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Gillian Anderson and I share a connection unlike any other. The Dana Scully to my Fox Mulder, we are the only ones who understand what the other was going through during those X-Files years. But so much was left unsaid — until now. We got a chance to open up about the ways we might have failed one another during that wild ride, and we both examine the ways we’ve grown since. Gillian also caught me up on all her ventures and adventures — her work, her writing in the sexual fantasy compilation Want, and her cheeky new “unconventional wellness” line of soft drinks. It’s good to rediscover an old friend.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson

David Duchovny  00:00

Hi, I’m David Duchovny, and this is Fail Better, a show where failure, not success, shapes who we are. Gillian Anderson is an actor, activist and writer, probably best known for her role as Dana Scully. How do you pronounce that in the X Files? Yes, alongside me, David Duchovny. Fox Malder, Jillian has received critical acclaim for her work in stage productions, like A Streetcar Named Desire, and in the popular shows Sex Education and The Crown, among others. She’s championed a lot of charity work in her life, more than I’d have time to mention. And she’s also published half a dozen books since The X Files wrapped, including a fantasy trilogy. Her most recent book is called want, which is a collection of anonymous fantasies from women around the world. She has a line of beverages called G spot, which she brought with her to the studio where we recorded we have a wide ranging conversation coming up, and we go through the past, we go through the future, and we even touch upon the present. This was a really nice conversation, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk so easily and candidly after all these years. Here’s Gillian Anderson.

 

Gillian Anderson  01:14

How many liquids do I have here? David Duchovny?

 

David Duchovny  01:17

Can I count well carbonated water, still water, some kind of big green thing, coffee, sweet and tea.

 

Gillian Anderson  01:25

Unsweetened tea. It’s kind of good. And then guess what this is?

 

David Duchovny  01:29

I hope it’s a G spot. I’m glad we’re doing radio.

 

Gillian Anderson  01:33

Yeah, I’m actually going to share it with you, because.

 

David Duchovny  01:35

Tell me about this one. It’s like a lavender, isn’t it?

 

Gillian Anderson  01:41

It is indeed, that’s because of butterfly pee.

 

David Duchovny  01:45

Is that right?

 

Gillian Anderson  01:46

Yeah, absolutely.

 

David Duchovny  01:48

Is that actually right?

 

Gillian Anderson  01:49

That is actually right.

 

David Duchovny  01:51

I’m drinking butterfly pee.

 

Gillian Anderson  01:53

Yeah, you are.

 

David Duchovny  01:54

Can you tell me why that’s good for me?

 

Gillian Anderson  01:57

It is an aphrodisiac, which is what this particular drink is called a rouse, because it is actually an aphrodisiac. It’s got l Citroen and l organine in it, which I think expands the blood vessels so it gives you a little rush of blood to the head. I might be making that up, but it works.

 

David Duchovny  02:18

I’ll wait until it will clink, and we’ll, cheers. Thanks for coming on.

 

Gillian Anderson  02:25

Thanks for having me.

 

David Duchovny  02:29

Well, that’s nice. It’s refreshing. I love you branching out into other areas. It’s impressive and it’s inspiring. I have your your want book here, which I have to say, I love the cover.

 

Gillian Anderson  02:44

Good cover, right?

 

David Duchovny  02:45

I love the cover.

 

Gillian Anderson  02:45

Yeah, that was Bloomsbury.

 

David Duchovny  02:47

Yeah I want to thank you for coming on and, you know, reaching out at the time you did, and saying you like the podcast, and, you know, it would be nice to come on and all that. And I was just wondering, what was it that you thought might be good about coming on the podcast?

 

Gillian Anderson  03:04

Oh, when I first started listening and had reached out to you, I wasn’t thinking about it necessarily in terms of me or talking to you about the book. It was more of just of really enjoying it and listening to the depth of your conversations that you were getting them to with people and appreciating that I felt like I was learning more about you than I than I knew, or than I ever knew.

 

David Duchovny  03:30

Isn’t that interesting? Because I thought having you on today, I obviously I know you. We know each other very deeply, and yet we don’t know each other either, yes, in some, some weird way. And I thought, What am I looking forward to today? I’m looking forward to to that. Yeah, you know, even if it’s just, even if it’s just biographical, I don’t know that we ever sat down and said, No, hey, what was your childhood?

 

Gillian Anderson  03:56

Yeah, no, we didn’t. And why would we we were busy.

 

David Duchovny  04:00

We were busy, but maybe, maybe early on we did, but I don’t remember, and.

 

Gillian Anderson  04:07

That might be something that you do when you’re older, or you appreciate knowing those details about people, maybe when you’re older than you might not when you’re younger. I don’t know.

 

David Duchovny  04:15

yeah, but I’m looking forward to that part as well. And I was just wondering, you know, with the the topic above the podcast is about failure. If you actually thought about that before you came on today and you thought, oh, I would talk about that thing or that.

 

Gillian Anderson  04:32

I will talk about all my failures.

 

David Duchovny  04:34

No, open one of them, the failure, whatever it was. But that’s, that’s, that’s cool, that we’re on the same page. I think,

 

Gillian Anderson  04:45

Yeah, I mean, I was looking forward to coming on to, more than anything, just to explore, as you say, a conversation that I don’t feel like we ever had. But also you’re right that we have a closeness that we don’t have with probably many other people, and went through something that we didn’t go through with any other people. I mean, yes, they were crew and etc, but in terms of our experience as actors, and so I thought it would be a curious investigation.

 

David Duchovny  05:21

Yeah, the part of this conversation that is the trickiest part for me is, I guess I would talk about like my failure of friendship, or my failure of companionship, or just co starring Ness. There was a long time working on the show where we were just not even dealing with one another off camera, yeah, and there was a lot of tension, which didn’t, didn’t matter, apparently, for the work, because we’re both fucking crazy, I guess that we could, we could just go out there and do what we needed to do.

 

Gillian Anderson  05:57

Yeah, that is kind of crazy.

