Gillian Anderson : Biography
Gillian Leigh Anderson was born August 9, 1968 in Chicago but soon after her birth her family moved to Puerto Rico for fifteen months and then to Crouch End in London. When she was eleven, her family moved again, this time to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she attended City Middle/High School, a program for gifted students with a strong emphasis on the humanities. With her English accent and background, she felt out of place in the American Midwest, and developed a reputation as a strong-willed and rebellious teenager. She had her nose pierced in the early 1980s, dyed her hair various colors, and was once arrested for gluing the locks of the school closed.
She found an outlet for her talents when she began acting in high school and community theater productions. She attended Goodman Theater School of Drama at DePaul University in Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1990
Gillian Anderson: Career
Anderson made her film debut in 1992 with the low-budget drama The Turning. She then appeared in a theatrical production of The Philanthropist and after that moved to Los Angeles. Though she was frequently courted for television roles, Anderson disdained the medium until the X-Files audition came along. Though the producers were looking for a brainy version of a Baywatch girl, the beautiful but more natural looking (having long passed her outrageous days) Anderson got the role thanks to the insistence of the show's creator Chris Carter. The show became a smash hit within two seasons and Anderson found herself an international star, as did her co-star David Duchovny, the subject of numerous pages on the Internet, and the recipient of such awards as a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In addition to continuing work on the X-Files, Anderson hosted a couple of television specials, including More Secrets of the X-Files and the BBC documentary series Future Fantastic. She also lent her voice as a documentary narrator on Spies Above and as a guest character on the television series The Simpsons and Reboot
Gillian Anderson: Movies
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005), The Mighty Celt (2005), The House of Mirth (2000), Princess Mononoke (1999), Playing By Heart (1998), The Mighty (1998), Chicago Cab (1998), The X-Files (1998), The Turning (1997)
