S18, Ep7 Gillian Anderson on sex, body image and rebellion

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0:41Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. At high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Gillian Anderson was voted by her classmates as most likely to be arrested. And although she did actually get arrested on graduation night for trying to glue the locks on the school doors, she was not destined for a life of petty misdemeanor.

1:29Oh, that's what you think. unless all is about to be revealed. Not publicly, anyway. Instead, Anderson went on to become one of the greatest actors of her generation. Her 30-plus year career has taken her from playing FBI Special Agent Scully in The X-Files to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. She's been a dogged detective in The Fall and an unembarrassable sex therapist in the show Sex Education. On stage, she has embodied everyone from Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire to Margot Channing in All About Eve. It's almost easier to list the roles she hasn't played than the ones she has.

2:13Her work has earned her two Emmys, two Golden Globes, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, an Evening Standard Theatre Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She's also an honorary OBE, having spent many of her childhood years in the UK, which is where she now lives. But today because of the actors and writers strike it is her world beyond acting that we'll be speaking about. Earlier this year Anderson announced two projects one was G-Spot the sourcely named soft drinks company which makes wellness beverages the other was a project Dear Gillian where she's asking women to write her letters about their sexual fantasies that will later be turned into a book.

2:57Because, Anderson says, when we talk about sex, we talk about womanhood and motherhood, infidelity and exploitation, consent and respect, fairness and egalitarianism, love and hate, pleasure and pain. Gillian Anderson, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. It's nice to be here. It's so lovely to have you here. I wanted to end on that quote because it was such a powerful one. Do you feel that when we talk about sex, really, we talk about life? Well, it's interesting in reading these letters, even more than, you know, we supposed prior to reading them, that really does come out. You do feel like you get a cross section of women or those who identify as women in a really profound way, actually.

3:49You know, Fortunately, the letters that we received were very much, you know, some very intimate, not necessarily sexually intimate, but emotionally and emotionally intimate. And there's a lot of vulnerability, seemingly a lot of honesty, a lot of discussion of power dynamics and relationships. It's not just capital S-E-X. It's a well-rounded sketch of women today. and it's a bit premature to talk about actually what we're learning in the process and I'm in the I am in the process of writing the introduction to the book but I think the biggest lesson is not actually what we would think that it might be from drawing the parallel between the original My Secret Garden which is the instigator in a sense of this trying to have a conversation or have a look into how things may or may not have changed through the decades.

4:48And there's a lot that has, and there's a lot that hasn't. But there's a bigger takeaway from it, actually, which I can't discuss with you right now. Well, I can't wait to read it and to come back and discuss it when you can talk more about it. You mentioned the original book there, My Secret Garden by Nancy Fry, which was published in 1973. yeah and I suppose that's interesting because I mentioned in the introduction you know you have had this 30 plus year career although you don't you wear it very lightly and I can't believe that you are 55 I know but it's because 30 years ago was like the 1990s it's madness yeah but I wonder how you feel personally your sexuality or your comfort level with discussing it has changed over the years.

5:38Yeah I mean it's changed a lot it started to change in in the process of a character that I was playing there was a character that I played that was very confident in her sense of herself and her sexuality and although I had always considered myself to be such that it you know I felt like she taught me some things. She taught me some things about, I guess, confidence in it, but also confidence in an aspect on a mixture of femininity for me, which I, a lot of my traits are much more, you know, stereotypically masculine, you know, and so I've never really embraced what I would think of as girly things in my head, you know, just pejoratively, or at least I would think of them, I would refer to them as such as being pejorative, as opposed to embracing them, those things, because actually it's kind of nice to embrace those things sometimes.

6:40I actually experience it as, in a sense, treating myself. This character wore a lot of nice clothes and paid attention to her dress in a way that I never really have. And, you know, fabrics and textures and stuff. And so, you know, spending hours wearing those things and being her and how she related to other people as well, I found empowering in a way, but also did, I did start to feel that not that I was, I don't feel like I've ever been square. And a lot of my experiences in my life would prove that I haven't been square. I'm not going to go into those things. But I realised that there was a whole aspect of myself that was kind of closed off in a way.