 

David Duchovny  06:02

It’s nuts, but, but we were so busy, and it was like.

 

Gillian Anderson  06:04

I mean, it’s crazy that we were able to present on camera that, you know, the various feelings and emotions and attraction and all that kind of stuff, but then not speak to each other for weeks at a time or whatever.

 

David Duchovny  06:19

It’s very odd.

 

Gillian Anderson  06:20

Isn’t it?

 

David Duchovny  06:21

But in a way, maybe it was smart, I don’t know, because we’re, like, saving it up. I don’t know, but I could have handled myself better, you know. And as you know, we went through a crazy making kind of a process with this thing. We went from, I mean, I was pretty inexperienced, you were really an experience. And all of a sudden, you know, it’s hard to imagine, like with the internet now, but it was like a global phenomenon before the internet, and we’re just scurrying trying to figure out who we are. You’re a little younger than me, too. You’re very young, at least. I’m in my 30s, you’re in your 20s, just turning the world upside down completely. So I think we both kind of, I don’t want to speak for you, but for me, it was I was trying to figure out who I am and all this. What’s my part in this? I want to take advantage of it, you know, like, how do I make this into my career? You know? Yeah, that kind of stuff. And I quit the show, you know, like, seven years later, yeah, I never apologized to you for that. I don’t, I don’t know that I even talked to you about and then then you said you weren’t going to do the show anymore, like, the last time we did it. And I know that hurt my feelings. Oh, I didn’t know that, yeah. And I don’t know if I hurt your feelings the first time I quit, you know, it wasn’t so much. I get it, you know. Like, okay, and I support it, whatever it is you want to do. But I was like, Oh, she’s quitting me, you know. Like, like, she doesn’t like working with me anymore was, you know. So it was like, that little kid inside is going, like, hey, you know. And then I was like, but I didn’t say anything to her back in the day, you know.

 

Gillian Anderson  08:06

Can I speak to some of that?

 

David Duchovny  08:07

Please, I’m fucking talking so much.

 

Gillian Anderson  08:13

I mean, I think back when I mean, communication is everything. It’s everything and and yet, it’s really hard. It’s hard to be vulnerable. It’s hard to I know that anytime that I anytime that I tried to express myself, I then almost the standing up for myself almost felt worse than keeping it inside that suddenly.

 

David Duchovny  08:48

Because of my reaction.

 

Gillian Anderson  08:49

No, I think I, I it was like it allowed the fear to come in. It allowed you spoken at the being i Yeah, and so suddenly, rather than being able to hold it together and push through it and just, you know, not deal with it, I think that’s how I dealt as a child, was, just, don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it. Just, you know, just deal and so if I continue to do that, I know how to do that the minute I speak to my my my fear or my concern or or I am suddenly my knees go weak and I’m wait and I can’t do the scene. Is like, if I if I don’t speak to it, I can do my work. If I do speak to it, I’m weakened, and my voice goes and and I couldn’t show up for myself so.

 

David Duchovny  09:40

I’m the exact opposite, like, if I can just say it, I don’t even have to, you don’t have to say you’re right or you’re wrong, whatever. I’m just like, Okay, now I can do it, but I did now.

 

Gillian Anderson  09:52

Nope. see, but I know, but I see I can do that now, but back then, I think, as a 20, whatever, year old, yeah, I couldn’t, like.

 

David Duchovny  10:00

Well, I couldn’t as a 30, whatever, year old, yeah, and it’s still not easy, because I don’t like confrontation. You know, I grew up in a family as well that confrontation was dangerous, like, I had a fragile parent who, if I confronted that parent, shit could happen, you know, bad shit could happen in the family or whatever. So, every time I’m I’m in a situation where I’m going to stand up for myself or confront I get those, you know, those feelings, they’re they’re my body. Do you remember I have an image of, like, the most dysfunctional we ever were? Tell me No, but I want you to think maybe you have it too. I want to know if it’s the same one, or you can give me your one. You can think about yours while I tell you mine.

 

Gillian Anderson  10:47

Tell me, unless you unless you know, please, I don’t have anything immediately.

 

David Duchovny  10:51

It was some Emmys, and it was the day after, and I had a private plane, and I was giving you a ride. Oh, and you were late, and I was so angry. And then we sat on this private plane flying to Vancouver from LA, not talking, and you wrote me a letter. So you’re just like, six feet away from me writing a letter to me. Oh, that she gives me, and it’s a beautiful letter. I don’t remember it exactly, but it was like it was appreciative, and it was like it was all the things that I wanted to hear, right, right? But it’s just amazing that we couldn’t just have it. You know, the fact that it’s a private plane, it’s just all ridiculous.

 

Gillian Anderson  11:36

I had no memory that we were even on a private plane together, let alone, yeah, I wrote you have a letter on one interesting.

 

David Duchovny  11:43

The other one early on, and this is, this is so funny to think about with Chris, because I think we were kind of butting heads so early on in the first season that Chris asked us if we would go into fake couples. Yeah, like, would we go into like, TV character couple therapy? I remember sitting in his office with you, really, and Chris is like, yeah, do you guys want to go, like, into therapy? And I was like, You mean as Mulder and Scully or I’m confused. And yeah, I remember that, yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  12:24

I don’t remember that because such a bad memory. I’m trying to think of any I just remember, I mean, our hours.

 

David Duchovny  12:33

Well, yeah, I mean, it would make you insane to try to do it, sleep deprivation. You were pregnant as well in the first year you had a baby, the first year, I mean, I can’t imagine that you could remain sane. Okay, at whatever age you were, 2024, and you get pregnant, you’re you’re on a show that blows up. Your dreams are coming true, in a way, but it’s also a nightmare now, and.

 

Gillian Anderson  13:01

Getting a divorce.

 

David Duchovny  13:02

You’re that’ll happen when you have a baby.

 

Gillian Anderson  13:07

I mean, yeah, I mean, there. I do remember I just bawled my eyes out, you know.

