Gillian Anderson

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 10:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My Castaway this week is an actress. Her childhood was a checkerboard affair, the early years as the only child of an American couple in London, the rest as an elder sister in small town America. Acting was her lifeline, and in her twenties she moved to Hollywood in pursuit of the dream which had seduced and deserted many before. For her it came true. She landed the part of Agent Scully in the X Files, the glamorous epitome of rationalism in the face of the inexplicable.

Presenter0:57

Now the series that made her name and her fortune behind her, she's ready to prove her talents as an actress of range and versatility. She received great praise for her performance as the doomed society beauty in the film House of Mirth and is currently to be seen in the West End in an intense two-hander What the Night Is For. She's had good reviews, the play less so. But then, as she says, I've had a tendency all my life to climb the highest mountain first. She is Gillian Anderson. You've also had a lot of luck too, Gillian. I'm thinking of your landing the part of the X-Fars huge stroke of luck because your casting was entirely an act of faith on the part of its creator, Chris Carter, wasn't it?

Gillian Anderson1:37

That's correct. No. At at the time it was he was going against form and really stuck his neck out for me, but based on his determination to have the character portrayed in the way that he saw her and not in the way that Hollywood wanted her to be.

Presenter1:58

But he saw her Agent Scully, didn't he, as this smart, slick suited, sensible shoe, ni shoes, nice, glossy, bob hair. That wasn't what you looked like at all when you went for the audition, was it?

Gillian Anderson2:09

No, it wasn't actually. And and the the very first time that I showed up at the audition I showed up in jeans and long scraggly, almost dreadlocked hair and after the audition said, Okay, if we want you to come back again for another audition and when you come back next time could you please brush your hair and wear a suit or something which I think I did, of course.

Presenter2:30

I did. So you just turned up for this audition thinking, well, hey, here's another one, I'll have a go. And suddenly found this guy, Chris Carter, saying, You're what I want. That must have been quite stunning.

Gillian Anderson2:41

It was. It was stunning. But I had no clue what I was not only what I was getting myself in for, but what I was actually doing. I mean, I was going in for an audition for a television pilot. I didn't even know what pilots were. I knew absolutely nothing.

Presenter2:55

As you say, it was a pilot. Even when you got the job, and I think you got it on a Thursday and we're filming by Saturday, it needn't have been bored, need it?

Gillian Anderson3:01

Yeah, true.

Gillian Anderson3:04

Or picked up or continued for nine consecutive years. Well, quite. Little did you know what you were doing.

Presenter3:09

Well, quite. Little did you know what you were doing that in for. There you were, taken up for the next nine years, ten months a year, sixteen hours a day. You had no idea, did you?

Gillian Anderson3:18

You have

Gillian Anderson3:19

No clue.

Gillian Anderson3:21

No clue. It was a rude awakening at one point, I think. But wasn't it welcome? Oh, oh, absolutely. Well.

Presenter3:26

But wasn't it

Gillian Anderson3:30

The welcome aspect of it was the fact that I was employed. But.

Gillian Anderson3:34

Before you even go in and audition your final audition, you have to sign a contract which signs the amount of money that you're going to make for the next five and a half years.

Gillian Anderson3:44

And that you're going to be, if they choose to, working for five and a half years and you don't have any other choice, you can't get out.

Presenter3:53

We're the next five and a half years of your life, isn't it?

Gillian Anderson3:55

The ally.

Presenter3:57

Well, we're signing away the rest of your life on a desert island here. I don't know if you get this. But anyway, we're going to cast you away. You have only these eight pieces of music for company. Tell me which

Gillian Anderson4:07

It's so hard to choose. I'm such a big music person. It was really hard. And I think that there's a little bit of irony in every choice, despite the fact that they have had huge impact on my life. The first one I've chosen is The Rolling Stones is You Can't Always Get What You Want, which not only was something that I listened to

Presenter4:07

It's so hard to

Gillian Anderson4:25

Cried a lot in the trailer going through hair and makeup in the wee hours of the morning, and we would blast it in there as we were getting ready while we were shooting the series. But also, the irony of the fact that at times when there were other things that I wanted, whether it was about my career or in things in my personal life that I thought I had to have or I wanted, that at the end of the day.

