"Gillian Anderson"

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a couple of nice softballs here, brought to you by Shecky Hayes. My wife asked me the other day where I got so much candy.
I said, I always have a few Twix up my sleeve. Oh, boy.
Now, hang on.

We got one more.

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Listeners, hold on.

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Welcome to Smart List.

Smart List.

Smart List. Smart List.
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I went to go see a Broadway show last night, Shawnee, and I thought about you. What'd you see? I saw O'Mary.
Oh, and? You did see it. I did.
It's the best. Okay, I was going to recommend it to you, but you've seen it.
Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah, it's great.
Did you think it was? I loved it. I thought it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.
I was thinking about you the whole time, thinking, oh my God, Sean's going to lose his fucking mind on this. It is so funny.
I mean, I know he didn't, but it seemed like he's watched you do a thousand of your funny bits in front of us and stolen them all. Oh, no, no.
Cole's an original. He's great.
Cole Escola stars in Little Mary. That's the show I was telling you guys to go see in March.
Yes. Will was first.
Hang on, guys. Will was first.
I didn't go. Have you not seen it yet, Will? You'll pee in your pants.
So it was off-Broadway then, yes? Now it's on Broadway. Yeah, it was at the Lortel.
Yeah, Cola Scola plays Mary Todd Lincoln, who's an alcoholic wannabe cabaret star. And Abraham Lincoln doesn't let her leave the White House, so he hires an acting coach for her so she could just explore her artistic side.
Don't reveal anymore. Okay, that's it.
You're going to do those spoilers. But how about the end? How funny was that? It's fucking great.
The whole thing is incredible. Yeah, it's really funny.
Yeah, yeah. Willie, you got to get on it.
I know. You got to expose yourself to some culture, you know? Get out of...
Wait, did Franny see it? She did. She and I, we had a date night.
Did she like it? It was great. Yeah, you got your hand on a bug there? Are you pulling out? Yeah, I just got to pull it out.
Sean's got three hands in his hairdo right now. No, I had a mole removed.
Just step on it. Make sure you step on it.
Look at that. You know, you don't have to do it while we're doing the...
Yeah, just try to pick your scalp while we're... You could have done it before, or you could have saved it after.
We wouldn't have known. I forgot to take it off this morning, but I need to let the air get to it.
How was your mole removal? It was good. Painful? Yeah.
No, it wasn't painful. It was big.
My man was honking, and he scraped it off. So this was a result of just a...
Age. Well, you went in, and you got yourself combed like a cat.
You got checked for all your skin cancer hotspots. You mean like a chimp? You mean like when they do like that? Everybody's got to do that, by the way.
We're joking, but get yourself in there and get yourself checked if you're of a certain age. It's true.
And vote. We do a lot of damage when we're like 20.
And get out there and fucking vote. Yeah, and then go ahead and vote.
Or vote at the place you get checked. Whoever, yeah, whoever.
By the way, that'd be great if they did that. While you were waiting.
Yeah, vote. They ought to do stuff like that where you can get, bring back shit where you can kind of get a bunch of different shit done at once.
You can get a moment. Or how about just declare election day a national holiday? And let me tell you something.
I know our surprise guest is a female. I can tell you that right now.
I can hear her enjoying and giggling. There's another one.
There's another one. But yes, it should be a national holiday.
Obviously, it should be a national holiday for all the obvious reasons. But at the same time, imagine if you could, on that day, get a bunch of stuff done.
If you wanted to get a Brazilian, you could do that. You could do that.
You could do whatever you want. Sham coach.
I'm just saying, if whatever your thing is. Sham poach.
And then in the back, you can go ahead and get yourself your sham coach. Yeah.
So that was Ali's bit. My buddy Ali used to do sham coach and in the back, you bring your pet and they get a sham poach.
Anyway. Yeah, it's a, it's a, you get your dog wash.

Yeah.

Depends.

No,

the pet would be the front,

the front place.

Sean,

go ahead,

Sean.

Sorry.

Whenever you order food from,

for takeout,

like from a restaurant,

do you sometimes order extra so you don't have to,

like as a grocery shopping kind of?

So like you,

wait a second.

