I used to adore Gillian Anderson, circa X-Files. I still do, she just hasn’t been around as much. In the mid to late 90s, she was the sh*t. I tried to copy her hair style, hair color, her look and her overall mystique. Agent Scully made smart logical women look kick ass and beautiful with a touch of vulnerability. I read a biography of Anderson about 15 years ago in which they either got direct quotes from her or compiled details from interviews. I remember that she admitted to being promiscuous in college, and I think I found an interview from 1996 that it may have been based on. Anderson said “Life was excruciatingly painful for years. I’d deal with it by being quite wild – promiscuous, drinking a lot. Anything and everything was fair game. Ninety nine per cent of college students do exactly the same, so why should I be any different? Some get caught up in it, and it doesn’t stop. Fortunately I was lucky and came out the other side.” I could definitely identify with that, as I went through a wild stage too.
In a new interview with Out Magazine, Anderson reveals that she had long term relationships with women when she was younger. She’s matter-of-fact about it, and about the fact that she didn’t consider herself gay. I admire that she’s being so open. Here’s more:
On being in a relationship with another girl when she was in high school
She recalls moving from England to Michigan, when she was 11, and discovering that she was no longer part of the tribe. “Going from London to a small Republican town like Grand Rapids was quite a shock,” she says. “I thought it would be a place of sunshine and happiness and candy bars.” In high school, she was voted “Most Bizarre” and “Most Likely to Be Arrested.” Both descriptions, says Anderson, contained a kernel of truth, “based on how I chose to look, dress, behave, you know—the relationships I was in at the time were freaking people out.” Invited to elaborate, she begins to list them: “I was in a relationship with a girl for a long time when I was in high school, and then I was in a relationship with a punk rock drug addict who…”Wait, a lesbian relationship? “Yeah, yeah, well it’s… You know, I’m old enough that I can talk about that,” she says, before resuming her list: “And then I was in a relationship with somebody who was way, way older than me. Everything that that kind of anarchistic attitude brings—the inappropriate behavior it leads to—was how I chose to be in the world at that time, which was, you know, not what people did.”
Much of this has been written before — how she dyed her hair purple, how she glued the school gates shut on graduation night, the drugs and alcohol — but her lesbian romance is something new. Understandably, she is wary of making a big deal of it, precisely because it is a big deal for so many people. “If I had thought I was 100% gay, would it have been a different experience for me?” she wonders. “Would it have been a bigger deal if shame had been attached to it and all those things that become huge life-altering issues for youngsters in that situation? It’s possible that my attitude around it came, on some level, from knowing that I still liked boys.”
Anderson says she has had relation-ships with other women, but they have been the exception, not the rule.
On losing her brother last year
Last September, Anderson’s younger brother died of a brain tumor at the age of 30. He was a Buddhist, and Anderson says the grace and spirit with which he approached his death has gifted her with a powerful legacy, one that has helped her resolve her own conflicting identities.“He left me with a vigilance for the truth in my life and a conscious, active shedding of everything that feels contrary to me,” she says. “There was an extraordinary period of time where we all got to be together for the last couple of weeks, and it had a sustained and profound effect on my life.”
I was touched at how she explained how profound it was to be with her young brother at the end of his life. She sounds so intelligent and yet not pretentious. You get the sense that she just speaks like that.
Anderson didn’t use male or female pronouns for the other people she was in relationships with when she was young, (the drug addict and the much older person) so it’s hard to know if she’s talking about men or women. I’ve mentioned before that I think sexual preference is on a continuum and that there are people in the middle who see relationships with the same sex as more of a choice. That’s what I get from her comments on it.
Anderson is set to star in “Great Expectations,” where she plays elderly stuck-in-the-past spinster, Miss Havisham. The BBC series has already aired in the UK and it’s set to air in the US, on PBS Masterpiece, on April 1 and 8. I am so looking forward to it!
Oh and I forgot to mention Anderson’s photoshoot with Out. It’s really pretty and has a kind of ethereal feel to it.
Anderson is shown at the BAFTA Awards on 2-12 and at the Elle Style Awards on 2-13-12. She’s also shown at London fashion week on 2-19-12. Credit: WENN.com
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Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.
But… Isn’t that half of Hollywood actors? Aren’t they all a bit bisexual by trade?
Although LOVE how Gillian words it. I think she is getting classier with age.
Has anyone watched the first season of the Crimson Petal and The White? She played “Sugar’s” mother and Madam. Did not recognize her at all at first!
She’s still so pretty. My 15yo and I watched the first two episodes of “X-Files” on Hulu last night. She hasn’t changed all that much. I wish she would be given the opportunity to do more. I’d love to see her back on TV on an HBO or Showtime program.
Really interesting interview. It would be interesting to watch a documentary (any suggestions?) on bisexual women and how they think about their sexuality. Between this and Cynthia Nixon’s comments a few weeks ago, it seems complicated. Seems to me (and they’d probably both disagree with my oversimplified statement), that both Nixon and Anderson are bisexual in the biological sense, and they each chose a sexual identity after some thought and exploration. I wonder if it varies based on age too, and younger people feel less of a need to make a choice. However, bisexual people are still looked down upon even within the gay community, so it’s a very particular identity situation.
Yes it is complicated, so many factors. Timing could be one, too. My sister got involved with a woman and I am sure it was because she was lonely and this woman pursued her and flattered her. She was attracted to her for a long time but could never commit to being a lesbian, because deep down she knew she was still also attracted to men. It eventually split them up and my sister is now married (to a man) and has a baby. And he worries about whether she might be attracted to a woman again.
My husband feels exactly the same way about me.