Gillian Anderson4:48

You can't always get what you want.

Speaker 24:50

I saw her today at the reception.

Speaker 24:57

A glass of wine in her hand

Speaker 25:02

I knew she was gonna meet her connection.

Speaker 25:08

At her feet was Franklin's May.

Speaker 25:14

You can't always get what you want.

Presenter5:19

Rolling stones and you can't always get what you want. I am not Gillian Anderson. You'll be glad to hear going to ask you if you believe in the paranormal. However, the reason it was so successful, it seems to be, the X-Files, is that and it was a phenomenal success in so many countries. I mean, I don't know, it went all round the world and still is. Is that a huge number of people do believe in the paranormal, don't they?

Speaker 25:28

However

Gillian Anderson5:29

Yeah.

Speaker 15:29

Uh

Speaker 15:37

Yeah.

Speaker 15:42

I'm not dead.

Presenter5:43

I mean, I read that some 60% of people in the US believe in alien abductions. Is that true? I d I didn't.

Gillian Anderson5:48

Yeah I I didn't know Yeah.

Presenter5:49

And I think a very small percentage believe they have been abducted by aliens already.

Gillian Anderson5:49

And

Gillian Anderson5:53

Yeah.

Presenter5:54

But that's the truth of it, isn't it? It fed straight into that kind of fascination. But Spooky.

Gillian Anderson6:00

I think so. I mean, other than paranormal spookiness, I mean, I think that there's definitely been a a climate for being shocked and scared, you know, where people will go and see all the Halloween movies and stuff like that. It just it boggles my mind.

Presenter6:15

Good job, you were the rational one of the duo then.

Gillian Anderson6:17

Agent Muller was the only one.

Presenter6:19

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson6:20

Yeah, but what's interesting too is it can't help but infuse your life with an aspect of its paranoia and negativity, even though it's just a scre you know, it can't help you.

Presenter6:31

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson6:33

I think it would get to everybody. I mean, we're working in Vancouver where there's, you know, very little sun very much of the year. We're working in ridiculous weather, ridiculous hours, and we're dealing with, you know, half dead evil demons all the time. I mean, how can sixteen hours of your your day I mean, how can that not affect you?

Presenter6:55

For the rest of us, of course, who aren't so moved about the paranormal, what what we were really moved by was the fact that you and Mulder never got it together. I mean, it was uh one critic said, I think, that the longest suspended kiss in television history. You never kind of got it.

Gillian Anderson7:06

Television

Gillian Anderson7:08

No, at the very end, everything. Oh, yeah. Did you want to actually well, we had a baby together.

Presenter7:10

Well, I missed the very

Presenter7:12

I mean he didn't

Gillian Anderson7:15

Oh my god, I did miss it here.

Presenter7:15

Oh yeah, I did you miss it here.

Gillian Anderson7:17

You did, you missed a a large plot point.

Presenter7:20

Good heavens. Well, then that really did write it off for good, then, the X-Files. I mean, it is finished over Double. It is finished.

Gillian Anderson7:20

And that

Gillian Anderson7:25

It is finished. I mean, there is some modicum of hope that there will be the feature films, you know, that that will do a second. Would you do it more? Oh, yeah. No, I would. I I I actually really like the idea of coming back every few years and having a a reunion and revisiting these characters.

Presenter7:32

Would you do that? Oh.

Presenter7:39

You must feel quite proprietorial about the role anyway. I mean, it's yours, isn't it?

Gillian Anderson7:45

Yeah.

Presenter7:47

But the the absolute nobody else could do it. But the irony is, of course, you never wanted to be in television. Film and theatre was what you wanted to do.

Gillian Anderson7:53

Film

Gillian Anderson7:55

I'm not sure.

Presenter7:56

That is a sh

Gillian Anderson7:57

Uh

Presenter7:57

Huge audience.

Gillian Anderson7:57

It is. It's it's hysterical actually.