7:38You know, I needed an opening. I needed an opening, actually. I didn't realise I needed an opening. And yeah. It's so interesting that, because I wonder if part of that is because when you first became famous, you were 25 I think and a lot of people's idea of sexiness was projected onto you oh yeah and I wonder if what we're discussing is your realization that it could come from within you rather than being something that other people thought of you yeah well I remember doing the interview I mean one of the big moments of that sexiest woman in the world thing that happened was you know FHM the cover of FHM and the interview that I did.

8:21And, you know, when I was doing the interview, I was in a pair of flannel pajamas in my house in Vancouver, Canada, and the pajamas had cowboys on them. I mean, it was like as unsexy as you would not, you know, I kept saying you don't understand how can this be? This doesn't make sense to me. I'm even wearing cowboy flannel pajamas and then that's not really the point the point is that one can be as fucking sexy as you want to be wearing you know cowboy flannel pajamas it's what emanates from inside and I think as much as anything separate from a fantasy based on nothing really nothing that I could see in reality being placed on me it was more of the fact that you know I was I was I was just a grafter you know that's all I just had no there was no room for sex there was no time for sex there was no I was just working and had been from a very young age and so it didn't even cross my mind you know that kind of liberation of sexuality or spirit or sensuality you know and as a young mother as well it just it wasn't a part of my world and so I didn't get how people could be putting that on me It just didn't equate.

9:39What I saw in myself didn't equate to that. I did a photo shoot. That's not me. Yeah. You know, I wore a latex leather suit, but I don't generally wear those on a daily basis. Well, actually, if anyone isn't watching this podcast right now, you're wearing one in a cowboy pattern latex suit. before we get onto your failures I want to go back to that kid you were at school voted most likely to get arrested but also voted most bizarre girl yeah tell me about that and whether that felt accurate at the time oh yeah yeah that that felt accurate at the time I mean I shortly after moving to Grand Rapids Michigan maybe maybe it was a few years because you've You've been in London for 11 years.

10:28Yeah, I have been in London until, yes. So I was born in the States, grew up between ages 2 and 11 in London and then went to Grand Rapids, Michigan. And so moving there at 11, I think by the time I was 14, I was pretty heavily into the punk scene. You know, I think there were a small handful of us in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. They hadn't seen anything like it before. And so my, you know, semi-mohawk and nose ring and attitude was a big part of who I identified as at the time. You know, so I was in high school as that young woman. I was probably the only one. It was a high school with no sports and no theatre.

11:14It was an academic high school. And so there was, you know, obviously it was a bit less ready, prepared for somebody like me to walk through the doors. Did you have friends? I had friends outside of school. I had a couple inside, but one was a naughty friend. Yeah, I had friends. And then I got in with this gang outside of school that was, you know, we'd go to punk rock concerts and stuff and go out of town and go to concerts. And then I met my boyfriend at the time who was considerably older than I was in a punk band. And we were kind of the couple in that world. And that was my world for a while until I discovered acting.

12:00God, definitely not square. No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, I won't go into stories. Did you have a strong sense of self? Yeah, yeah, I did. I think from quite a young age. I'm trying to think, I've never really been asked that before, I don't think. I'm trying to think when it formulated itself. Something shifted, something definitely shifted for me at a certain point where I, I think it was actually around the time that I found acting. where I suddenly found something that I could do and wanted to do. And it definitely gave me a sense of self-worth. I mean, I'd always been outspoken and my mum will say that, you know, there was no telling me anything.