 

David Duchovny  13:15

But I don’t know how you would keep straight thought in your head. And I do remember you coming into my trailer and telling me you were pregnant. I remember that too. You remember that?

 

Gillian Anderson  13:23

Yeah, I think it was the same day that blue had been spayed. I think I do, yeah, but it’s hard under those circumstances. I think to you know, it required us to be, you know, Uber adults very quickly and and I have to imagine that under those extreme circumstances, that the only thing that at times, that’s going to want to come out is actually our Child and not and not our Adult at all.

 

David Duchovny  14:28

This is kind of about failure. We missed a chance to, you know, have a what’s the word? I’m looking for an asset or, you know, because you’re the only person that knows what I was going through, and I’m the only person that knows that knows what you’re going through, and we didn’t make use of that. Yeah, you know, it reminds me, like in my lifetime, my dad and I didn’t really do it, and he’s dead now, and I can’t. So there’s things that you can miss if you don’t, if you don’t try to stand up and say. I, you know, just be vulnerable and say I’d like to know what it’s like for you. Yeah, I know that. I never asked that.

 

Gillian Anderson  15:11

Yeah, me, neither. To your point about you ending now you I mean, we never talked about it. I don’t think I ever blamed you. I think I there was part of me that.

 

David Duchovny  15:27

Are you talking about the first one?

 

Gillian Anderson  15:30

Yeah. I didn’t, I don’t think I blamed you at all. I don’t think I was upset.

 

David Duchovny  15:38

Well, thanks a lot.

 

Gillian Anderson  15:40

Yeah, I mean, I knew, I mean, that there was a point. I mean, for me at that time, it was, can I too, you know, I thought, at first I thought, well, then we’re both going to, because clearly I can’t go on without him, so surely I’ll be able to. And then they started talking about, well, if you stay on, you can actually make some good money. Kind of went, Oh, okay, well, David. But also, to the later point was it was never clear to me that there was a desire for the new series to be multiple seasons. It wasn’t until I we were, I think we did like we were promoting it, or we were somewhere and we were sitting on chairs, and somebody asked, and I said, Oh, no, no, this is all I’m this is all I’m doing after this. And it was the first time that I got the sense of like, Oh, am I the only one that thinks that everybody else seems really disappointed that I’ve just declared that.

 

David Duchovny  16:42

But it was, for me, it was always just, I didn’t even address I wouldn’t, I don’t even address it. It’s like, okay, we’re doing this, and then we’re doing that’s just the stupid way I go through life anyway. So it, it felt a little bit like, Okay, done with you guys, you know, and I know that’s not what you meant, rationally, I knew that.

 

Gillian Anderson  17:06

The end was problematic though. I mean, it was problematic storyline wise, particularly for Scully, and I wasn’t really enjoying the direction that it was heading. It didn’t feel and yet there was, you know, I didn’t have a voice in it, and so I was not just anything. I felt like I needed to move on to something where I might have more of a voice.

 

David Duchovny  17:28

Oh, yeah, I understand that. I mean, for me, I never knew, if we’re being honest about, like, where this story goes. You know, it was originally like, you getting pregnant, that actually opened it up into realms that I don’t think Chris ever thought it was gonna go, you know, in a way that kind of serendipity. Wrong word, yeah, but you having to disappear, yeah, for a very short time, but you did have to disappear, yeah, kind of opened up this whole mythology thing that we eventually got into. So I never knew where that was going anyway. I mean, I wasn’t part of that planning either. I think, I mean, my point of view, and you can have, you know, your judgment of it is yours. I was just like, Well, what else can happen? You know, I guess I could get pregnant, I guess, I mean, on this show, yeah, or Jillian can get pregnant, or one of us can die. I mean, we’re kind of backs against the wall. We’ve done everything else, yeah, I didn’t know. So it didn’t affect me in the in the same way it didn’t. It didn’t offend me in the way I feel like you were offended. if you know what I mean.

 

Gillian Anderson  18:48

Yeah, I think offended might be too strong a term. It was more it felt like Scully trajectory was no longer one of strength and agency. It felt like it was beholden to an old idea of of what a woman is, and that’s all she could talk about. Literally all she could talk about was William, and that’s literally like a one track, a one track song.

 

David Duchovny  19:27

Yeah it’s interesting to me that you felt trapped there, because I always embraced, you know, because Mulder was not traditionally masculine, so I always felt kind of free in that area. And there were some times, you know, during the run of the show where I wanted to be more masculine, because I was like, hey, I want, you know, people to see me as, like an action hero here, you know, like, why the fuck am I losing my gun all the time? Yeah, scholarly saving me every fucking week. You know, like, I I totally get, and I think I said, I would have said that to the right. Are sometimes like, you know, hey, let me win a fist fight. Can I win one fist fight, so I get that.

 

Gillian Anderson  20:06

Yeah I mean, one of the things that’s come up so much in talking around the drinks brand and talking around the wider conversation is, you know, there’s, there’s with the drinks. There is a, you know, its own Instagram feed and etc, and they’re caught. My my team, my G Spot team, is constantly trying to populate it with stuff.

 

David Duchovny  20:29

Can’t believe you just said my G spot, but I think we should all have a G spot. I’m not comfortable hearing it, but go ahead. Do you have more of the drink? It’s good because I don’t know if it’s making me horny, but it is making me want to pollinate a flower.

