Scully no more: Gillian Anderson has had enough of The X-Files
Actress has played FBI special agent Dana Scully since the television series began in 1993, and says after the latest season beginning in March she will be taking on new roles and challenges
The truth is out there regarding the future of The X-Files, and it is not good for fans of the Fox show. Unless aliens kidnap Gillian Anderson and probe her into changing her mind, the current batch of 10 new episodes will be her last playing Dana Scully.
Back in October when Anderson suggested at the New York Comic Con this would be her last season, there was scepticism. Both Anderson and co-star David Duchovny had already come back for one short season of the series and were headed toward making another. Anderson has become so identified with the role the idea of her leaving seemed as realistic as a vampire, werewolf and a blood-sucking chupacabra walking into a bar.
It’s time to accept the truth. When the last of the 10 episodes in this latest season airs in March, Anderson will be moving on to other roles.
“It’s just that there’s lots of things that I want to do in my life and in my career, and it’s been an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary character, and I am hugely grateful. But there’s lots of other stuff I want to do, and I don’t really want to be tied down to months and months of doing any particular one thing that I feel like I’ve done,” Anderson says. “I like to be challenged as an actor, and I like to do many, many different characters, and that’s why I got into the business.
“I’ve done this now for decades, and it’s time for me to hang up Scully’s hat. It just is. The next couple years are quite full, and there’s lots of different things that I want to do and I’m being asked to do, and I want to be able to explore them without being tied to a series. It’s really quite simple.”
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That other stuff Anderson wants to do started after the original run of The X-Files came to an end. Since then, she’s starred in Hannibal, The Fall, American Gods, Crisis and War & Peace. Anderson has two movies, including Andorra, scheduled to be released this year.