12:49I was in control, I think, sadly. A lot of it came from, you know, identifying the punk rock scene as being where I felt like I fit in. And I'm sure having attention in that realm and feeling, you know, somehow grounded in it, that there was something that I fit and it fit me. the reason I ask that is because I in a former life have interviewed you a couple times you've always been an utter delight and one time was when you had co-written a book and it was an event for women and we were talking about female empowerment and you talked about imposter syndrome and how you had felt it very keenly in one of the roles which we're not talking about and I think it was pegged to the fact that you'd had your first child and you went back to work pretty quickly and you felt that you didn't belong or you weren't worthy of the amount of attention being shown you or the amount of pressure that was on you and I wonder if you could talk a bit about that and yeah I think through high school and through college I'd found a place of self-identification that was quite other and separate and always you know in college you know never living in dorms always living in a you know I shared flat that was separate from that speaks to a certain level of confidence and self-confidence in a in a way that you know I only realized in retrospect was present I have found that the first day or two I always think that I'm going to be fired on something and And then once that's done, you kind of got your feet under you.

14:30I knew that the only way that I was not going to feel like I was, you know, failing on a daily basis doing it and therefore that I was the wrong person in it or an imposter was if I prepared within an inch of my life. And so I have found that uber preparation is a good salve for that.

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15:32Let's get on to your failures. Oh, please. Yeah. These failures were concise, but huge. And that's my favorite kind. The first failure is your failure to move your limbs. Tell me more about that. On the one hand, I would say that it's because I'm lazy. but anybody looking at me would say you are not lazy no you just talked about the amount of preparation you did yeah you know failure to move my limbs has definitely meant that I've had more time sitting on my ass to do so many of the things that I do involve myself in but it has also meant you know the amount of lectures that I've got from people or oh my god I can't believe Whatever the conversation is, there's a lot of conversation about it.

16:25I think particularly for an actress, I just haven't. And I feel like I'm starting to realize and actually maybe think about it in trying to, it came out very quickly as one of my failures. And so then when I had time to dig into what exactly why, what I had to say about that was, I've realized that any time somebody tells me to do something, I'm going to say, fuck off. More than ever, there is a wellness culture right now, which is actually potentially making people even sicker. I think for a very long time, as people have gotten more and more and more and more and more and more into you know exercise and eating well and dieting and macro and you know you name it I mean it's everywhere at every stage along the way I have basically said fuck you don't tell me that I am not okay if I am not exercising oddly what's happened is that at now 50 keeps 55 but I might be 54 I think I'm pretty 68 68 no it's 2003 I'm 55 so now that I'm 55 I'm finding it for myself and part of that yes is that there is a plethora of stuff out there but there's a plethora of stuff out there for people particularly my age and above just basically saying you know talking about longevity and if you want to properly live longer if you want to be able to pick up your grandchildren or if you want to, you know, that you really should just move your limbs a bit, you know.

18:11And so in that context, I feel like, OK, I'm actually I'm ready. I'm ready now. I'm ready now. I have the privilege of choice and I am going to, as with my stubbornness before, I am going to do it the way that I want to do it and that feels good for me so there's there's good at the end at the end of it obsessed with this whole thing I cannot thank you enough for talking about it because you're completely right that it feels so oppressive that at the same time as we're meant to be striving to be zen we've also got to ensure that we've got our 10 000 steps and everything is monitored and it feels that we all have to be these units of production in health as well as work yeah and I love that this has been an act of resistance on your part a very very feminist act in so many ways and yes there's a whole separate side which is like it's good for you we'll come on to that but I'm very intrigued that as an actress when you must have had a lot of pressure on you I imagine to look a certain way or to present physically a certain way that you've resisted it every single juncture so have you never really done exercise there was one period of about a year when I had a very hot boyfriend and he was an actor and a model and a surfer and I got into working out at that juncture and I and I got very fit I was I yes I got very fit at the time but I also in the process got an injury which it was recently because of that injury coming up again every few months sometimes a few years sacral iliac joint lower right back tiny little thing happens and I'm in pain for days and really struggled sleep and yada yada So this all happened around the same time that I was making a bigger decision to embrace an aspect of wellness for myself that I had embraced a tiny bit here and there, et cetera, over the years.