I was just, I was just getting a Brazilian and now you're talking shopping via... Now you're talking about getting cash back when you get groceries? What's going on? No, no, no.
When you go, when you order... Yeah, can I get 18 bucks? What are you doing? No, when you order takeout from a restaurant, sometimes I'll order an extra meal or something and put it in the fridge, like my quote, grocery shopping, so that I don't have to...
So that I just have a meal I could pop in the microwave. Wait, how long have you been in college? What are you doing, man? It's true.
That's what I do. How? Instead of grocery shopping, you just order an extra meal.
America, this is spoken to you by a guy who's got a full-time chef. Yeah.
Okay? No, I don't. My full-time chef is me and Scott.
Is it five days a week? Sorry. Oh, my God.
So, is she offended at all that you're doubling up attention because you don't have confidence in her? No, you fucking... Shani, I never knew this about you.
This is phenomenal information. Always order an extra meal.
Is this your way... Because sometimes you feel bad because you've ordered so much food, so you justify it by saying, it's for tomorrow.
Yeah, something like that, yeah. Wait, Shawnee, are you in New York? Is that New York behind you? Yeah, yeah.
Oh, how come we're not hanging out? What's going on? Well, because you work every day, 17,000 hours. But if you're not...
JB, how are you liking the weekend in the city, JB? It's the first weekend you've been there for a while. I don't, I'm not crazy about it because I feel like I'm missing, you know, my wife and my youngest daughter back in LA.
I should have gone back and picked up Maple from farm camp where she was, so she was living at farm camp for a month up in Northern California, sleeping outside in a tent and taking care of it. I can just say, and by the way, I think the farm camp is amazing, but can you imagine going back 150 years, bringing somebody back from the past and they come and they go, who's working on a farm and they're like, what's this? It's a farm camp.
It's a camp. It's a bunch of kids from LA and New York because they don't know what to enter into.
They're coming here to play farm. Old-timey.
And these kids are slaving away. Did you go to school? Yeah, I went to school all the way until I was nine.
Yeah. You know? No, it's a farm camp.
Farm camp. She had kitty chore.
Guys, listen, we got to get to our guest. She's just sitting here listening to us, wasting our fucking time.
And Sean, you're going to love this because, yeah, she's done a lot of iconic stuff on TV, stuff that I can't really mention, even stuff that was my favorite. But she's done a lot of theater.
She's been nominated for a bunch of Olivier. She's played Blanche DuBois in Streetcar.
She's British. To great acclaim.
Well, she's sort of British, kind of was raised there, then moved back, and now has lived there again for years. Well, she was on Fox.
But Sean, but born in Chicago, okay. Sean, do you think she might have a story about maybe something crazy that happened on stage? Oh my gosh, in Chicago? She better get ready with that.
She better get ready with a story, with a funny theater story. Do you remember when we used to hang out at Haney's? Did you ever go to Haney's in Chicago? And then, so she's won all these awards.
She's been nominated for all this stuff. She's done dozens of films.
But I loved her in that amazing series, The Fall. But I also loved her in the amazing series, The Crown.
But I also loved her as, and everybody else said, is the amazing FBI special agent, Dana Scully. Guys, please, it's Jillian Anderson.
No way! Jillian Anderson's in the team. Did you almost say special anus? I think you almost said special anus.
Well, that's what the notes gave me. I made the correction, but they sent me that.
Hello, Jillian. Oh, my God.
You guys are hilarious. Oh, my God.
You guys are so funny. Thank you so much for being here.
This is so cool. And joining us on this blessed day.
Jillian, you got... Go ahead, Sean.
I was just going to say, I've been such a fan for so long. I mean, I know you hear this all the time.
I love all of your work. Thank you.
But you know when you're a young person... But the one that really disappointed...
Sorry. No, just when you're a young person and stuff stays in your DNA, the X-Files is part of me.
Interesting. So, therefore, you are a part of you.
I get it. The truth is out there.
I can feel that. I woke up this morning feeling like I was part of you.
What are the questions that you weren't asked about X-Files when you were publicizing that? I remember one time being, after one of the awards standing backstage,, you know, where they take you backstage and then you've got the tears of press back there. Right.
From the back row, somebody said, do you believe in aliens? Which, of course, by that point, I'd been asked every second of my life. And I think I might have said, are you fucking kidding me? Sure.
I think I literally, out of my mouth, I was like, really? That's what you're going to fucking ask me? I'm standing there. Oh my God.
Sean, you do though, right? I absolutely do. You believe there's probably something out there.
It probably doesn't look like the egg-shaped head, but it's probably some sort of... Yeah, anytime anything is on TV about is there or isn't there, I watch it and I'm all into it.
Right. Do you, and what is it, Sean?