 

Gillian Anderson  20:48

That was a tiny bit of butterfly. You know, when they would populate the Instagram feed with stuff related to me. So every once, in a way, it’s mostly not related to do with the drinks and the ingredients and this, that and the other. But then every once in a while, there’s a pic of me, or there’s something, and at one point they, they were curious about the whole Scully effect thing, and I found my brain going, you know, that’s old news. Like, like, who cares? Like, with, you know, that’s been a, you know, I’ve heard about that for so long, and then I suddenly realized for most of whether it’s talking about the Scully effect, or whether it’s talking about pay equity, or whether it’s talking about coming back to work after 10 days, after a season, or any of the things that for so Long press has wanted me to continue to talk about that. I’ve said I don’t want to talk about that like I’m not enough already. Okay, all of a sudden I started to realize it’s actually still a thing. These are still things. Pay Equity is still a conversation and and the fact that a character, a particular kind of character might have such an impact on particularly young women going into, you know, having an interest suddenly in STEM and that they are still being impacted by that, and it’s still a thing. Rather than running away from it. Why don’t I run towards it and actually welcome that conversation? And so therefore, in welcoming those conversations, and instead of, you know, saying, you know, yes, I’ve fought for pay equity back then and wanting to leave it in my past, really, for the first time, agreeing to engage in the conversation. And I think there are certain things around women’s empowerment, around the topic of feminism, around you know, that I have engaged in, instinctively and intuitively and almost had like a knee jerk reaction to in terms of self preservation, but I’ve never qualified it before, and part of what these conversations are asking of me is almost where I stand in all of that, in a way that I have not wanted To embrace or put my head above the parapet, necessarily, and I feel like in the process of talking about empowering other women, it’s empowering me too. I feel like it’s making me feel stronger in my voice, that I might actually have a little something to say based on experience, but also based on what I’m suddenly realizing I actually feel is really important, and I’ve shied away from so much of that for so long.

 

David Duchovny  23:54

And I think also you I’m gonna what I’m hearing, and if you’re like me, it’s like, What the fuck does that do with what I do? You know? It’s like, Yeah, I’m an actor, yeah, you know, like, I want to think about that. You know, that’s what I love to do. It’s tough for me to navigate that, but I hear what you’re saying, and I appreciate that. And you know, I was that whole pay equity thing, you know, that’s in our past as well, I was part of that, you know, and yeah, and that, that it’s kind of gets, yeah, I think we should, like, maybe go into this area. Selfishly, back then, I thought I was, like, being attacked. You know, when I, when I thought, you know, like, Oh, I’m being attacked for being offered more money. When, in fact, behind the scenes, I think, you know, I was like, eventually, favorite nations and all that, so, but.

 

Gillian Anderson  24:54

Attacked by who?

 

David Duchovny  24:55

The world?

 

Gillian Anderson  24:56

Oh, really?

 

David Duchovny  24:57

Yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  24:57

What did they blamed you in some way?

 

David Duchovny  24:59

In a way, yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  24:59

Oh, really, I didn’t know that.

 

David Duchovny  25:01

Yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  25:02

I’m sorry.

 

David Duchovny  25:03

No, but it’s probably just me maybe.

 

Gillian Anderson  25:06

That’s interesting, that I wasn’t paying attention to that side of it.

 

David Duchovny  25:10

Well, I didn’t make you pay attention to it. And that that kind of gets into, you know, you brought it back to kind of the way we’re raised and and childhood, and those you know, these kind of situations that arise in our lives to make us confront, you know, lack you know, if we can extend to one another grace of you know, children trying to figure it out, then I think we can reach more forgiveness and more understanding, not to excuse bad behavior, but to try to understand it, I think sometimes, and I wanted to learn a little bit about your childhood, you know, and whatever you want to share, you know, and that, because I feel like the the standards of success and failure are set early. Like, what I’m little kid, I have an idea of what a success is and what a failure is, and those are hard to shake, you know. Like, for me, it would have been athletics, you know. So I got my failure out of the way early. So it’s like everything else is like, Oh well, it’s second best, whatever. Yeah, you know, yeah. And I wonder what, you know, you growing up, what was the dream? What was the the wake up of, like, life is harder than I thought it was going to be.

 

Gillian Anderson  26:29

Yeah, I mean, when I was growing up in in the UK, we lived in, you know, apartments and apartment buildings and with, you know, an outdoor loo. And I think my parents were always, for a long time, really, really struggling financially and and then we moved to the States when I was 11 because my dad had a job offer and he was going to chase the American dream of potentially getting rich quick. And dad is English. No, he’s American, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, so we moved to London so he could go to London Film School, so he could go, yeah. So they were very young parents, yeah. So they were, I think my mom was 26 when she had me, and they were just out of college. We were in Chicago. They were my dad was going to university. My mom was a social worker, and when I was six months old, he decided he wanted to go to film school, and he said to my mom, do you want to go to California or London? And she said, London. And so we then moved to Puerto Rico for about 15 months because my grandparents were living there, and my parents wanted to save money so that we could afford to move to London. And so we moved in with grandparents in Puerto Rico for about 15 months, and then we moved to the UK. And so, you know my childhood, but you know it felt, you know, very much low income household, and moving to the States was meant to be. My dad went ahead for a year. He traveled to the states to kind of set up base, and that’s in Michigan, yeah, and growing up is Michigan, found a condominium for us to move into. And we were always going to move back to the UK. It was going to be temporary.

 

David Duchovny  28:21

You know, my family went through a similar thing. Yeah, no, my parents, my mother, Scottish. Yeah. Was Scottish, and the plan was always to move to London, actually.  And when they got divorced, instead of moving.

 

Gillian Anderson  28:34

Oh, wow, when? Yeah, how old were you? Oh, interesting.

 

David Duchovny  28:39

Yeah, so I was, I really didn’t want to move to London because I didn’t play soccer and they didn’t play basketball and baseball. That shows you what my world was. Yeah, I was terrified that I was going to have to yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  28:52

So they got divorced and said, which is even scarier, and then having to play soccer. So we moved to Grand Rapids, and I think there were a lot of hopes and dreams about what that was going to be like.

 

David Duchovny  29:09

Did that feel like a dislocation to you at that age? Do you remember that?

