Gillian Anderson

Anderson married her first husband, television assistant art director Clyde Klotz, on New Year's Day 1994 in Hawaii during a Buddhist ceremony. The couple had a daughter, Piper, born later that year, and divorced in 1997. On December 29, 2004, Anderson married documentary filmmaker Julian Ozanne on Lamu Island off the coast of Kenya, before announcing their separation in April 2006. She later entered a relationship with businessman Mark Griffiths, with whom she had two sons, Oscar and Felix, before their partnership ended in 2012.

Anderson has lived in London with her children since 2002. Beginning in 2016, she entered a longtime relationship with British screenwriter and playwright Peter Morgan. Anderson has frequently discussed her fluid views on sexuality, noting that she had relationships with women during her youth and maintaining that romantic attraction is centered on the person rather than gender. Outside of performing, she is an avid art collector who purchased a David Blackburn lithograph with her first paycheck from The X-Files and has assembled works by artists including Diane Arbus, Cindy Sherman, and Kiki Smith.

Gillian Leigh Anderson was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Rosemary Alyce, a computer analyst, and Homer Edward Anderson III, the owner of a film post-production company. Soon after her birth, the family moved briefly to Puerto Rico and then settled in London so her father could attend the London Film School. Anderson spent her childhood in north London, attending Coleridge Primary School in Crouch End, before the family relocated to Grand Rapids, Michigan, when she was eleven years old.

The transition to the American Midwest proved difficult, leading Anderson through a rebellious teenage period where she adopted a punk subculture aesthetic and was voted "class clown" and "most likely to be arrested" by her peers. On graduation night from City High-Middle School, she was arrested for breaking into the building to glue the door locks shut, a charge later reduced to trespassing. After discovering an interest in theatre, she studied at The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990, and completed a summer program at Cornell University through the National Theatre of Great Britain.

Anderson began her professional career on stage in New York, winning a Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer in Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends in 1991. After moving to Los Angeles, she landed the role of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the 1993 science fiction series The X-Files. Series creator Chris Carter strongly advocated for Anderson against studio executives who sought an actress with prior television experience. The role turned Anderson into an international television star across nine original seasons and two feature films, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008).

For her performance as Scully, Anderson won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, becoming the first actress to win all three honors in the same year. She also became the first woman to write and direct an episode of the series with the season seven installment "all things." Her portrayal of an analytical medical doctor and federal agent generated a widespread cultural impact termed "The Scully Effect," which scholars and industry observers credited with inspiring a substantial rise in women pursuing careers in science, medicine, and law enforcement.

Following the original conclusion of The X-Files, Anderson returned to the United Kingdom, where she took on a diverse range of television and film projects. In 2005, she earned critical acclaim and an Emmy nomination for playing Lady Dedlock in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. She went on to star as DSU Stella Gibson in the BBC crime drama series The Fall from 2013 to 2016, also serving as an executive producer, and portrayed Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier across three seasons of NBC's psychological thriller Hannibal.

Anderson achieved renewed international acclaim for her television work starting in 2019, starring as sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama Sex Education. In 2020, she portrayed former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of The Crown, winning her second Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Her other screen roles include Lily Bart in Terence Davies' film adaptation of The House of Mirth (2000), Sarah Merrit in The Last King of Scotland (2006), Eleanor Roosevelt in The First Lady (2022), and journalist Emily Maitlis in the film Scoop (2024).

Throughout her screen career, Anderson has maintained an active presence in theatre. In London's West End, she starred as Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, receiving a Laurence Olivier Award nomination. She received widespread critical acclaim and an Evening Standard Theatre Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic in 2014, later reprising the role in New York at St. Ann's Warehouse. In 2019, she earned another Olivier Award nomination for playing Margo Channing in Ivo van Hove's stage production of All About Eve.

Beyond acting, Anderson has co-authored several books, including the science fiction trilogy The Earthend Saga alongside Jeff Rovin, and the empowerment book WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere with Jennifer Nadel. In 2024, she published Want, a collection of anonymous sexual fantasies submitted by women. Anderson is also an active humanitarian; having lost her younger brother Aaron to a brain tumor related to neurofibromatosis, she serves as an honorary spokesperson for the Neurofibromatosis Network. In 2008, she co-founded South African Youth Education for Sustainability (SAYes), a nonprofit providing mentorship to young people leaving care facilities.