Gillian Anderson is my valentine once more. “The X-Files” is back, FBI Special Agent Dana Scully is as badass as ever, and my massive girl crush has been rekindled with a vengeance.
Watching Anderson and David Duchovny chase after monsters and telekinetic mutants again has made me think about what it is about the actress that has fueled this ardent, decades-long heroine worship. I usually despise TMZ-style coverage of celebrity inanity, but when it comes to Anderson, I pore over gossip, photo shoots, tweets, whatever. Embarrassing as it is, I can’t get enough. I almost joined Instagram. Cringe.
I have to confess that, ironically, it started out with an attraction for Duchovny, who was uber cute back in the day as geeky Fox Mulder. That transformed into an overall appreciation for the show’s beguiling mashup of sci-fi, fantasy and paranoia fueled by the erosion of freedom in the digital age. Of course, the rocket fuel-grade chemistry between Mulder and Scully was always a draw.
But somewhere in the ’90s, a time when kickass female TV characters had a lot more grit than they do now (“Buffy,” for instance), I realized that Scully was the true magic of the show.
Forget the aliens — what I really wanted to believe in was a flame-haired feminist who could hold her own with the suits (and thugs) at the FBI and in the lab. She could outsmart, outshoot and outquip most of the men she came up against, yet she never gloated. Sure, she was hot for Mulder, but she wasn’t going to let herself be defined by her relationship to him. A few years ago at Comic-Con, I met young women who had not been alive when “X-Files” started but who had pursued careers in science because they looked up to Scully as little girls. ‘Nuff said.
Once the show was over, you’d think my crush would wane, but the Emmy-winning Anderson just got cooler in my mind. She didn’t stick around Hollywood doing second-rate drivel, but instead she chose one arty project after another — from her turn as the lovely Lily in “House of Mirth” to a shiver-inducing Miss Havisham in “Great Expectations” and the icy Lady Dedlock in “Bleak House.” Turns out Anderson has brains, just like Dana.
Even when she did go back into sleuth mode, such as starring as sultry detective Stella in the British hit “The Fall,” she raised eyebrows with a character who takes the lead in bed as well as at work. And now she’s coming to New York this spring as Stella, the iconic role in Tennessee Williams’ classic “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Since she lives in London and has two little kids to tend to, Anderson wasn’t exactly dying to slip back into Scully’s pantsuits. That they tried to pay her half what they wanted to pay Duchovny didn’t help matters. But she stuck to her guns and got her due.
So here I am, inviting all of you to join my unofficial fan club because Anderson still rocks. Let’s not even get into the fact that she seems to be aging backward. Yes, yes, I know, Scully is supposed to be immortal, according to fan theory, but this is ridiculous.
As we prepare to say farewell to the show again all too soon, all we fangirls can do is believe the truth will be out there again. Someday.
Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772. Read her at www.mercurynews.com/karen-dsouza, and follow her at Twitter.com/karendsouza4.