20:28but it was more to do with whatever the reasonings behind it were at the time. But I feel like something has shifted. And something shifted in part because I suddenly felt like I was 80 with this back injury that goes back to my 20s. And I was ready. I was suddenly ready to go, okay, I'm going to listen. I'm going to listen to what the conversations are that are going on right now about people my age moving their limbs and doing it, you know, in order to, one, not have that pain and be stronger in my core and myself, but also, you know, thinking ahead, thinking ahead about eventually lifting up a grandchild, et cetera, and thinking, you know, I actually do want to.

21:18I'm going to do some things now because I want to, but it's got to be pleasurable for me, you know. Yeah. There is power in pleasure, I think. Yes, I love that. If it doesn't in some way, then it won't last. And also so much of the pleasure of it has been taken out in all of these, you know, this obsessive thinking and all of the shoulds and have tos and in the toxicity that is often out there, I think, today in the wellness industry. So anyway, so it just is quite fortuitous that I'm at a time that I am you know starting to engage in that bigger conversation both in an entrepreneurial way which maybe we'll talk about later yeah I'm also is my real experience in a personal way as well so interesting because it feels like you finally have agency and this is your body now and you're not being told by a studio you're 20 something you need to look like this yeah yeah so that entire time apart from that single year when you had the hot boyfriend you didn't have a pt you didn't go to exercise classes nothing never exercise class not gonna happen yes would you walk places would you like no no there was a period of time another period of time where i did a stronger for a little while yes and over the years that has been a go-to thing that I would do for a week and then drop.

22:49And my excuse is just no time, I got busy or just, but so much of it has been, I'm just not going to do something that I feel I'm being told I have to, or I should do. And if I can find a way to want to actually genuinely want to, and whether it's want to, because I suddenly realized that yes, it is better for me know, I want to feel better or I want to because I actually feel it brings me joy in some way or I feel healthier, more alive, more connected, more present, you know, but it really I've discovered needs to be my own individual journey with it. It's my choice. You know, it's my way. I need to be doing it my way and listen to myself and what it is that I want and what feels good.

23:41And there is incredible, I'm finding, discovering that there's incredible power in that and potential, it may actually last, you know, because, you know, it's made to measure in a way that even the made to measure whatever things that you can get here and there in the wellness world it's even more bespoke than that because it's it is genuinely me doing for me are you excited so it makes total sense are you doing open water swimming or like what are you what are the things that you're what are your bespoke exercises i have started to work with a trainer on an app she sends me things you know it's even the smallest things as not taking a overtaking this day you know all the things that you hear but up until now it's been just shut the fuck up so nothing so much wait before we get on to the nourishment aspect of this i'm just so obsessed with because we as women particularly and as a famous woman i can't even imagine the pressure that you're under for your body to be a certain way and i don't want to make this about physical appearance but you have always looked incredible so you've always looked like someone who would train but have you ever felt insecure about your body in those years that you oh yeah you know historically I'm always on the way up five pounds on the way down five pounds it's just been the story of my life yeah and as someone that's five three those five can make a you know big difference just in terms of being photographed and so I see it and you know that gradation has been in my adult life in my 20s it was a much bigger gradation and you know that there were photo shoots and I was on with uber famous photographers and the pictures I see today are so lovely and I was completely self-obsessed about my weight completely distracted I remember so clearly there was one photo shoot that I did that I think was for see the for us or for details and they had brought these these baby animals so a baby donkey what do you call a baby a bit yes yes and a baby chimp and another baby something soft fur and you know huggy chimpy and I remember they were cutting through the shame and the self-hate that I was feeling at the time because I was so I remember my head was in grass in either grass or fake grass at one point for one shot and you look at that picture now and I see of course I see youth and beauty and I think god you I remember how tortured you were inside this head at that time and and yet almost by the grace of god you can't see it because that would have been such a shame with all of that beautiful animals around it but i think back at the time wasted the time wasted in that kind of beating up of self and for naught and i could be doing the same today something shifted at some point along the way that said i'm not doing this anymore i'm not doing this beating up anymore.