Gillian Anderson8:01

No, I I I I was quite elitist about it all actually and it was kind of like, Okay, I haven't been working for a year. I guess I will go in and audition for a television series, you know.

Presenter8:11

Or a television

Presenter8:12

Uh

Gillian Anderson8:13

Uh

Presenter8:13

It wasn't because you didn't want to become, which is what happened of course, public property. That's what happens with television fairs.

Gillian Anderson8:20

Yes, at the time I don't think that I had that kind of consciousness, you know. But you did, and when it did happen, you didn't like it, did you?

Presenter8:24

But you

Gillian Anderson8:28

No. The whole media thing, the whole television thing, that's all it just it cheapens one's life. If the

Presenter8:34

That's how you feel. Wh why was it then that you did some quite provocative pictures earlier on, didn't you? No, no, no, no, we're not talking about

Gillian Anderson8:40

Yeah, I did.

Gillian Anderson8:44

No, no, no, no, we're not talking about that. Well, it was a couple of things. One thing is that in the first season I got pregnant. So when it was done, it was a conscious effort for me to say, Okay, you know, there is another side to me, I'm not just this dowdy, you know. There was that. And there was also, I have to admit, an aspect uh of no forethought. And I look at those pictures now and people hand them to me outside the stage door and I'm just oh.

Speaker 19:03

And I

Gillian Anderson9:07

God. I mean, absolutely dreadful.

Presenter9:11

Tell me about record number two.

Gillian Anderson9:13

Number two actually is a Joan Armentrating song that was very alive in my life as a child, and this has always been one of my favorite songs of hers. It is Save Me.

Speaker 29:25

Like blood in the rain

Speaker 29:28

Running through

Speaker 29:31

While you stand on the inside

Speaker 29:34

Looking in, save me

Speaker 29:44

Yeah.

Speaker 29:46

And yourself

Speaker 29:48

Go me a life guy, save me

Presenter9:53

Joan Armour Trading and Save Me. Now, Gillian Anderson, what we find fascinating about you is, of course, that we can claim, you know, to have given birth to part of you, as it were. Not exactly birth, but you spent I think about nine or ten years of your life here, didn't you, in London?

Gillian Anderson10:06

To be your luck.

Gillian Anderson10:08

I don't

Speaker 210:08

Yeah.

Presenter10:08

Uh

Speaker 210:08

Uh

Presenter10:09

How where did you live, and why?

Gillian Anderson10:11

When we first arrived we lived in Clapham Common and then we moved to Crouch End, you know, where I g spent those those formative years. And w why were you here? What was the my father um well initially as the story goes m my dad wanted to go to a film school and he asked my mother when we were living in Chicago after I was born whether she wanted them to move to London or California and she said uh London and they ended up falling in love with the city and

Presenter10:18

Some will

Gillian Anderson10:37

Staying and staying and staying and

Presenter10:39

So you were at school, first, as you say, in Clapham and then in Crouch End. Um presumably then you spoke with a

Gillian Anderson10:46

In English

Presenter10:46

Accent at the

Gillian Anderson10:46

Yeah, I did. I mean, it was my first language. I think it's a very different

Presenter10:47

Pointed you up.

Gillian Anderson10:52

British accent then than it is now. I think it was much rougher and more unintelligible. I think I'll probably talk, you know, like re really fast and talk like this and um you know, mumbled a lot of stuff and and just kind of made things really, you know. But with a higher uh childlike voice I don't know.

Presenter11:08

Is

Presenter11:09

So did they think I mean, were you one of the girls and boys, as it were, in Crash? Or did they think you were a bit odd'cause you had American parents?

Gillian Anderson11:14

Or did they think you were a bit off?

Gillian Anderson11:17

I was considered a Yank, and I I was proud of it because of the fact that when we would go back in the summer times and visit family.

Gillian Anderson11:25

We went back to these places full of candy bars and sunshine, and everything seemed absolutely magical. And so I was like.

Presenter11:33

Here I am. But then when you went over there,'cause you moved when you were ten or eleven years old, I think your father got a business, a video business, I think, over in the States.

