American actress (born 1968)
Gillian Leigh Anderson (born 9 August 1968) is an American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files, Lily Bart in Terence Davies' film The House of Mirth, Lady Dedlock in the successful BBC production of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, and DSI Stella Gibson in the BBC crime drama television series The Fall.
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There are huge differences in the way male and female actors are perceived. Women have to be a certain size, in order to get good roles. The only successful, larger-than-average female actor I can think of is Kathy Bates. And once women reach a certain age, they can only expect one or two good roles per year, whereas male actors can continue working regularly well into their forties. Then there are the types of roles available to women. We're constantly depicted as sidekicks, ingenues, and hangers-on, rarely as independent and capable individuals. And the enormous, huge discrepancies in pay....the amounts that some male actors make are astronomically obscene. Women in Hollywood are constantly shown that there's a difference between them and men, and that that's okay. But it's not okay.
I like women a lot and I champion them. I tell people when they are beautiful, I tell other actresses when I think their work is amazing... So I think women feel relatively comfortable in my presence. Also, because I'm not perfect, you know? I've got flabby thighs, I'm aging and I'm 5ft 3in. I talk about my failing in contemporary society in terms of gyms or food or whatever. I think there's a polite appreciation that I'm honest.
“How do you have a child without being terrified all the time?”
“Well, that’s the big secret to parenting, Ben,” Caitlin whispered. “You are terrified all the time. You get used to it. It becomes part of the background. Except for the times when it stabs you through the heart.”
He gazed at her a moment, then looked down at his menu.
“That was probably the worst sales pitch ever for having kids,” he said.
I didn't really think too much about the fact that it was about aliens. I was intrigued by that aspect of it, but I was more intrigued by the relationship between Mulder and Scully, and how intelligent this woman was, and that she would stand up in the face of his intelligence and feel comfortable with him.