27:06I couldn't tell you when that was, but then there was, you know, that anarchic part of myself just suddenly was like, I'm not going to care anymore because life is too precious to be stuck in that kind of self-obsession. And if I walk out of the house and I haven't brushed my hair for a week, that's, so be it. That's my choice. I may look at it and go oh shit I really should have and it's a light moment rather than a this far no further yeah we're talking about what you take in and what you reject brings us on to your second failure which is your failure to fill your body with nourishment which I imagine is allied to the first one but will bring us on to g-spot yeah and what you wanted to do there so talk to us about your history with nourishment?

28:00Have you eaten anything for the last 30 years? It's not so much that I haven't, because of course I have, but for the longest time, I have been addicted to a high caffeine, high sugar soda, soft drink. You know, I've got these rituals, it's like you cannot, because I don't smoke, I don't drink, I've got all these other reasons why I allow myself to then, you know, eat prawn crackers or exist on a protein bar have you never smoked or drunk oh yeah no no no I have I've done plenty oh right yes I think part of my refusal to be told what I can and cannot do was also in terms of what I would and would not put into my body and there was nobody who was gonna you know that you know I was almost waiting for that you know that blood test to come back or that something to say you've really fucked up all these years fortunately well I think I mean it could happen any day but as far as I know that hasn't been the case but I did start to think actually I'll try I haven't drunk much water in the last couple decades and I was really bad at it for a long time so I don't drink water I drink full fat coke I eat shit I'll have a meal with my kids and I'll eat a whole meal.

29:25But for the rest of the day, I'm working, I'm running, I'm just, while I'm cooking, I'm eating the prawn crackers and whatever. And so I'll try to find something. Is there something out there that will solve at least two of these things, which is the Coke and the lack of water? And I just couldn't find anything, not only something that would give me the obvious, you know, when you've got that much sugar and caffeine, there's a higher hit that you get but also I crave the taste I crave all of it the whole thing absolutely every drop of it and there was nobody who was going to tell me you know to stop let alone cut down and also with the water so anyway I went looking and there was nothing that I found that did the trick and so you know somebody suggested to me somebody who ended up becoming my co-founder suggested that I create something of my own that solved both of those problems in a sense that dealt with my craving in a way and also you know was predominantly filled with water as opposed to all the chemicals that were in Coca-Cola and so we started that journey together and in the process also started to learn about things like adaptogens and nootropics and functional ingredients which I I didn't know anything about until my daughter had introduced me to them.

30:47And so I went on a journey into labs, drinks labs and ingredients that actually can help with your cognitive functions and help with focus and stamina in a different way and also help your immune system and help with anxiety and de-stressing and all of those things. And so then the challenge was potentially to create something that didn't just taste like a bunch of mushrooms picked from a field or powders but actually tasted good that actually I mean initially would make me move from full fat coke to something else and we did you know we've created this low sugar alternative that does have functional ingredients that are actually good for you and I'm really proud of them You should be.

31:41Are you still eating the prawn crackers? I'm not, no. Oh, good. No. For me, there had to be a moment, almost like an aha moment for me to fully stop that and fully stop the full-fired coke. Do you think that you'll have more products in this area? Because obviously you have conflicting views about the wellness industry. Yeah, yeah. And this is almost a riposte to that, I imagine. Yes and no. I mean, part of our messaging is about embracing your choice. That many of our drinks, they are pleasurable. You know, it leans into pleasure. There's one called lift, one called soothe, and one called protect.

32:26And then we've got a fourth one that's coming out very soon. a lot of our messaging is about you choosing that there's power in choice there's as much power in saying I'm not going to the gym today yes yeah as there is in I'm going to the gym today and that it's okay it's all okay and to listen to oneself to liberate oneself from all of the diatribe of messaging around it and the shoulds and that and the you know often toxicity in there and start to really look at you know what makes me feel good what yeah has being in your 50s enabled you to let go of shoulds oughts and guilt oh yeah long time ago really yeah actually probably probably my 40s yeah tell me when it happened was it 45 because i'm about to turn 45 so it'd be I don't remember when it happened.

