US Magazine Interview (Oct 97)

   This is the interview of Gillian Anderson taken from the October 97 issue of
US magazine. It is a shortened version of the original. The interview below is 
shortened and the questions and answers are selected by their contents so as to 
summarise the long interview.
   Pictures from the magazine will soon be put up under the Image contents in the 
main page of the David & Gillian Site. This is an interview by Margy Rochlin.




You're the eldest of the 3 children. How often did you wish your parents 
had stopped procreating after you came along?
For 12 years of my life I was an only child and received all the attention there 
was to give. Then that attention was split. Now, that was difficult. I suggest to
any parent who is thinking about having another child to do it before your child 
reaches puberty. Or after the chid reaches puberty. Because during is just not a
happening thing. That's a point in a young adult's life where they need all the 
love and understanding they can get. It's confusing, scary time. When most kids 
start feeling those changes is when they pick up drugs and act out.

And thus your now-famous period of adolescent rebellion?
Well, yeah. That was part of it. That was part of my way of dealing with the fact 
that I felt like I'd been abandoned.

Your daughter is a fixture on the 'X-Files' set. Does it encourage or
inhibit her creative mind to know that bogeymen are made in a makeup trailer?
Piper's curious about life in general. I think that comes in part from being 
around such a creative environment. We have prosthetic people and aliens 
walking around all the time. She wants to touch them, wants them to hold her.
If there's someone who has an eyeball hanging out of their face, she'll reach 
out and say,"Can I touch?" and then say [sympathetically], "Ohhh. I'm sorry."
I think it's been healthy for her. She loves the crew, and they love her 
energy. 

Piper is an interesting name. What else were you thinking of calling her?
My name is pronounced with a soft g, not a hard one. It's Gill like jam, as 
opposed to gun. I wanted to keep the soft g in the family. I was thinking of 
Geneva, but it's too pretentious. But that sat in my head for a day-I think 
I saw a street sign. You know, there's a certain point when you're pregnant
that you can look at a candy wrapper and think you've found a name. I mean, 
I could have named her Saccharine.

Has Piper done anything recently that you just didn't expect?
She must have seen Beauty and the Beast at her cousin's house, because she 
hasn't seen it with me. But lately, when you play games with her, you say,
"What's your name?" and she always say [coy, girlish voice], "I'm Beauty." 
I mean, that's so not who she is. [Contemplatively]She's constantly 
surprising me about how much of a girl she is. I was a tomboy. And she's a 
tomboy, too. I mean, I'd think she'd be more likely to play the Beast, and 
she's into playing Beauty. I guess that's my own projection. Because I would 
have definitely been the Beast. That's the power role, right?

Have you ever done something that you thought was funny at the time but
that you had to apologize for later on?
I'm a huge prankster. You know how the craft-services girl will walk around
the set with gumdrops or jelly beans or whatever? Well, there was this one 
jelly bean that had rolled around on the floor and been kicked by a few 
people. So I picked it up and I walked over to the dolly grip-who is a friend 
of mine-and I said,"Look, I've completely eaten too many of these jelly beans. 
Do you want this one?" So he put it in his mouth and ate it, and everyone went, 
"Ewwww." Right afterward, someone told him that it had been on the floor. 
[Pause] I felt so bad. I went up to him and said [remorsefully],"I'm sorry. 
Don't take it personally. I just don't know what got into me."

[Suddenly swings around and fixes her gaze on a lanky, shirtless man with quite 
well-defined abdominals as he slumps into a lounge chair by the pool]Hey you 
get to see David Duchovny in shorts![Laughs happily]

David and Téa Leoni recently got married. Were you surprised?
I was and I wasn't. At that point, I'd met Téa once and I knew just by the way 
they were together that there was something different about the relationship
than there'd been with the previous girlfriend. So when I heard, I wasn't 
surprised they got married. But I was sort of surprised that he didn't tell me 
first. But I won't tell him stuff, either. I mean, he's not in my life in that
way. He's a friend, and I care about him. And once in a while we share intimate
information. Basically, we just work together. What I also didn't expect is that 
he called me from New York when he was making his "I'm sorry I didn't tell you"
calls.

You walk very tall. Do you ever forget that you're only 5 feet 2?
It depends on how I feel about myself in a given moment. Sometimes I forget I'm 
short. Sometimes I totally feel how short I am.

Like when you have to stand on a box to do a scene with David Duchovny?
I don't have to stand on a box. Sometimes when we're in a situation walking side 
by side, like up to a door to pull out our badges and say we're from the FBI,
I have to step up onto something so that we're on the same level. I mean, I don't 
walk on boxes or have boxes attached to my feet. It's funny: Sometimes I forget 
that I'm on the box. Like, I'll have this very serious moment in a very serious
scene and I'll turn to the camera and fall right off the box.

But you're a former waitress. You should know what it's like to be spoken
in the wheel.
Well, I was a rude waitress.

Did your rudeness ever bite back?
Once, I worked at a health-food restaurant on Eighth Street in Manhattan. And 
a woman came in and ordered mixed fish stew. And it came and it had fish in it.
And she said, "I didn't know it had fish in it." And I said, "Mixed. Fish. Stew.
Which part didn't you get?" So she ordered something else. But I know that I 
made her feel like a piece of s---. Afterward, when she was getting ready to 
leave, she came up to me and put me in my place. She said, "You know what? That
wasn't OK. I'm a human being. I don't deserve that kind of treatment." And I 
felt sooo bad. [Pause]I'll always remember that moment, because she was 
completely right to confront me. She had no reason to be treated that way. I 
mean, we all make mistakes. At some point we all don't see the fish part in 
the mixed fish stew.  

This article was extracted from the October issue of US magazine. It is copyrighted material.


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