You're just, you find it like interesting, you find it exciting, you're hoping, you want

to get out.

Are you trying to get off this globe?

Yeah.

No, I just think it's fascinating that the whole concept that we come from something

we don't know.

So, and I think there's answers there that, hold on.

I'd like for you to get abducted,

like they reveal themselves in you and then they start to like murder you. You're like, I thought you'd be fun and interesting.
But are you saying that you think that alien life form, Sean, might be responsible for the start of mankind? By the way, jump in any time you want to here. Yes, I do believe that.
Wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa. Part of me believes that.
Part of me believes that, yeah. Whoa, wait.
That mankind came from a higher sort of more complex life form of sort of aliens and stuff, as opposed to the aliens and mankind coming from sort of like a godlike creator. I'm open to both.
You think we come from the aliens? I'm open to both, but I lean towards the alien thing only because, did you see Prometheus? Did you see the movie Prometheus? I think so. You mean the Hollywood feature film? No, but I saw Star Wars.
How much of that is true? Fucking, what are you talking about? Please, please let Sean finish with this. You're right, you're right, you're right.
He's got the answers, guys. So Prometheus, uh-huh.
There's too many, like, do you ever watch? Hang on, I'm going to start writing this shit down. Do you ever watch Ancient Aliens? Do you ever watch Ancient Aliens? No.
Oh, we watch it all the time. And all these theories about all the hieroglyphics that show, you know, engraved into the walls about like the, you know, things, they're all looking up at these flying things and they're all kind of similar.
I think 20 of our episodes, 20 of our 220 episodes were about those hieroglyphics. Yeah, exactly.
How far is your house from the nearest library, do you think? Anyway, Jillian, welcome. So welcome, Jillian.
Jillian, speaking of extraterrestrials and stuff, the one thing I do want to ask you is, at what point, obviously X-Files played a huge part in the early part of your career, and you've gone on to do so many amazing things, and I think so many different things. Yeah.
I love the ground, too, but I love it. It's one of those things, and Sean, you kind of know what this is like, and Jason, you do too, when you do something that is such a sort of hit that crosses all demographics, et cetera, at a young age.
When you look back on your experience as X-Files, is it a positive feeling? Are you like, oh, that was the greatest thing? Or did it open all these millions of doors? Or is it, oh, just, this is what I'm using as a platform or something. You know what happens when you're on a long-running show is everything becomes so enmeshed and not incestuous, but you literally feel like you're living and breathing this, you know, the entire crew, the entire experience.
And so I think by the time we were done after, you know, we did nine years, and I think I was well ready for it to be over. And it took me a while to properly think of it.
I think I compartmentalized it. I so wanted to get off it and start doing the things that I thought my career was going to be before I said yes to that job.
So I imagined I'd be doing Merchant Ivory films and I be doing all this, you know, and so I really wanted to, on the one hand, forget that that happened and bounce off it to the stuff that I really wanted to do. But then, you know, it was probably about five years when I suddenly, because when you're doing something like that, all anybody says is, oh my God, the show, oh my God, it's the most amazing.
And you don't want to hear that anymore. You don't.
You don't. You've heard it so much.
And then I suddenly got what they were talking about, like, five years after the show ended. I was kind of like, yeah, that was kind of cool.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I was on this really cool show.
Yeah, like anything, you need time and distance, a way to appreciate it. But it is interesting how the things that sort of landed all four of us with a career are things that I'll bet you none of us would have said, this would be the exact thing that would condition the audience and the industry to the kind of person and career I want to have.
That's exactly right. And it's like, you basically, it's not that you take what you get, but you're appreciative of the job at the time.
But then by the time you're done with the job, guess what? That's who you are now. And now what do I, what do I do with this? And this is, I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining at all.
Cause I could not be more appreciative of, you know, as I'm sure you guys would agree where, where we're at and what, but you, you, you, you, you tack towards what you're now identified and labeled as and build on that or try to offset that a little bit and have a little bit more of a different kind of career. But you need time to reckon with it.
You need time and space to be able to figure out what it actually means to you because for the last however long you've been hearing what it means to everybody else.

