. And so the way that journalists talk to me now is very often inclusive of an understanding or appreciation of that character as well. As opposed to before that, I’ve been quite scary. My relationship with journalists has been quite closed because of various reasons, and early fame, or whatever.

It’s easy for me to have this conversation through the prism of talking about these characters because that is ultimately how people—I’m going to say women, particularly—know me and witness me and spend time with me. And yes, it’s me playing those women, but it’s those women on the page, whether it’s Stella, Scully, or Jean, or whomever, that women have looked up to or been inspired by courageously.

I’m interested in having the conversation, too, about what it is about these characters that women particularly are seeing? That they can identify with a bumper sticker that says, what would Stella do, for instance? I’m more comfortable and interested in having that conversation. Because again, I’m just an actor. Part of my job is about acting as if I am in these fantasies, in these roles. I am these other people. Anybody can do that. Anybody has within them the ability to act as if they are courageous, they have a voice, they deserve to be heard. I’m kind of figuring it out as I’m having these conversations, because it excites me and obviously it energizes me and I feel very strongly about it. At the same time, in a month I want to go back to just being an actor.

You also wrote about getting fan fiction while you were starting to play Margaret Thatcher on The Crown, about Thatcher, the Labour leader Neil Kinnock, and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Yeah, it was fanfic that previously existed that was sent to me. I did get fan fiction sent to me when I was Scully. That was in real time, fan fiction being written about…to each their own!

Scully became this unlikely sex symbol. That was your first substantial role. What was that like?

I was 24 when I said yes to the job, 25, a couple months after we started shooting—lied and said that I was 27 when I went in for the audition. And I mean, to say that I was green is a complete understatement. And naive, really, really naive about the business, about what I was getting into. I didn’t even understand TV shows had seasons, and that the things that I was watching as a kid were reruns. I didn’t pay any attention to any of that stuff. I didn’t know that there was a potential for that to be my life for the next while. So when suddenly I was in it and immersed in it, I was going one day at a time. I had a young child and I had lines and many hours upon hours of expectations.

Within a couple years, I was asked to do an interview for FHM’s Sexiest Woman in the World. It was ridiculous to me. But I’ve always enjoyed working with photographers. Part of that experience was what we could create together and wanting to, for the first time—because it seems like all the shoots before that were Entertainment Weekly covers, and David [Duchovny] and I, it was about me as Scully, and this relationship, and our working relationship, and our acting relationship—this was one of the first shoots where I got to be kind of part of the conversation. This was about me. In that moment, that was important to me, that I have an opportunity to get outside of the polyester pastel suits and do something cool and funky. The only moment where I thought, I’m not so crazy about this, but I’m doing it, were some shots on a bed in a bra. It was after I saw those when I thought, Okay, that was a mistake, I don’t want to do that anymore.

And so after that, that didn’t happen anymore. What you saw were, when I worked with interesting photographers, whether it was [David] LaChapelle or [Mark] Seliger, it was more—I don’t want to say demure, because they weren’t—but they were more artistic, avant garde, wacky. In retrospect, I can see that what I was figuring out was what my relationship was to my public image.

I didn’t have a publicist. I never had a publicist through all of The X Files, it was only the Fox publicist and my manager. I think it was when I was in Cannes, post–X Files, that Kelly Bush [Novak] was in an elevator with me and said, you need a publicist. And I was like, I do? And she said, yeah, if you had had a publicist, they would’ve taken control of this narrative and it would’ve been very different. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, will you be my publicist?

You have spoken publicly about being in relationships with women, and you’re in an industry that historically has not always been kind to queerness in its stars. Is that something that you have seen shift over time? Do you feel like there is still work to do?

Well, there’s definitely still work to do. I think it’s much easier for women. It feels like it’s entirely embraced for women to identify as lesbian or queer or however they identify. There are some men who are big stars who are still in the closet and know without a shadow of a doubt that were they to come out, it would be the end of their multimillion-dollar career. And that’s a very challenging and painful and complex choice to make, and then becomes the number one topic of every conversation you have from there on out. So yes and no is the answer.

You launched G Spot last year. I’m curious how sobriety has been for you, as it has related to your career.

I do not think that I would’ve been able to handle any of my successes, my highs and my lows along the way, had I not made that choice quite early on in my life and my career. It’s been incredibly instrumental in my survival.

Starting this drink was not an attempt to create something that was nonalcoholic. It was as much as anything to create something that I wanted to drink to get rid of my Coca-Cola habits, of which it was intense. It was a big deal to let go of five Cokes a day.

Yesterday there were people drinking cold Cokes on horses, and I was so jealous. Anyway. This came to me as a suggestion from my partner’s son [Robin Morgan] who’s my cofounder. I might be saying yes to too many things, but I’ve really enjoyed the journey, and people are really loving it. It tastes so good. We’re launching in the States, starting with New York, in September.

It does seem like you are in this era of leaning into pleasure, and finding it in different ways. So where else are you getting that?

It comes from a lot of places. Yesterday I was aware of the fact that I was on the edge of these beautiful mountains here in Calgary, with horses and lovely crew and people, and really just grateful and enjoying that. And I feel energized by the entrepreneurial stuff. I feel like it’s been an aspect of me in the background for a long time. Before YouTube existed, I was trying to get off the ground a platform for actors from around the world to send in their auditions. Stuff like that, things that have never seen the light of day.

I find great joy with my kids. I really, really, really find that time meaningful. I feel very lucky to be enjoying this journey, which may be fleeting. Today, right now, I feel a lot of joy, and I hate to say it, but I also feel gratitude.

That’s not the worst thing to feel.

No, but it’s so important for me to say that I feel incredibly lucky. A big part of my life has always been a certain level of activism and charity work. This book and this conversation feels like it falls within that realm because it feels like it’s in the service of women. The book belongs to all the women who contributed and also to all the women who are reading it and feel seen and heard and affected by it.

Sometimes as an actor, you go and do interviews about one job or another and you may or may not be proud of the work you’ve done, but you’re not particularly proud of the film that you’re part of, or it just feels like you’re talking nonsense and you’re trying to sell something that you don’t believe in. For me, this moment, there’s a lot of meaning behind the things that I’m talking about.

You get a lot out of your characters. What are you learning from The Abandons’ Constance Van Ness?

I’m not sure if I’ve quite figured that out yet. She’s the first real baddie that I’ve played. That’s fun—I’m getting fun out of it, that’s what I’m getting. Sometimes I feel like I don’t know what I get until the audience tells me what they get. Right now it’s about people in fresh air and animals and enjoying the moment.

Did you have any anxiety when you were galloping yesterday, or is that just joy?

It’s the same way with stunts in the past, and it’s kind of how I approach life, I think, which is I just kind of throw myself. I throw myself and think later. I jump, and then, Oh, thank God they caught me, because if they hadn’t, it would’ve sucked.

It happened recently when I was defenestrating out the window in The Great, I threw myself out, but I didn’t do the one bit that I was meant to do, which was hold onto something. I ended up landing on the windowsill. It was fine.

This kind of feels like, I trust that horse, I absolutely trust the wranglers—the opportunity to do that in that background, in that setting…. I’m really trying to just embrace it and enjoy it and not let fear get in the way—or get in anywhere. So when we had to do take after take because of camera stuff and the crane and where we were on this tiny little ridge of grass, I’m just trusting. I’m just trusting that it’s all going to be okay.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.