Gillian Anderson11:41

Hmm.

Presenter11:42

Again, you land up there, again, being a kind of outsider in the school in America, because then you've got the English accent. Well, at first, I think.

Gillian Anderson11:50

I think they embraced me because I thought that it that that it was quaint and, you know, attractive on on some level.

Gillian Anderson11:56

But then I started to take advantage of the fact that I was getting all this attention. I think I started expecting that kind of attention from people and after a while they said, Oh, you know, bugger off

Gillian Anderson12:06

You you're nothing to do with the money.

Presenter12:07

What you were a show of the majority of the mm-hmm.

Gillian Anderson12:11

Rebellious?

Presenter12:12

Theory.

Gillian Anderson12:13

Yeah.

Presenter12:13

How what form did it take when you were kind of ten and eleven and twelve and crossing the Atlantic?

Gillian Anderson12:18

Oh, you know, there's things that kids do, stealing, lying, cheating, blah, blah, blah.

Presenter12:23

And of course the other interesting thing about that period in your life is that you were an only child for, what, thirteen years, and then your parents got back over there, started making a bit more money and decided to have some more babies. That must have been a bit of a shocker.

Gillian Anderson12:34

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson12:36

It it was a bit of a shocker all of a sudden after being an only child for that long when there's the these two new little slugs that are taking all the attention and all of a sudden I'm cleaning up toys after them and babysitting them at the drop of a hat. It caused some rumbling inside, I think.

Presenter12:55

want to talk about the rumbling inside, but

Gillian Anderson12:56

Inside. But let's pause for some music there. Number three, what is it? It's um well it's actually a band that um just over the past few years uh but five six years I don't know how long um has become probably my favorite band. There's an energy to their music which has its roots inside my rumblings and um that is Radiohead.

Gillian Anderson13:23

Yeah.

Speaker 213:23

And get drunk

Speaker 213:27

Before you fall, Hans Before

Presenter13:50

Radio head and exit music for a film. Let's talk about the rumblings then, Gillian. Well, what form? They take first of all.

Gillian Anderson13:58

I had moved from my experience of a large, vibrant, vital, passionate city to a small, in my perception, boring Republican town. And I started to realize that the way that I felt expressed myself most of the time was through dressing a certain way, listening to a certain kind of music, and expressing my contempt at the time for what felt like a very rigid straight-laced American right-wing small town.

Presenter14:33

It's very laced American.

Presenter14:37

So you went punk, essentially, I did.

Gillian Anderson14:39

What did you look like? What did I look like?

Presenter14:40

What did you look like?

Gillian Anderson14:43

Um well, you know, I um I got most of my clothes from uh thrift stores and I wore black pointy boots with lots of buckles and I had different colour hair and at times I shaved sides of my head and I had a nose ring that I got one summer uh when we were in London when I think I was fourteen and was one of those kids that walks down the street with a boyfriend with a three foot mohawk and when somebody walks by and you know that they're gonna turn around behind you and stare at you, you turn around and you give them the finger. You know, that that that that was fun of course going and smash dancing and staying up late and taking a lot of things that you're not supposed to at that age.

Presenter15:15

Find the cause of going

Speaker 115:16

Uh

Gillian Anderson15:21

Yeah.

Presenter15:21

Well, qui I'm going to ask you about that. I mean, apparently you also went into therapy at fourteen, is that right? And it was that because you'd got into drugs or alcohol or promiscuity?

Gillian Anderson15:26

Alright, and

Gillian Anderson15:32

Promiscuity, what was it? Many, many dangerous things. And I needed um I needed help. So that that's where it began. Did it help? Um here.

Gillian Anderson15:43

I'm still alive, and there have been many people along the way in the forms of therapists and spiritual.

Presenter15:45

But you said

Speaker 115:45

There have been many

Gillian Anderson15:51

Guides along the way who have, you know, helped me along this path.

Presenter15:56

Does it go on you do you still Oops.

Gillian Anderson15:58

Uh

Presenter15:58

Dutch people?