33:27I can't remember. I'm going to try to because, you know, since talking to you today, I thought I really need to figure out when that was because there was definitely a moment. I'm not sure when it was. I think for some, some women seem to say that it's linked to menopause, that ultimately they just unhook from everything that they don't want to do. I haven't gone through menopause yet. I'm still in perimenopause. So I can't. I can't imagine what you're going to be like when it's going to be amazing. I mean, oh, you mean, oh, I thought. I don't know, I think you're going to be amazing. Everybody else who's in my life, I imagine what that's going to be like when she goes to a menopause.

34:02This is very... Yeah. Well, come back and talk to me once this happens. Yes, yes. Your final failure is your failure to not work. Are you a workaholic? Yeah. And where do you think that comes from? Why do you feel that you need to work in order to earn your place on this planet? it? I don't quite know. But I do have so I mean, it's a like a Protestant work ethic. I'm not quite sure where it's come from. But what I do know is, I feel incredibly lucky. On the one hand, I mean, on all hands, I don't mean. Yeah, I'm incredibly lucky, incredibly fortunate, privileged, all of that, to have the choices that I have had both in my life and my career.

34:53and part of it I think is showing myself that I deserve it because I'm doing all these things if all these good things are happening then I'd better be working for them you know it's not coming lightly or it's not frivolous that's another thing actually that I wanted to talk about in terms of pleasure that I'm starting to realize too is that so much of pleasure is perceived as being frivolous. Yes. Trivial. Yeah. And why? Why isn't it as much of a sense of power, you know, to lean into that, to properly embrace pleasure and make space for it and make time for it and give it to oneself as it is the other things that we, and so I'm, you know, I'm trying to have more of that in my life, but also realizing the degree to which so much of what I'm involved in, whether it's, you know, this drink or one of the shows that I work on or etc.

35:54is about pleasure and the joy and pleasure. Anyway, I digress. I think you're so right about pleasure because why can't it be as ennobling, as transformative, as suffering or sadness or pain. Yeah. Because it's the same thing, but the different end of the spectrum. Yeah, exactly. I mean, actually, I do feel like even though I am a self-described workaholic, I do get pleasure from it. I do get pleasure from it. When I'm clear, actually, it turns out when I'm not eating prawn crackers and drinking Coca-Cola, I think quite clearly and things come to me. I'm in a moment right now where and I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my age and it's none of wanting to leave a mark it's none of that it's just it is feeling like hang on I've still got some things to do I've still got you know things to do that I didn't even know I wanted to do and that is of course in roles and building a company that I'm building but it's also just in terms of realising that I do have a few things that I want to share with people.

37:02And have you ever regretted working too hard or taking on a project? There have been a couple moments when I haven't been able to stop around my kids. You know, that had more to do with not in terms of my work as an actor, but stuff on the side or with other projects and stuff where I have felt the guilt of choosing to focus on those things instead of having time with kids. And I feel like there's a good balance right now. I feel like when I'm with them, I'm with them, you know, and that has become more and more meaningful to me. It's been really important to me in terms of my acting work to always have them as part of the priority in terms of this is when I'm available this is when I'm not etc but this is different this is in terms of what happens with meetings and with zooms and all those other things that end up in our days today taking sucking that time and I've got some pretty strict rules around around all of that so that my workaholism is something that my boys can look at as being beneficial to them because they can see you know not just in terms of what I bring home at the end of the day but in terms of seeing me effectively building things and they both have an interest in that and I think it's been really great that they get to see and I think they would say that too that to see a mum who is entrepreneurial and making things and they're teenagers aren't Yeah, two of them are, and then I have one who's 28.

38:54Well, Gillian Anderson, it sounds like you're in a great place. You are balanced, you are hydrated. You are aware of the importance of pleasure. I cannot tell you how much I have loved this conversation. And actually not being able to talk about specific acting projects has for me given it the sense of liberation that I've really enjoyed. You are such a wise and intelligent and funny, deliberately so, person. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to you for trusting me and for coming on How to Fail. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me and you're wonderful to talk to.

39:41If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.