[bold]And thatâs the thing about Anderson: she is fluent and articulate when asked about feelings and experiences, all the personal stuff, but get her on seemingly innocuous things and she becomes oddly private.[/bold] The 43-year-old would probably refuse to tell you what she had for lunch, but ask her if she was aware of how young she was, by modern standards, when she had a baby and got married (she was 24), and she goes off on one. âWell, Iâve never really been aware of anything in my life. I mean, when I was doing The X-Files, people used to say 'Oh my gosh, what a whirlwind life youâve had â you got this job at 24, you got married, you got pregnant, you got divorced.â But my response was always: isnât that just what people do? It never really hit me over the head in the way people were saying.â
And then, without prompting: âI think that⦠maybe the problem is⦠I mean, I donât have any regrets whatsoever, because any regret would mean that I wish that I hadnât done the series or had Piper [her first child], but I guess if I were able to talk to my younger self, I might have wished for a little bit more consciousness. And I wish I had known that I had choice. Not choice in terms of whether or not I had the baby. I just think there were a few times in my life when I could have said no, or I could have stepped back. But I always just went whichever way the wind blew me.â
She has been divorced twice, from a cameraman on The X-Files (the father of Piper, who is now 17) and the documentary maker Julian Ozanne. Might she marry Mark Griffiths, the businessman with whom she has sons of three and five? Or is she done with marriage? âNeither. I have no idea.â She says she likes having children now, when she is ânot working 16 hours a day. [With Piper] I was shooting The X -Files and she was in my trailer while I was on set. And I also think that being a bit older makes a difference, just in terms of the kind of attention and appreciation for the child.â
Did she feel a little trapped playing FBI agent Dana Scully? Anderson nods. The series ran for just under 10 years, and there have been two X-Files films, but you get the sense that she would be happy never to reprise the role again, that she has only relatively recently started getting the parts she really wants. [bold]Last year she was nominated for an Olivier for her portrayal of Nora in A Dollâs House at the Donmar. There was a part in The Last King of Scotland, a wonderful turn as Wallis Simpson in Any Human Heart, and she starred as Mrs Castaway in the recent adaptation of The Crimson Petal and the White.
Anderson is a fabulous character actress, and won Bafta, Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for her Lady Dedlock performance, though taking on Miss Havisham somehow seems a greater challenge, perhaps because she is a more iconic Dickens character, who has been played by everyone from Martita Hunt to Anne Bancroft and Charlotte Rampling (Helena Bonham-Carter will also take on the role in a BBC film to be released next year).
Some have said Anderson is too beautiful, young and glamorous to play Miss Havisham, with one Dickens expert describing the actress as a âcougar rather than a croneâ. But on screen, Anderson is crack-lipped, scratched, and her performance has an almost ethereal quality to it.[/bold]âItâs an interesting argument [regarding the age of Miss Havisham], because of course itâs written from Pipâs perspective, and when I was 12, anybody above the age of 25 looked ancient. Presumably Miss Havisham was jilted at the altar when she was 18 or 20, and itâs 25 years from thenâ¦â And actually, Anderson wonders âif itâs not more interesting if sheâs not 70. Because then itâs certainly more provocative when older Pip shows up.â So a little cougar-ish then.