Gillian Anderson15:59

When I need to, yeah. I mean, there are certain times in one's life if things surface from time to time that you have to confront and and deal with in order to live a hopefully peaceful and joyous life.

Presenter16:10

So you're saying this was something more than normal teenage rebellion. It's something that ran a bit deeper than that, huh?

Gillian Anderson16:16

Yes.

Presenter16:17

There was a self-destruct button in the

Gillian Anderson16:19

Oh, absolutely.

Presenter16:20

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson16:21

Absolutely.

Presenter16:22

and without the therapy.

Gillian Anderson16:23

Yeah.

Presenter16:24

You would not be here, you imply.

Gillian Anderson16:26

Um, I don't think I would, no.

Gillian Anderson16:28

No, at some stage along the way.

Gillian Anderson16:30

Between then and now, I really don't think I was. What was the worst point? What age were you at? There were so many.

Presenter16:34

What was the word?

Gillian Anderson16:38

But that happens and people deal with it in different ways. People numb themselves out in different ways and people destroy themselves in different ways. I have very strong opinions about that.

Presenter16:51

And did your success I mean once you uh hit the X Files, as we say you were twenty-four years old and we've been talking about you between the ages of thirteen and twenty?

Gillian Anderson16:58

The answer is no. I know what the question is going to be. The answer is no. Success has nothing to do with happiness.

Presenter17:00

The answer is no.

Gillian Anderson17:04

Success has nothing to do with ridding oneself of one's demons. But it didn't bring you any kind of calm because it brought you security.

Gillian Anderson17:11

That kind of security is not real security. You know, it's got nothing to do with material things. And have you found it yet?

Gillian Anderson17:20

True happiness. There have been moments in my life of of real yes. I mean, I I wouldn't be able to say that if I hadn't found it. But I mean, that's from my own personal experience.

Gillian Anderson17:32

This is a song that's always been very profoundly moving for me.

Gillian Anderson17:39

It's Nina Simone's Strange Fruit. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 217:43

Strange fruit.

Speaker 217:50

Blood on the leaves

Speaker 217:56

And blood at the roots

Speaker 218:04

Black body sh

Speaker 218:06

Winging in the southern breeze

Presenter18:10

Nina Simone and Strange Fruit. It is an extraordinary piece, isn't it?

Gillian Anderson18:15

So extraordinary. I mean, first of all, her voice is just, it's such a remarkable and

Gillian Anderson18:20

moving instrument that she had.

Gillian Anderson18:23

Anyway.

Gillian Anderson18:24

Anyway.

Presenter18:25

Back to

Gillian Anderson18:26

For life.

Presenter18:26

Um acting. I mean, I suggested in the introduction that it was a kind of lifeline for you. I mean, there's some truth in that, isn't there? It became this kind of constant for you.

Gillian Anderson18:34

That isn't dead.

Gillian Anderson18:37

It did. I mean, uh I I w when I was in high school I wasn't a particularly good student.

Gillian Anderson18:43

and it was very difficult for me to concentrate.

Gillian Anderson18:46

Consequently, my my grades weren't very good.

Presenter18:48

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson18:48

And it wasn't until I discovered at sixteen, I think, uh theatre I had I'd started doing an internship and working at a community theatre and it wasn't until I was cast in something that all of a sudden it's like somebody struck a match in me or turned a light bulb on inside and it was an extraordinary turning point for me just in terms of my feeling like I had a voice in the world and there was something that I could do and enjoyed doing it and felt

Presenter19:18

And you went to theatre school in in Chicago

Gillian Anderson19:20

And yes, yeah.

Presenter19:22

I mean, that was quite competitive apparently because you could be chucked out at the end of each year if they didn't think so it was a a group that got ever smaller. Yes. What sort of things did you do there? And how did you manage to cling on?

Gillian Anderson19:26

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson19:28

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson19:34

Yeah, um we just we studied acting. I mean we studied it was a c at theatre conservatory at the Goodman Theatre School in Chicago and we did productions and we did you know movement classes, voice classes. Um we also had some academic stuff which was relatively insignificant I think to all of us at the time. But you felt you were in the right place. It was a fit.

