Gillian Anderson on The X-Files revival: “It’s strange to be back”

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

It's been many years since Gillian Anderson last stepped into the shoes of Dana Scully, but the process of putting them back on did not go as smoothly as Anderson had hoped. The X-Files revival series is currently shooting in Vancouver and the actress spoke with TVLine where she described the initial difficulties in returning to her most iconic role:

It feels like it’s been a long time since I’ve played her, I can’t remember what year the movie was, but it felt like [Scully] was further away from me than I’d thought she would be. But I’ve also worked really hard at putting her entirely to sleep, so that was successful; she’s just taken longer to wake up.

The revival series will consist of six-episodes, but at the moment Anderson has only seen the scripts for the first two. The experience of returning to the world of The X-Files has been a good one, but Anderson also commented that it's "strange to be back here. This is a lot of flashbacks, a lot of deja vu, a lot of remembering dynamics — and it’s… a thicker substance to wade through than I’d thought.” Gillian Anderson was then asked to describe the season premiere in three words:

‘Slow.’ ‘Intense.’ And it’s setting groundwork, so it’s got a particular role to play. It does exactly what it needs to do. What’s a single word for fulfilling that requirement? ‘Functional’? ‘Appropriate’? ‘Functional’ works. Slow, intense and functional!

As to how Agent Scully may have changed during her absence from our screens, Anderson struggled to come up with an appropriate response beyond saying "She's older! She aged!" but added that "anything I say is going to sound like something you’re not going to want to watch. But that’s not the case, it’s just… I don’t even know. That’s a hard one. I appreciate the question, but I can’t answer it."

The X-Files will return to Fox on January 24, 2016. So far we know that Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny will be joined by returning cast-members Mitch Pileggi and William B. Davis in addition to newcomers Joel McHale and Annet Mahendru.