 

Gillian Anderson  29:15

I remember being excited by it, and then the scales fell, and I, you know, I think I struggled more than that, my parents, perhaps knew, went through a very, you know, some really difficult periods, and then found, found The punk rock scene. And there was something in that that answered, something for me, that fed something for me, that appealed to the angst that was building up inside me, and my feeling of being an outsider and displaced and and I think I had quite a fair amount of anger. But then, when I found acting. Theater initially, that definitely opened up something in me, and I felt like all of a sudden, there was something I could do, and I had purpose. But one early area of failure for me, which is interesting, which is that when I went to university, I went to the Goodman theater school. It’s a four year program, and we are, I think they initially invited about 40 kids, and then by the fourth year, it’s down to 20. You have to be invited back a rear. But the plays that I was cast in during those four years were only the ones that took place in the classrooms, they were never on the main stages. So for me, that whole period of time felt like perpetual failure that I wasn’t you know the girl that was my closest friend, Chris de Strutz, that’s a name kept getting cast, and was cast as the lead in the misanthrope and the lead in this and the big, you know, and I was always stuck in the classrooms doing shows, and obviously, the irony is that I went on to have an acting career, and that has continued and.

 

David Duchovny  31:20

What was your conception of acting at that point? What was your method, as opposed to how you work now, how you how you taught yourself later on through work?

 

Gillian Anderson  31:32

Um, you know when you’re in, when you’re in acting school, you, you know, you’re encouraged to think about the voice and think about the movement and think about all the the aspects of the tool that is you being honed. And I guess to a certain degree, I still rely on some of those things that I learned back then, just in terms of, you know, being interested in immersing myself in all of those aspects, and so I think I probably use, I don’t think it’s much different than it was back then. I think I start earlier. I try and start as early as possible. I know for myself, at least with something like Thatcher, I was terrified, absolutely terrified of that, and so I knew that I was going to start at the earliest possible moment to give myself a chance.

 

David Duchovny  32:33

Yeah I remember you telling me about that in the makeup trailer when we were working on whatever reboot it was.

 

Gillian Anderson  32:41

No, really, oh, sure.

 

David Duchovny  32:43

Get to work on that.

 

Gillian Anderson  32:46

Yeah. And what about you? Do you? Is there anything?

 

David Duchovny  32:52

Did you have I learned anything?

 

Gillian Anderson  32:54

Did you go to a formal theater school?

 

David Duchovny  32:56

No, not a school, but I took classes, I guess with the first class was with a woman named Marcia how frecht, and she was Strasburg technique, which is known as the method. And then I also took with a guy named Robert Modica, who taught Meisner technique.

 

Gillian Anderson  33:17

I love Meisner, yeah, so it’s probably the one that I respond to the most, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  33:22

Yeah, so they were both very, very different. And, I mean, for me, it’s, it’s really having, having enough options on the day, whatever’s working, you know, it’s like, it’s, that’s the exciting part about it. To me, it’s like, I’m not, I’m not exactly sure that this is going to work today, so, but, you know, having gone through it enough times, I know that I have other options to try out, you know, as I get older with it, you know, it all just comes back down to relaxation, you know, and Just allowing relaxation and also failure, obviously, the the the willingness to fail, you know, in the moment, like at first, you know, like when we started, I would have been mortified to fail, you know, in front of the crew, which is weird, because it’s, you know, it’s not even, it’s just the thing that’s happening here with cameras looking at it, you know, it’s like, it’s, that’s not the performance, but it really was for me, getting to a point where, you know, I’m just gonna do, try some things out, and, you know, give it a little time, you know, to figure it out. So just been relaxation into that. You know, not being ashamed, you know, not being ashamed of failing in the moment, yeah, but it’s lifelong stuff, you know, because shame just doesn’t go away because you want it to.

 

Gillian Anderson  34:48

And where do you feel like you’re Where does shame show up for you?

 

David Duchovny  34:56

So that’s all the time we have. I, shame all the time. I mean, I’m a shameful person. I mean.

 

Gillian Anderson  35:07

Was that, can you, would you say that that’s been handed down to you to identify.

 

David Duchovny  35:14

From Adam and Eve all the way down and I think, you know, I have parenting shame, I have sexual shame, I have social shame, you know, and but, you know, I work on it, and I try, and I guess I have podcast shame now too, you know, to add to the mix, but it’s like. I actually do know that my heart’s in a good place and that I can come back to, you know, and I do know that what other people think of me is none of my business, and that I constantly have to come back to so.

 

Gillian Anderson  35:56

I think that’s one of the most important lessons of life.

 

David Duchovny  35:59

Yeah, and, you know, we, you and I, went through, you know, a rupture of, like, having a lot of people think about us, and had to figure out how to live within that and even, like, something stupid, like, I don’t know if you remember when we left Vancouver, you know, I went through a whole the city hated me for the final year because, and it’s a joke, right? It’s something to laugh at. But I gotta tell you, that really hurt, I bet you know. So, yeah, there’s been a couple, you know, and like, having to make an announcement that I was in rehab for sex addiction because I was forced to by somebody outing me, not anonymously, right? It wasn’t something that I would have announced.

 

Gillian Anderson  36:40

You mean somebody within the group, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  36:42

So those two, I mean, as stupid as the Vancouver thing is as silly, because it’s about the weather actually. Yeah. What could be more neutral than the weather? But I felt like I rejected by a city, and then, you know, the sex thing, there’s all that shame? Yeah, so there have been two, like, epic moments in my life where I felt like severe shame, severe shame as an adult, yeah, I don’t know, as a kid, you know, those are all gone from me. I don’t remember. I’m sure they exist on some plane.

 

Gillian Anderson  37:21

But those were hard, and how do you work through that?

 

David Duchovny  37:25

I don’t know. Just time, just.

 

Gillian Anderson  37:27

therapy?

 

David Duchovny  37:30

What are you saying? What exactly are you saying?

 

Gillian Anderson  37:31

I’m just wondering, yeah.

 

David Duchovny  37:32

I’ve had therapy. I mean.

 

Gillian Anderson  37:34

Do that helped?

