INTERVIEW
Actor, author, entrepreneur – Gillian Anderson is unstoppable. Her secret? Learning to embrace fear
GILLIAN ANDERSON
The letters are extraordinary’ enthuses Gillian Anderson over Zoom from Marrakech, where she is enjoying a few days’ downtime after the BAFTAs. We’re talking about her new book, Want, a ‘contemporary version’ of Nancy Friday’s genre-defining 1973 book about female desire, My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies.
Featuring 174 anonymous letters addressed to Anderson, Want will be published later this year. (She’s previously co-authored a science fiction trilogy and a non-fiction manifesto for young women.) ‘They are just a tiny cross-section [of the thousands of letters] we received from all over the world.’ It’s painful culling so many heartfelt missives, she admits, but, ‘I want women to be able to carry it around in their handbag and get it out on the train.’
Want isn’t Anderson’s only endeavour of late: last year, she co-launched G Spot, a sparkling low-sugar soft drink that comes in four flavours, or rather themes – Soothe, Lift, Protect and Arouse – containing adaptogens (which reduce stress) and nootropics (which enhance cognitive function). At the time, Anderson, teetotal for the last two decades, was trying to wean herself off Coca Cola and finding ‘everything I tried was not doing the trick’. She’s thrilled with the result, which is ‘incredibly tasty. And they do what they say on the tin – they give you a really good boost. My team – which is 10 people! A lot of people! Suddenly, out of nowhere’ are producing G Spot ‘in small batches’ and it’s ‘selling out and selling out’, she says, pleased.
Did she plan this kink in her career path or was it organic? ‘It certainly wasn’t a space I’d been dreaming about,’ she laughs. ‘Organic is a good word for it. So much of it stems from Jean Milburn.’ Ahhh, Jean Milburn: Anderson’s stonkingly intelligent, charismatic and self-sufficient sex therapist in cult show Sex Education. There’s something so pleasing about Anderson taking this role – and this kink in her career path – when she was about to turn 50 (she is now 55) at a time when we’ve been led to believe women should be slowing down, not ramping up.
Anderson’s latest project is upcoming movie Scoop, an adaptation of former Newsnight producer Sam McAlister’s memoir, specifically the part where she writes about securing that Prince Andrew interview in 2019. ‘We all know the story,’ says Anderson. But it’s still ‘so propulsive. When the interview suddenly started, I gasped. Which is crazy, because I was there [filming it].’
Anderson is excellent as the w