And, you know, yeah.

But we have those people on here all the time, Julian,

that have been fortunate enough to do what you do,

which is you actually have gone on

and created the whole identity for yourself as an actress,

as one of the leading voices and actresses in the business. And X-Files just happens to be one of the jobs you've done as opposed to the thing that identifies you.
But it takes a while. It takes focus.
It takes saying no to a lot of stuff. But it also, I remember at the beginning, one of the first things that I, because after the series ended, I didn't know if I could be on a set again.
I didn't know that for myself. It just felt, I knew that I just needed to get away from Los Angeles and set.
So I had grown up in London. I moved back to London and the first thing I did was a play.
But the second thing I did, I was offered was, you know, a British BBC, a short series of, uh, of Bleak House and, you know, costume drama. And, and when they offered it to me, we went out and audition, I literally, in the meeting with the producers, I said to them, what makes you think I can do this? Because I, I knew I could do it, but I just spent 10 years doing

exactly the opposite of that. And I was so curious.

What did you see in me that I didn't?

Yeah, that I feel like maybe has been lost or that nobody.

Yeah.

And what did they say? Do you remember?

Oh, I'm sorry. We thought you were.

Yeah. We like to watch people fail.

I can't remember what they said.

I mean, I think that somewhere in the work that I did at X-Files,

they gleaned that I could act

as opposed to what I felt like I was doing

was not necessarily...

But of course I was.

I mean, they were...

We learned how to be actors

during that period of time. Right.
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And now, back to the show. Where did you grow up in Chicago, by the way? Here we go.
Well, I kind of didn't. I was born there.
Six months later, we moved to Puerto Rico because my story goes that my dad wanted to go to film school, and he said to my mom, I want to go to film school. Do you want it to be Los Angeles? Do you want to move to Los Angeles or London? And she said London.
And so they didn't have any money to move to London. And so we left the apartment, apparently moved to Puerto Rico where my dad's parents were living.
And we basically slept on their sofa for a year and a half so my parents could save money and we could move to London. So I only got like six months there.
Do you remember where you were born? Yeah, at St. Mary's Hospital in Cook County.
Oh, yeah. Like, I actually ended up back there, because when I went to college, I moved to, like, Wicker Park, Bucktown area before it was Wicker Park, Bucktown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool. You know, it was still, you know, low-income Hispanic families.
And how long were you in England? Until I was 11. So from about a year, from 2 to 11.
And your dad went to film school then, yes? When you were in London. And your dad was an editor, is that right? No, no, well, see, he wanted to be a cameraman.
He wanted to be a director, a filmmaker. Wow.
And after... But then they fell in love with London.
We were always going to stay. We eventually, you know, could afford to rent a decent, two-bedroom apartment.
And so we stayed and he got, you know, various jobs, working in various places. And then he got a call from a film school friend and a fellow American who basically said, I am starting to make industrial films.
Come to Grand Rapids, Michigan and get rich quick. And he said, okay, I'm going to do that.
So he went out and we ended up moving to Grand Rapids. We went from London to Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Wow. And there you stayed until college? Until I went to college, yeah.
Which was where? To the Goodman Theater School in Chicago. In Chicago.
So then your spark was kind of lit by your father's interest in the business? Is that kind of how it started? No, I don't think it was. I think the high school that I went to in Grand Rapids, there was an English teacher.

It was an academic high school.

And I mean, I've said this so many times, but the only reason I got in was because I had an accent. And, you know, under normal circumstances, I don't think I would have made it into the academic high school.
But so I got into that. And there was no theater department, no sports or anything.
But there was an English teacher who a couple times a year or semesters or whatever,

she would direct a play that would be put on in the lunchroom.

And at one point, I think we did Our Town.

I can't remember who I played, but I think it was for the police.

In the middle of grilled cheeses and french fries.

Yeah, exactly.

Any fun stories from the lunchroom?

Sean, I don't care whether they're theater or food related.

Either is fine with him.

No, but I remember asking for another sandwich so I could take it home later and have it for another meal. I remember I did that when I was in high school.
Great callback. Yeah.
Yeah, anyway, so I think that was probably what ended up getting me interested. And then I started auditioning for community theater and stuff.
Wow.

