It was the most glamorous party of the summer. For the first time a high-profile, women-only showbiz do gathered Britain's most successful ladies under the aegis of a glossy magazine to mingle, chat and giggle. In a white-leather tuxedo, Mary Portas, Queen of Shops, proudly showed off her pregnant partner, Melanie Rickey, while lesbian literary royalty in the form of Jeanette Winterson and her new belle, Susie Orbach, Princess Diana's therapist, hung out with Emma Freud and Hollywood stars, including Gillian Anderson. After the paparazzi blitz that accompanied her every move as the iconic Age ... [Continua a leggere]

Gillian Anderson is something of an enigma, which is perhaps fitting given that she spent nine uninterrupted years playing the paranormal investigator Dana Scully in the TV phenomenon that was The X Files. On the one hand, there is her onscreen guise, defined, whether the actress likes it or not, by Scully’s glacial poise and biting scepticism, while on the other there is her fiery public persona, characterised by a turbulent personal life, which includes two marriages and two divorces, the last in early 2006, when she split from the documentary maker Julian Ozanne after just 16 ... [Continua a leggere]

Deep in the bowels of a disused mental institution, a cadre of nuns shuffles down the corridor. This crumbling Victorian edifice on the outskirts of Vancouver - atmospherically chilled and, at 3am, Exorcist-eerie - has been dressed as the Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Hospital, a key night-shoot location for the film The X-Files: I Want to Believe. “They’re not real nuns. I hope not,” quips David Duchovny, who is reprising his role as the FBI agent Fox Mulder. The wry grin says it all. Recently, before being pressed back into service in this new, feature-length spin-o ... [Continua a leggere]

Gillian Anderson's fan mail recently took on a pleading tone. Dear Gillian, implored the letters and cards from all over the world, when can we see you again on screen or on stage? Where have you been?The BBC, which wanted the 37-year-old actress badly for a plum role in a blockbuster serial, wasn't even sure where she was. There were 85 parts to cast, pronto, and if Anderson was on another continent, ensconced within an overprotective cordon of publicists and minders, it might take too long to reach her. "We didn't believe for one second we'd be able to get through to her," says Nigel Staffor ... [Continua a leggere]

My day begins when I wake up at 5.30. I never use an alarm clock. I think surfers generally wake up early – it’s the time when you get your best surf – and I love it because the phones aren’t ringing and there’s that stillness and coolness. I’ve been talking to Frank Spotnitz, my colleague and co-writer, about trying to get into the office at 4am. If we could do that, he and I might by noon have done a pretty good day’s work creatively, so then all the producing, which is very unstructured, could be done afterwards. But of course, life a ... [Continua a leggere]