Presenter19:57

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson19:58

Absolutely.

Presenter19:58

Yeah.

Presenter19:59

It couldn't have been anything else. It's not, you know, acting obviously was, you felt, what you were around for. Yes.

Gillian Anderson20:05

Cool.

Presenter20:05

Yes. And then you pursued it, I think, to New York, pounding pavements, New York.

Gillian Anderson20:10

Door. At the end of the school year we went to New York and did monologues, and I had written a monologue, I think, about my father.

Gillian Anderson20:17

Something about a park bench. I c I don't remember. But um there was an agent from a a very good agency there who basically sat me down and said, Look, if you will move out here, we'll represent you.

Gillian Anderson20:28

And so I packed all my stuff up and I drove out in my Volkswagen rabbit one night starting at eleven o'clock and I found my way alone across the country to New York. How far is it? Hundreds of miles.

Presenter20:40

Yeah, yeah. And did you have anywhere to live when you got there?

Gillian Anderson20:43

No.

Presenter20:44

And you did some waitressing'cause the parts weren't exactly flat.

Gillian Anderson20:46

Potts went

Gillian Anderson20:48

Yeah.

Presenter20:48

No, not at all.

Gillian Anderson20:48

No, no, not at all. They won't. In retrospect, that's not incredibly true because of the fact that within a year I got work, you know. But not so.

Presenter20:56

so much work that you didn't up'em off to LA'cause that's where eventually you went and decided to

Presenter21:02

Bye.

Gillian Anderson21:03

Uh

Presenter21:03

Down the pavement again.

Gillian Anderson21:04

Uh

Presenter21:04

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson21:04

Yes. I wasn't intending to move there. I was intending to visit a boyfriend and uh ended up selling my return ticket and putting everything in store ready. It's fate, you say. It's not fate, no? Yeah.

Speaker 221:14

Hey.

Speaker 221:15

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson21:17

Fate and Destiny. Record number five. Record number five is a uh Schubert piece that I have loved for many years that just

Gillian Anderson21:28

moves me to tears and that's

Gillian Anderson21:31

A good enough reason to have it on a desert island with me where I need to be crying alone. Um it's Death and the Maiden.

Presenter22:38

The opening of the second movement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden, played by the Amadeus Quartet. You made, um, round about the turn of the century, Gillian, we can say that now, the House of Mirth, um the film of the Edith Wharton novel.

Gillian Anderson22:47

House of

Gillian Anderson22:48

The film of the Edith Wharton novel which took place around the turn of the previous age.

Presenter22:52

Exactly. A hundred years earlier, New York Society. You played the doomed heroine Lily Bard. Again you were chosen apparently because its creator, Terence Davis, wanted you. He'd spotted you and he wanted you.

Gillian Anderson23:05

Well, what's so bizarre about that is he'd never seen any of my work.

Gillian Anderson23:10

and he wanted to meet me based on a photograph.

Gillian Anderson23:13

of a character that I had played

Gillian Anderson23:16

Who was a middle-aged biker alcoholic?

Gillian Anderson23:21

And that was a s it was a still from the film.

Presenter23:24

Amazing,'cause you were to play he wanted you to play this beautiful society.

Gillian Anderson23:26

Beautiful

Presenter23:29

Edwardian lady and but you did look he was right. I mean, you you did look wonderful in those Edwardian clothes, those high high-necked blouses and beautiful nipped-in waists and swishing skirts. It was absolutely did you feel right? You looked right.

Gillian Anderson23:40

And swishing

Gillian Anderson23:41

Absolutely.

Gillian Anderson23:44

I've always connected with that time on an emotional and and psychological level.

Presenter23:50

And did you see parallels? I I mean again one you know, her life story, Lily's life story is uh it's very much about sort of gallant but flawed young woman trying to navigate her way through life. It's about survival and of course she doesn't survive.

Gillian Anderson24:02

Well, I I have no doubt that as artists we choose subject matters to dive into, whether it's as a painter or as an actor, that have some resonance in our life. It's not lost on me that a lot of the um the projects that I've chosen to be involved in are about women who struggle in some way with themselves and their minds.

