Gillian Leigh Anderson, OBE (Order of the British Empire), is an American-English actor best known for playing FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the long-running series The X-Files (1993–2018).
Anderson has also co-starred in the BBC crime drama television series The Fall (2013–2016), the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education (2019–2023), and the 2022 historical anthology drama The First Lady, in addition to over 60 other acting credits. Her work has earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe awards, among many others.
Away from the lights, she has been active in supporting charities and humanitarian organizations, including working with the Neurofibromatosis Network and co-founding South African Youth Education for Sustainability (SAYes). In recognition of her career and contributions, Anderson was appointed an honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2016.
In 2012, Anderson opened up about a past relationship she had with a woman:
It was the first time I revealed this fact in a public forum, and I chose to do so for two reasons. One was that a woman whom I was in a relationship with had died a few months beforehand and I felt, in the context of our conversation, it was safe and appropriate to bring it up. Many years beforehand, and well beyond our time together, this woman had called me out of the blue at the height of my television fame to say that she had been offered $60,000 by a tabloid to provide a picture of us together. At the time, for various reasons, not including shame, I did not want that information in the public domain and despite the fact that she was struggling to pay her rent, I asked her not to sell our story. She took what at the time I considered to be the high road. To this day I regret asking her to do that. That 60 grand would have had a greater positive effect on her life than a negative effect on mine. By discussing our relationship in Out, I felt like I was honoring her memory in some way simply by admitting its existence.[1]
She went on to say, "A seemingly straight-laced almost middle aged woman with three children can be open and shame-free about her life and love experiences and it’s okay."[2]
In 2015 when asked if she would be interested in having a same-sex relationship again, she told The Guardian, "I wouldn’t discount it, I did it before and I’m not closed to that idea. To me a relationship is about loving another human being; their gender is irrelevant."[3]