I think the problem is (if it can be considered a problem) that people have a primary, visceral attraction which plays into the self-definition of heterosexual or homosexual. People are, however, capable of having sex with people they are not lustful after and they can also (especially with women) enter into long term relationships with the same sex without feeling initially compromised that the passion is not there in the same way it would their preferential sex.
It’s the Kissing Jessica Stein effect and where a lot of feelings get hurt years down the road **cough-cough Anne Heche** when they start to miss the feelings they get, the passion of the preferred sex.
I had a very good girlfriend in college who was a lesbian, who asked me out–and I went. Ultimately, I didn’t let things get too far, not because I couldn’t have sex with a woman or because I was homophobic, but because I had the utmost respect for her and wanted the very best that life could give her. I could not do that. I would always be checking out the Chris Hemsworths of the world.
I also had a gay roomie who perhaps things went a little too far one night (boredom is a bitch) and when he suggested we give it a go, I said no for the same reason–that he would at some point want what I could not supply.
Relationships are hard enough without adding in these kinds of complications. When celebrities like Gillian or that Anna Paquin say stuff like this, it enables and encourages people to experiment–and I’m not against it, in and of itself. I wince for the lesbians and gay men who are someone’s experimental foray as they may continue to feel that attraction and passion long after the novelty wears off.
On one hand I see the need to let gay and lesbian children see that “they” are not alone, but on the other hand Gillian, Anna, and Evan Rachel Wood are with men in spite of their “bisexuality”. So what message does THAT send?
Very well said!
I think it’s different for everyone. I imagine a significant issue for bisexual men and women is that the outside world defines their sexuality based on their current partner, which is entirely unfair considering there’s much more to all of us than who we are currently sleeping with. So I imagine it can be a challenge and requires a fair bit of strength and self-confidence to have a firm self-identification in the face of other’s constantly changing opinions/perceptions of you.
What I gathered from Gillian’s comments is that she is probably somewhat bisexual but doesn’t feel as if her adolescent experience is comparable to a gay teen in the same era. I mean, most of us are probably aware on some level at 15 or 16 that the relationship we are in is unlikely to last forever. And I interpret her comment as meaning that she knew she could very well be with men in the future, which if she had identified as a lesbian, it can be very hard to acknowledge to yourself that there is no way you can be happy with the status quo. Especially in the 70s or 80s, when you see the choices as either be unhappy without love or be potentially ostracized, it’s not a pleasant choice. But for her, she didn’t feel those were her only options, so she didn’t have that same experience. At least that’s my interpretation.
In any case, my wife will be very pleased by this news. She still credits Agent Scully as a major flashbulb of self-realization. I think a lot of young lesbians in the 90s did, ha.
Wow, she really is a beautiful woman. I like the fact that she is open about her past instead of that whole I stayed home book worm/nerd/outcast/bullied, etc that so many female celebs stick too. I believe it in some of them but others I think they had their wild streak but may be too afraid to admit.
Hell, I went through my wild stage in college after I got out of a three year long relationship with my high school sweetheart. I regret nothing, I had my experiences good and bad but I look back at it in a learning lesson format with my curiousness quenched. There is an old saying that sometimes people forget the rest of “Curiousity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back”.
She has moments of looking like a Katie Couric/Felicity Huffman hybrid these days.
Have always appreciated how articulate she manages to be without sounding pretentious …..
I have often been told I look like her but I still have the red hair 🙂 I’m in the middle of the spectrum and label myself bisexual although I’m married to a man…I love how candid she is! I look forward to the day when same sex relationships are no longer a big deal
The first picture made me do a double take, because it looks so much like one I have of myself. I’m a natural blonde, and never even considered Gillian a celeb lookalike (huge dream in my XF fan days).
If we both resemble her, good for us!
great expectations was amazing, you should definitely watch it!
Agree! GA was great in it also. And the guy who plays Pip is prettier than the actress who plays Estella. He’s gorgeous.
I love this woman.
I love this woman. I’ve never been with a woman but if I ever did Gillian would be on my list she’s smart as hell sexy as hell and I think she’s talented as hell.
Agreed, I loved her hair…went that color myself lol.. Always loved her eyes & color also. That I couldn’t do…so stuck w/ my own green eyes. By then my Illnesses made contacts rather difficult to do as once did. She still looks amazing.. Remember reading she had purple hair in one of her first interviews & thought how cool, we both found the art of expression w/ our hair @ an early age. Just love her outlook then and as she has matured, and admitting she is still learning.
Aww.. misfit Skully!!! lol
She says she is not gay. She is Bi-sexual. To each their own. She sounds like she needed counselling and help at some time in her life and was grasping at straws. Sometimes people need help to cope with difficulties. I hope her life is great now.
So beautiful and such a great actress!
OMG! When she was on X-Files as Skully, I bet finding girls was like shooting fish in a barrel…
Sorry, but while I LOVED Scully, Gillian Anderson has always seemed…brash and rather dumb to me.
She is gorgeous. Wow. And she sounds like a class act. Love love love.
I did not know Aaron had died. Oh lord. I knew he had Neurofibromatosis (check out the NF Awareness and Fundraiser site!) but he seemded fine most of the time, according to Gillan. He was not as severely affected by the tumors as other patients…and now a brain tumor…I am shocked and sad. I hope she, her parents and Zoe are truly alright, but from what she said in the interview she seems at peace with it.
She was my first ever girl-crush when i was a teenager, now i found out she’s bi.. hahahaha
She is so pretty! She looks the same as she did 10 years ago when the Xfiles was on. I hope she doesn’t mess with her face and ruin her fabulous skin!
I love her even more