 

David Duchovny  37:36

I think talking helps, for the reasons that you said, you know, for the reasons of, well, no, you had us an opposite reaction back in the day. But for me, if I because I’m catas catastrophizing in my head, a lot catastrophizing. Thank you. So to actually get it out there, and for somebody to say that is nuts, you know, or, Oh, I get that, but you know, that’s probably not going to happen. And if it did, you deal with it, you know. So I just have a very kind of worrying brain. How about you?

 

Gillian Anderson  38:17

Which aspect?

 

David Duchovny  38:18

I don’t know? I just want to stop talking about myself. I don’t really care. Just want to shut the fuck.

 

Gillian Anderson  38:31

I don’t think I I don’t think I worry. I mean, one of the things that you know working for nine hard years on a series, you know, you you learn more systems about how to deal with with certain things, and you know, I’m particularly good at compartmentalizing and particularly good at saying, I’m not going to think about that today. That’s actually making me uncomfortable. I know I need to deal with that, but I’m going to think about that on Tuesday, which is, I guess, part of compartmentalizing. But so I’m not really a worrier. I think I do have, I do have shame, but I’m pretty good at not letting it impact my thoughts, and I have no doubt that part of that is because I’m a workaholic, and I don’t give myself time or space to think about the things that I might be shameful about, and so I think That’s probably one of the biggest areas of avoidance and concern is just the degree to which I work. I’m always working, right? And so I think if I worked less, I’d be able to speak to my same a lot.

 

David Duchovny  39:58

To continue working.

 

Gillian Anderson  39:59

Yeah, exactly.

 

David Duchovny  40:00

Yeah, I like that, you know, and, but I’m not sure it’s healthy. I’m pretty sure it’s not healthy, but, you know, it’s like, it works, you know, it’s better, really.

 

Gillian Anderson  40:11

It does work.

 

David Duchovny  40:11

It’s better than the alternative.

 

Gillian Anderson  40:13

Yeah, feeling.

 

David Duchovny  40:17

Feeling, but, I mean, it work, work, obviously gives you something, , that you have to continue getting. And there’s nothing wrong with that you know.

 

Gillian Anderson  40:30

Tell me about yourself as a parent, because I realized that I don’t actually know you as a parent, really.

 

David Duchovny  40:38

Oh, yeah very worry. I worry, you know, I worry about my kids all the time still, and they’re pretty much adults now. But what I came to realize recently, and partly, you know, talking about failure so much on this thing, is I it was, it was so difficult for me to watch my kids fail at anything, and, you know, I wanted to protect them from from any kind of pain. And then I realized at some point that that’s the best thing that could happen to them. You know, that’s, that’s how you that’s how you live, and we’re all going to fail more than we succeed, and one has to learn how to fail. But it’s still hard. I still want to like I still want to protect them, and it’s probably the worst thing I could do, you know. And when they were young, I was very aware of them being, you know, raised by a famous person, and I really was, I would go out of my way to make them know that I was miserable, you know, like, because I was, like, not miserable, but it’s like, you know, they have this image they when they go to school, that gets, oh, yeah, you’re a family, whatever you know, is like that. So your life is like that. And I just remember saying to my son, you know, I’m never happy, you know, I’m always trying new things. It’s never like, however it looks from the outside, like let’s just me, and you know, you’re not competing with that. That’s bullshit. You know, it’s just a life, and it’s a life that has ups and downs, just like any other life did. That worked? No, I don’t think so. But because what you say doesn’t matter, you know, they have to, they have to go through it themselves, you know. How about you?

 

Gillian Anderson  42:45

Um, I mean, I I’m very close to my kids. I, I, it’s my happiest time. I think when I’m with them, I, I really, really enjoy being a mother, and at the same time, I’m often not around because I’m my work a lot. I find that hard, and yet, at the same time, it’s part of my choice. You know, I could choose not to work. And so it’s they are 18 and 16.

 

David Duchovny  43:23

Wow, yeah.

 

Gillian Anderson  43:24

Yeah, and are they in London? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they travel around and have very, very big, full lives. And I find it so painful to observe them not getting what they want. Yeah, parents can’t control anything.

 

David Duchovny  44:01

No.

 

David Duchovny  44:09

The book, Want.

 

Gillian Anderson  45:00

Yes.

 

David Duchovny  45:02

Fascinating to me, fascinating that you would curate this book. Do you want to explain what it is? Exactly, but you can explain it better than me. And then, if you could tell me what it is that you wanted from the book, in a way. What? What effect did you want? You set out with this vision? Yeah, okay. I want something, yeah, something like my secret garden, in a way. But yeah, updated, yeah. And then it became something else, yeah. And now it’s out there in the world, and something else. So it’s like three stages of it, I guess I’m asking about.

 

Gillian Anderson  45:39

Well, the first stage was me being asked whether it would be something I was interested in which which I was and I immediately understood why it would be interesting to do in terms of recreating a collection of anonymous sexual fantasies from women around the world. I mean, I did this series for sex education, and I had my dialog on my socials has been, you know, very penis and Yoni oriented. And also the drink that I had already launched, which is as much as anything about inclusion, diversity, exceptions showing, you know, the branding around the drink, as much as anything is about, is about asking yourself internally, what it is that you feel comfortable with what feels good to you. And you know, I feel like I have a tendency to be quite open handed and accepting of of of humans, and.

