You kind of won over Chris Carter right away, but the network had a different idea of what kind of person they wanted to put opposite Duchovny who'd already been cast. What were you hearing as this evolved, where I believe you've got the guy on your side who's the most important, but they're still meeting with other actresses?
Well, at the very beginning neither leads had been cast. So, in the first few days it turns out that they were looking for the guy. And so, all the actresses who were there in the hallway waiting to go into the room with the producers were reading with various guys, of which Mr. Duchovny was one of them.
So he was cast, and then it was about casting the girl. And yes, I went into network. I had borrowed a suit. The suit was too big for me. They told me that I needed to come back wearing something a bit more streamlined. I think borrowed another suit or like pinned it up, I can't remember, and came back again to network. And then I was told that they liked me, but they weren't sure. Then the next time I got called back they'd also flown in Jill Hennessy and Cynthia Nixon from New York. All young women who I had been auditioning for theater with in New York when I was living in New York. Back then they weren't Cynthia Nixon and Jill Hennessy. I had to check my ego at the door. And then you know, as they say the rest is history. I was cast.
Do you know what swung it?
You know what, I have no idea. It could have been at the end of the day that Chris put his foot down. I don't know, it could have been so many different things. I don't know what it was. It could have been the chemistry between the two of us—
You know, which was there no matter what, for the next—
Did you feel that from the beginning that it was always there?
Yeah. Oh, definitely. Definitely. But, who's to say it wasn't also there with the other girls? I didn't know that.
Well, so that might be the beginning of the answer to the next question, but I'm just really curious. If you could try to step outside of yourself for a second, set aside humility and just honestly, objectively, what do you think explains the fact that this was such a phenomenon when it hit? What elements would you point to as explaining that?
Well, I think there were so many things that went into it. I do think at the top of the list would be the dynamic between the two of us. I do think that was strong, and I think that the writers then made it even stronger. At the end of every scene we were to look at each other, into each other's eyes. You know all that kind of stuff. And there was just the juxtaposition between Scully's nerdy, obsessive scientific mind and Mulder's cool dude, kind of underground brainiac chic. They were just very good juxtaposed characters. And then there was the chemistry.
Gillian Anderson on Awards Chatter podcast, 08/22/21
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