Presenter24:26

There's something there, isn't it? Not going under

Presenter24:28

with the weight of life.

Gillian Anderson24:30

Yes, yes, exactly. And hopefully at the end of the day, not in Lily Bart's case, but rising above and pressing on. I have such huge amount of of respect and appreciation for people who are survivors, who who succeed, who against all odds

Gillian Anderson24:47

Press on through.

Gillian Anderson24:49

Record number six.

Gillian Anderson24:51

Record number six. The title of it is Love is Everything, because I I believe that Love is Everything. At the end of the day, if we're talking about the difference between being sucked under and being able to rise above, this concept certainly comes into play very, very strongly.

Speaker 225:10

Maybe it was to learn how to love.

Speaker 225:15

Maybe it was to learn how to lead.

Speaker 225:20

Maybe it was for the games we played

Speaker 225:29

Maybe it was to learn how to choose Maybe it was to learn how to lose

Presenter25:39

Jane Sibberry and Love is Everything. So we come to your play currently in the West End, What the Night Is For, Julian. As I said in the introduction, the reviews haven't been great, but it's really the play itself rather than you and your co-star Roger Allum who've taken the critical stick. Again, it is this climbing the highest mountain first. You didn't exactly choose an easy option, did you? To come straight into the West End in an intense two-hander. I know. I I have I it's just my

Speaker 225:45

Julian.

Speaker 126:00

Uh

Gillian Anderson26:00

You'd come straight

Gillian Anderson26:06

But my whole life is riddled with choices like this.

Presenter26:08

Like this. But what's it like, you know, after that first night, which is I mean, obviously there's such a build up to it and then the reviews don't

Presenter26:15

quite come in as you'd like them to. That must be incredibly dismaying.

Gillian Anderson26:19

Uh

Presenter26:20

Uh

Gillian Anderson26:20

I don't know about incredibly dismaying. I think that we've chosen to do a play which we knew would would cause some unsettling of some kind i you know, being done here in London, just in terms of the subject matter and how uncomfortable it can make people feel.

Presenter26:35

Nostalgia about old loves, why is that difficult?

Gillian Anderson26:38

No, it's just we we're dealing with some hard truths about whether one is happy or not in one's present relationship. And if one goes to the theatre after thirty years of being married with their spouse and they haven't been happy for

Gillian Anderson26:53

eighteen of those years, but they're sticking with it because it's the thing to do, then they're going to be sitting next to their partner feeling a little bit uncomfortable. So there's an element.

Presenter27:02

of being they call it kind of problem page therapy going on there. And you think, do you, you seem to imply that we Brits are are kind of not up to taking this? Possibly.

Gillian Anderson27:12

Those are your words, not mine. Um but what I do think is that the kind of dialogue within the body of the play that deals with these issues is not as readily discussed or had in Britain as it is in America. Therapy speak and truth speak is much more readily available to the individual. It's on the tip of the tongue for most people. Uh

Presenter27:40

Mm.

Gillian Anderson27:40

And what about the whole experience for you of of being on the stage, which you haven't

Presenter27:43

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson27:44

Yeah.

Presenter27:44

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson27:44

Yeah. It's been absolutely extraordinary. The rehearsal process was absolutely creatively invigorating. And what is fascinating.

Presenter27:44

It's been

Gillian Anderson27:54

regardless of all that, is negotiating the playing and night after night with the audience, negotiating that other living, breathing being in the thing.

Presenter28:04

Exactly. And that's what's so different, isn't it, from doing either film or television. This is a an ongoing sustained performance, which changes every time because you've got this other organic thing.

Gillian Anderson28:10

Performance

Gillian Anderson28:15

And also changes dramatically. I mean, the show is very, very different night after night. It really is. Um just the thrill of moment to moment creative juices running through your being with other people up there on the stage, and it's exhilarating, and there's nothing like it in film.

Gillian Anderson28:35

Record number seven.