 

David Duchovny  46:42

I think that’s from what I’ve seen of you over 75 years. That’s true. Well, you know, this interests me. I mean, I don’t know, but I don’t remember I did Red Shoe Diaries a long time. It was actually like, it was like, but it was a guy asking for letters. It was actually, you know, send me your stuff that you couldn’t tell your shrink. Oh, right. And so I’m like, oh my god, this is, like, nostalgic for me as and, but also, that’s just a personal aside. What I what I love about this, just as a human being, both of what you’re talking about with the drink and with the book, is you seem to be on a mission to kind of lessen shame. And that is really what this podcast has been about from the beginning. It’s like because forget about sexual shame. That’s a whole other kettle of fish, right? It’s just a it’s hard to unpack that. It’s all hard to unpack, but shame around failure. And of course, those two can, can, can go back and forth. So for me, you know, in my life, in the world that I see for my kids, in the world that I see on social media that you’re referencing, because there are these impossible standards, yeah, shame is a killer, yeah, and I see, I feel like you’re very kind of fluent in social media stuff, whereas I’m hopelessly kind of distrustful of it to like a self sabotaging kind of point. And I just like you to maybe, maybe explain or talk to me about how, how you navigate your own existence on social media. Because, I mean, you very literally said, this is a brand or whatever, yeah, so you have to be in that world. Yeah, you’re a private person.

 

Gillian Anderson  48:40

Yep.

 

David Duchovny  48:42

You’re not somebody that shares over shares with the world. So there’s, there’s a dichotomy here, and it’s one that I can’t do. You know? Maybe it’s shame, I don’t know, but I but, yeah, I mean, enlightened me.

 

Gillian Anderson  48:58

I mean, the only, the only reason why I have a more active relationship with it is because of the drinks brand and now with the book. But, you know, at the very beginning I said, just as long as it’s not about me, I don’t want the drink to be about me. Yes, maybe at the very beginning when I need to sell it, you know, it can be, I’ll do a video or something. But then I had this that sounds like me. I had this, you know, false imagining that I’d be able to launch a drink without being front and center. And had I been told at the very beginning, oh, no, no, but you have to, I mean, that’s the only way to do it, is you have to be front and center. I would have said, forget about it. The fact that it’s kind of crept up on me and happened over time as I’ve started to build the brand, and people are really enjoying it, and we’ve expanded now into the states, and I want it to be successful. I’m now more present in the process of trying. Trying to tell people about it and but it’s really shifted my relationship with various forms of social media. Firstly, I don’t have it on my phone. I don’t do it myself. There’s a girl that I’ve been working with for a decade, maybe, who does it for me? We have a great relationship, and she says, there’s this new trend that’s going around. If you could do this for me, I will, you know. And sometimes I say, Fuck off. And sometimes I say, okay, that’s I can do that today. I can do that. Or maybe when I’m in the mood this week, I’ll do it for you, or something like that. So we have it. I hold it lightly. I also don’t share anything about my kids or my personal life. None of that shows up. I don’t take pictures of my day, my food, my that, you know, it’s very hands, you know, arm’s length, and so that’s how I kind of make sense of it, and how it feels like it works for me, where it’s over there and yet here, at the same time.

 

David Duchovny  50:58

Do you feel like that person on social media, is a character that you’re playing? Is it a?

 

Gillian Anderson  51:08

I mean, early on, there were a couple videos that we did for the drink that I thought I am just a performing monkey that is literally, you know, and I didn’t like that so much. But then, as it’s grown and as we’ve, you know, I feel like I do less. I don’t know I, I, I’m, I’m very sensitive to it. There’s a lot that I won’t do.

 

David Duchovny  51:30

Well I think what saves you is the fact that you built, you actually believe in the drink itself, just the drink. But also, you know, as you say, the brand is something else, also that you believe in. So, so these things are kind of sacrifices or adjustments that you have to make in order to live in the today’s marketplace. I’m always told, you know, you know, you David, you can’t just, like, go out there when you’ve got a project, you know, it looks bad you’ve got to maintain, you know, a relationship that’s not just using that as, like an advertising platform. And I’m like, I don’t know how to do that. I don’t, I don’t know how to open myself up to that kind of relationship. And I get to this place where I’m like, Well, fuck it, you know, either it’s going to do well or it’s not. I don’t want to say anything about it, you know, yeah, and that’s kind of how I started when, when I started doing, like, talk shows and stuff, I was like, I don’t want to do it, you know, like, let the movie do what it’s going to do, but you can’t really do that. It doesn’t really work.

 

Gillian Anderson  52:33

I wish you could. But I also know that. I mean, I feel particularly since talking about the book, but also with the drink, there’s an element of it where I feel like I’m being of service, and so that makes it feel more worthy somehow or authentic, because I really believe in the messaging that’s behind it. And I I’ve never thought, I mean, when I first started to use the word brand or to talk to people about brand, I let I mean, I literally couldn’t even say the word, because it just felt so pretentious. And it’s gotten easier. But it’s gotten easier, I think because it feels like there’s purpose to it. It doesn’t feel like it’s a frivolous thing. It feels like we are we’re actually, particularly with the book, you know, we’re properly building a community, and the community, and the conversations that I’ve been having both with women who are reading the book, who are responding to it, but also to Women Journalists who I’ve been having a fantastic dialog with around it, has been really eye opening and profound at times, and moving, and It’s starting these bigger questions for women in the process of reading is becoming less about fantasy necessarily, and more about desire in life. You know, and desire and relationship, desire and friendship, desire in one’s workplace.

 

David Duchovny  54:03

It’s interesting when you’re talking about this, I flash back to the episode of The X Files that you wrote and directed, because that was kind of Eastern philosophy inflected, yep. And you know, everybody’s kind of baseline understanding of Eastern philosophy or Buddhism, is cessation of want, yeah, yeah. And it’s interesting that you’re on both sides of the issue, yeah, you know. And I see, I see Not, not a struggle in a bad way. But I see you. I see your engagement, yes, with this conception of want on both sides, calling you back many, many years ago, I wonder if that’s a fair kind of.

 

Gillian Anderson  54:55

That is interesting, just in terms of not reaching, not yearning. Von in Buddhism, not of being satisfied with where you are. And that does seem that it’s at odds with with desire.

 

David Duchovny  55:12

I don’t I’m not saying it odds. I’m just saying different point of the spectrum. You know, there’s a way to get to cessation of desire through desire, yeah, and there’s a way to get cessation of desire through meditating or whatever.

