In the past few weeks, Gillian Anderson has been the subject of keen debate. Her performance as a hectoring Margaret Thatcher in The Crown has split the public, presumably along political lines. While I know exactly where I stand on the subject of the former PM, I won’t be joining this particular conversation because I always steer well clear of any programme concerning the Royal Family, drama or documentary. They are invariably featured on the News every day, which is enough coverage for me.
What I can take for granted is that Anderson would be good in it. She’s no stranger to playing British characters, including those forged in fiction. In 2005 I made a rare dip into Dickens out of curiosity to hear her impeccable English accent in Bleak House. I gather she was also cool and aloof as Miss Haversham in Great Expectations but rather more warm and human playing herself and an eighteenth-century character in Michael Winterbottom’s clever film A Cock and Bull Story. In it, much to Steve Coogan’s jealous dismay, Rob Brydon is smitten with her, and who could blame him?!
I hadn’t realised it at the time but the perfect English tones were not merely the result of many hours listening to tapes or studying videos of Helen Mirren. She actually spent much of her childhood in London, and the family residence there prompted further stays, making the switch from American to the Queen’s English effortless.
More recently she has again nailed the detached, sophisticated, inscrutable blonde in BBC2’s The Fall. We tuned into the first series six years ago expecting a superior, slow-burning thriller but it turned into something far deeper, and absolutely unmissable. Anderson portrays an English senior detective brought over to Belfast to lead the hunt for a sadistic serial killer (Jamie Dornan). In phone calls, he taunts her, flirts with her and clearly unsettles her and when the cops finally manage to arrest him, the face-to-face interview in series two crackles with sexual tension. Maybe Gillian channels her wayward youth into the complex Stella Gibson, with her lesbian encounter and simultaneous infatuation with Dornan’s equally cool Paul, but this was a psychological crime drama like no other. I couldn’t fathom why a cop could fall for such a calculating rapist but Angie understood the attraction which formed the heart of each series. She clearly wasn’t alone because Dornan’s performance led to the 50 Shades movie gig and Anderson merely cemented her reputation as one of the finest TV actors of her age.
However, for me – and millions of others around the world – it all started with The X-Files. Originally tucked away on BBC2 I didn’t watch the early episodes, but word-of- mouth recommendation led me to give it a go some time in 1993, and I became hooked. None of the cast were familiar to me but the basic premise of a passionate paranormal investigator being teamed with a disbelieving medically-trained FBI agent to look into unusual cases across America was easy to follow. Fox Mulder’s willingness to accept the existence of aliens or other paranormal activity led to constant clashes with Dana Scully’s preference for a perfectly logical explanation, however forceful the evidence. Mind you, on occasion even Anderson’s character had to accept the impossible given the seriously weird shit happening to her!
This being mainstream sci-fi telly, the leads had to be attractive and offering the potential of – er - getting it on. While both Mulder and Scully were ultra-professionals, it seemed only a matter of time before David Duchovny’s easy-going patter would wear Gillian Anderson down, but it took several series to happen and, even then, the writers didn’t make it simple or obvious. There were comedic moments, such as when Scully was drugged, and serious, emotional scenes as when she mysteriously contracted cancer, plus others where she wondered whether Mulder was actually involved in the alien-governmental conspiracy which provided a storyline arc throughout its Nineties heyday, two feature films and the recent revival.
Like most programmes spanning more than two hundred episodes, The X Files had its share of duffers but when it was good it was brilliant. It was also refreshing for me to see someone with reddish hair (Anderson) in a starring role! The programme was more than a mere TV diversion. OK, so it may have stirred the dust concealing the crazy Roswellian conspiracy theorists (though I still haven’t seen any ghosts or alien spacecraft) but it gave us a chart hit for the suitably spooky Mark Snow signature tune and the title for Catatonia’s biggest single. As a cultural phenomenon it also spawned its own spoof on The Simpsons voiced by the actual stars. As for Gillian Anderson, her career has continued undiminished and her character’s groundbreaking scientific credentials inspired a generation of girls to pursue careers in law and medicine. As long as they don’t expect to chase aliens every week….
No comments:
Post a Comment