Gillian Anderson28:37

I've had this album for a couple of years, but this particular song is very poignant in my life right now and very romantic and

Gillian Anderson28:49

Melancholic. It is Roberta Flax. Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.

Speaker 228:54

Your love stays with me It's just the way life changes Like the shoreline of the sea Let's not talk of love or change Things we can untie Your eyes fill with sorrow That's no way

Presenter29:25

Roberta Flack and Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. There's a lot of talk of romance uh in the soul going on here. I mean, does that indicate there's sort of something going on, someone around at the moment? Um yes. Or have they just said goodbye?

Gillian Anderson29:41

Next topic?

Presenter29:43

I see. Okay. But thank you for being so intuitive.

Presenter29:48

What about your family? What about the mother and father who put up with this rebellious, difficult, punk daughter? Uh I mean, are they delighted and proud that she's found fame and fortune?

Gillian Anderson29:59

Um I'm sure, yes, they are. And I mean, yes, yes, I'm sure they're they're delighted and they're happy that it didn't end up that at no stage along the way did I um not only give up my dream, but uh also give up all hope of existence, period. I'm sure that they're quite thrilled to have a daughter who's alive and kicking away.

Presenter30:22

So you're a woman who's learned to be self-sufficient. You've learned to deal with yourself and the vicissitudes of life so far anyway. So

Gillian Anderson30:27

Hmm, the f

Gillian Anderson30:29

Oof.

Presenter30:30

You're going to survive on this desert island, aren't you?

Gillian Anderson30:32

Uh-oh, absolutely. Not a problem. I'm actually very, very good in those kinds of situations. I know how to.

Presenter30:33

Not appropriate.

Gillian Anderson30:38

build uh fires and shelters and take care of myself in that in that way.

Presenter30:43

Unless, of course, you're abducted by um enemy aliens of some kind.

Presenter30:47

I have no doubt that our

Gillian Anderson30:49

For years on the desert island, I will be praying on a daily basis to be abducted by something. And it won't matter what size, shape or form it takes.

Presenter30:49

You'll be a home.

Presenter30:57

It'll teach you to make a mockery of them all of these nine years.

Gillian Anderson31:00

Yes, huh?

Gillian Anderson31:01

Tell me about your last record.

Gillian Anderson31:02

The last record is one of my favorite artists of all time, Jeff Buckley. This is uh originally a Lennon Cohen song. It is Hallelujah.

Speaker 231:14

Baby, I've been here before I've seen this room and I've walked this floor, You know, I used to live alone before

Speaker 231:27

And I've seen you flag on the marble arch And love is not a victory march It's a colon, it's a broken heart

Speaker 231:41

Hallelujah.

Speaker 231:43

Yeah.

Speaker 231:44

Uh

Presenter31:44

Jeff Buckley and hallelujah. Now, Jillian, if you could only take this is really the squeeze now, one of those eight records to your desert island. Oh my god. Which one would you take?

Gillian Anderson31:51

Mm.

Gillian Anderson31:53

Yeah.

Presenter31:54

Jeff Buckley's Halloo

Gillian Anderson31:56

Yeah.

Presenter31:56

Yeah.

Gillian Anderson31:57

Uh

Presenter31:57

Two.

Gillian Anderson31:57

Yeah.

Presenter31:57

Lane Crave.

Presenter31:58

Now, what about your book? We give you the Bible, it's there on the sand, and the complete works of Shakespeare waiting for you. So plenty to go on with. But if you could take one book, which one would you take?

Gillian Anderson32:08

I would take a book by Eckhart Tolle called The Power of Now, and it basically speaks to

Gillian Anderson32:15

how happiness can only be found.

Gillian Anderson32:18

In This Moment.

Gillian Anderson32:20

And what about your luxury? Some kind of recording, a a vocal recording, of both my daughter and my love reading self written stories and poetry to me that I could listen to whenever I wanted.

Gillian Anderson32:37

Yeah.

Presenter32:37

Jillian Anderson, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you for having me. It's been a great pleasure.

Gillian Anderson32:43

Yeah.

Speaker 132:49

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.