 

Gillian Anderson  55:24

Yeah, and I but it’s a time. It feels like it’s a time. It feels like it’s a time for action. I mean, this particular moment, it’s a good moment for the book to be out, but it’s definitely a time for voices to be raised, and particularly women, to raise their voices about what it is that they want for themselves and what they don’t want. To be told that they should want for themselves or told what they shouldn’t, shouldn’t do, shouldn’t, shouldn’t say, and so in that sense, it feels empowering and like a powerful conversation to be having at this minute.

 

David Duchovny  56:04

I hear that, yeah, I understand what you’re saying.

 

Gillian Anderson  56:07

What else? Oh, yeah, we, are we done, are we?

 

David Duchovny  56:10

I think we’re done, I don’t have anything else. I got. How we met, yeah, but that’s an old story, right?

 

Gillian Anderson  56:19

We started. It’s socials wants us to comment. She been listening, no, but she wants us to comment on what the fuck was going on in that 90s picture. Do you remember that?

 

David Duchovny  56:38

I have no, no idea, but we don’t look happy. No, we don’t. You know that could be any moment. It’s like, it’s like, in between faces. You know, I look a face in between another face. Yes, like, that’s not even an expression. That’s like, that’s in between. Is that somebody else’s expression? Yes, that’s in between expressions.

 

Gillian Anderson  56:58

And then there’s that picture, which apparently people want to know about but that’s collide. That’s my first husband sitting down there. So it can’t be, it can’t be that.

 

David Duchovny  57:10

Oh, I think you know what. I bet that is. I bet that’s the, probably the rap part for the first year and.

 

Gillian Anderson  57:15

Yeah, and a proper goodbye, yeah, it’s plus strangulation at the same time.

 

David Duchovny  57:20

Oh no. That’s just like, hey, we did it, you know?

 

Gillian Anderson  57:23

And then there’s that, do you remember that?

 

David Duchovny  57:26

No.

 

Gillian Anderson  57:32

It looks like I don’t have any trousers or anything on.

 

David Duchovny  57:34

It’s a candid shot. It’s just one of those moments on set, can’t it? They said, smile, um, whose idea was that? I don’t know.

 

Gillian Anderson  57:47

Well, I think it was Entertainment Weekly or something, wasn’t it? It was some clever photographer saying, hey.

 

David Duchovny  57:51

Well, you know, but it’s the same thing. It’s like we did so many pictures together, and it was like, hey, you know, why don’t you lift her up? Why doesn’t she lift you up? Why don’t you? You know, it’s like you run out of shit to do, yeah? But no, I don’t remember that one. I do. Actually, I think the one picture I have of us up on the wall is the one where I had the dress on.

 

Gillian Anderson  58:15

I love that picture, yeah, and I’m holding you up exactly, I love that picture.

 

David Duchovny  58:19

Yeah pretty sure none of this will be in the podcast. Thank you, Gillian.

 

Gillian Anderson  58:27

Thank you, David.

 

David Duchovny  58:27

I’m gonna it was a real pleasure, and let’s continue to talk. That would be nice. I would like that.

 

Gillian Anderson  58:39

I would like that too.

 

David Duchovny  58:41

And talk without microphones around I think, I think that’s probably a good idea too, okay, at some point.

 

Gillian Anderson  58:47

You know how to find me.

 

David Duchovny  58:48

I do.

 

David Duchovny  58:49

I’m just trying to get some thoughts down after having a very emotional I felt and satisfying discussion with with Jillian Anderson couple days ago, coming out off of my podcast with Jason mcgay, and now with Jillian. These are two people that I have long histories with personal, personal histories going back 30 years. In Gillian’s case now, is that right? Yeah, almost 30 years. So I got a real be in my bonnet about performative friendship. You know, where I see, call me an old fuddy duddy, go ahead, but I see folks on Instagram or whatever displaying their friendship is. It’s very especially celebrity friendship, displaying celebrity friendship in these two cases, with with Jillian and with Jason come. Weeks ago, very I’m watching myself, you know, like I don’t want to perform this friendship, because the friendship is what’s important, not the performance of the friendship, you know. But there I am, you know, asking her on the podcast. I guess I’m guilty a little bit, but I wanted to handle it in a way that wasn’t performative. And I thought going into that, it would be, we get into it, you know, it’s the failure, my failure, I can only speak for myself, my failure of, you know, I guess being number one on the call sheet and not making sure everybody was okay, everybody, in this case, being her, you know, going, going not not being as good of a team player, not getting as good of a human being as I know that I can and should be, especially knowing what I knew she must have been going through, because I was going through something similar with the explosion of that show. So aside from being, I think, an interesting thing to talk about, it’s very not therapeutic, but it’s nice for me to be able to say I’m sorry, or I regret or I could have done better, because once that’s out, all that’s left is gratitude, and that’s the best place to be. So whether or not, I mean, I know that I did the best that I could, whether or not that was good enough, we’ll never know, but it’s a lot to dance around, you know, without getting into specifics, right? But I think that we we managed to do that. We managed to kind of cop to our part in a dysfunctional relationship that we had as co workers. You know, back in the day.

 

CREDITS  1:02:01

There’s more Fail Better with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content. And a reminder, we’ve got bonus bonus content this week. That’s the double bonus. Even more, not only can you hear the full extended version of my behind the scenes thoughts after speaking with Gillian, but you can also hear even more of the interview, including more about her book Want and her G Spot sodas. Subscribe now on Apple podcast by clicking the link in the show notes. Fail Better as a production of Lemonada media in coordination with King Baby. It is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Dani Matias, Paula Kaplan   . Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Our SVP of weekly is Steve Nelson. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neil. Special thanks to Carl Ackerman, Tom Karpinski and Brad Davidson, the show’s executive produced by Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Jessica Cordova, Kramer and me, David Duchovny. The music is also by me and my band. Lovely Colin Lee. Pat McCusker, Mitch Stewart, Davis Rowan and Sebastian […]. You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me @DavidDuchovny. Follow Fail Better wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.