I always thought The X-Files was overrated, and I’ve never liked its stars, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. To this day, any possible appreciation I might conceivably have for their current work is marred by the memory of seemingly constant bickering about how miserable they were to be locked into the show that made them famous. Not that either one of them has landed a lot of work after the series ended — gee, do you think there’s any correlation there?

 Now Gillian Anderson (here’s a photo of the only time she’s ever looked even remotely attractive) is back publicly badmouthing the very show that made anyone care what she might ever have to say. Even as Duchovny seems to be endorsing the idea of another X-Files movie, his dour co-star is haughtily bitching about how much she hated the whole experience. 

From an interview in the London Telegraph’s Stella magazine:

‘I spent nine years on a film set,’ she says, her voice rising sharply on great gusts of indignation. ‘Nine f—ing years! To begin with it was all right, but gradually it all became incredibly gossipy and incestuous. It’s like living in this disgusting microcosm when everything becomes condensed like that.’

‘But surely you must have quite liked it to have stayed that long?’ I suggest. Once again, it rapidly becomes clear that I’ve said the wrong thing. Anderson sweeps her hair back, revealing a glimpse of tattoo on the inside of her wrist, and looks at me in astonishment. Her eyes are now open very wide indeed.

‘What are you talking about?’ she demands. ‘I couldn’t get out of it; I didn’t have a choice. I had to sign a contract for five and a half years before I even went to my last audition – when I didn’t even know if I’d got the part. Back then I was all innocent and I thought, “Wow, that sounds wonderful.” But then, when I started, I realised I’d be in a Canadian wood working 16 hours a day for nine months a year. And the reason I stayed so long was because the only way I could get more money was to commit myself to doing it for another couple of years.’

Boo-fucking-hoo. Those nine years are the very reason you can afford to sit around and, you know, not work very much.

But wait, there’s more. She complains about doing “this terrible f—ing cheesy game show called Hollywood Squares. It just made me want to throw up.” Well, what did you expect, you silly little twit?

Here’s another sterling exchange:

‘So you mean you’d never do another big American series again – no matter how good the money was?’

‘Oh, shut the f— up!’ she cries. ‘Are you kidding me? My God, I don’t even watch television. I don’t like television. I never have liked it. The whole concept of sitting down in front of a TV feels like one of things that’s destroying society as far as I’m concerned.’

Ah, the trite and ridiculous TV bias again. Because, you know, sitting in front of a movie screen is so much different. Stuffing popcorn into your maw, putting up with idgits talking during the movie, the chirping of cell phones — all so you can sit through two hours of what will very likely be crap. Yes, Anderson’s new movie Straightheads — in which she plays a woman who’s gang-raped and, according to the article, “ends up ramming a loaded shotgun up the bottom of one of her assailants” — is bound to be so much more artistically rewarding than, say, The Shield or The Sopranos. Ah, the choice roles that make themselves available to you when you go around pissing on the property (and the medium) that kept you from working the deep fryer at Burger King. How tiresome are these ingrates like Anderson, Duchovny and this baldheaded Chris Daughtry fellow who can’t stop bitching about American Idol — the show that (wait for it) made him a star.

I’m so dreadfully bored with this trollop, but I’ll leave you with one final quote.

‘When I look back, there are various things I did that make me cringe. But then I’m sure that in my sixties I’ll look back at how I am now and also cringe.’

We can only hope.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 7:06 pm and is filed under What's Shaking, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.