I love the Goodman Theater. I did a play there a few years ago.
It's so great. And they're great people.
What was the first gig that you got that you were like, oh, you know what? I can really do this. Not I can do this.
Not that I have the ability. But this is going to be, I can have a life doing this.
I can have a career. I can make a living.
Well, I think one of the, you know,

one of the community shows that I auditioned for and was cast in, you know,

it was the first time that I was properly doing something,

you know, professional, you know.

And there must have been, you know,

I think I suddenly felt like,

oh, I can actually do this.

Like, I can do this.

There is something I can do.

And it really changed my life around.

Do you remember what it was?

Yeah, it was Ander Nightingale Sang.

It was a British, I think a World War II play.

But anyway, you know, the applause or whatever got to me. How old were you? 16, I think.
Wow, 16. That's young to have that kind of...
Well, all of a sudden, before that, I was sitting on the back steps with the smoking weed in my lunch breaks and not doing my homework. And suddenly something in that, in the inspiration and feeling like suddenly I had a purpose, it kind of shifted everything around.
And I started doing better in school and I was voted most improved student. You know, suddenly I was.
It's kind of a backhanded compliment. Yeah.
When the only way is up. Hey, you know what? You're not an idiot.
But the reason I ask that is because like, JB, you grew up doing this. So you always knew that it was a viable thing.
But for people like us who don't come out, who weren't born into it, there is that moment. Sean, I don't know.
I asked you the same thing, which is that moment where you're like, I think there are plenty of people who I grew up with who never thought that I would ever be able to make a life out of doing this. You know, you have lots of good friends who go, yeah, you could, but a lot of people are like, yeah, nice try.
It's a big fucking scary world. Like, good luck.
I mean, I think when I started to audition for theater schools, I mean, I auditioned for one.

It didn't occur to me that I wasn't going to get in.

Like, I didn't have a plan B.

So I auditioned for the Goodman Theater School.

Meanwhile, I only take, you know, 20 people every year.

I didn't, you know, I don't know what I would have done if I didn't get in.

But anyway, but my dad sat me down and said,

this is an impossible career to get into, and you've got to have a backup. And he was trying to convince me to study word processing because he knew that computers were going to be a thing and that I could always get a job on the side when I wasn't acting or able to act or getting hired that I'd be able to teach people WordPress, you know, to help them on their computers, which is a fantastic piece of advice for somebody else.
It just, you know, there was no way in hell that I was going to, never, would I, my brain just doesn't work that way. But it was a great piece of advice.
Yeah, yeah. And the kinds of things that I'm saying to my sons right now, you know what I mean? Like have a contingency plan.
Yeah, yeah. You know, like this part of people's lives, I'm surprised there's not more stories about or movies about or TV shows about, because like there's tons of movies and TV shows about like falling in love or deciding to have children or grappling with mortality and here comes death and somebody's got a terminal, you know, diagnosis.
No one ever does anything about like that moment where every young adult has that scary question about what am I going to do with my life? Who am I going to be? Who am I going to be? Is it going to, should I pursue something that I'm passionate about to the extent that you even know what you're passionate about yet at that age? Or should I pursue something that's going to give me a path towards providing? Yeah, but doesn't that feel like an idea from the 1980s or something? These days it's different. I guess it is, but there's always jumping off points and everybody has a different height from which they're jumping off.
There's more different risk involved. But just choosing what that lane is, what the industry is, It is so important.
It's like one of the biggest forks in anyone's life. What you're going to actually put your weight behind and choose to study in college or take that first job after college or before or during college.
I've got a 17-year-old and a 12-year-old. They're dealing with that right now.
Willie, I'm sure your boys as well. It's like, it's like a big, big fork.
Do you go left or right? Scotty's going through it too. Scotty's going through it too.
That's my husband, Julie. I mean, it's, but like, it's not something that people talk about a lot.
Yeah, no, no, no, it's true. We all go through it as parents.
We all experience that with them. But I always say that the younger you figure that out, the higher success

rate, right?

Even if it doesn't end up being the thing that

you do, it's like, I always say, like, a lot of stuff

happens on your way to something else.

If you're just driven and motivated

to do something, it's okay if it doesn't end up

being that, but at least your

feet are moving forward.

Yeah, totally.

I remember moving to New York when I was 20

and I did not know a single person in New York.

And I just thought, fuck it.

Yeah, let's get started.

Yeah, let's fucking go.

I was in college and everybody else.

Let's get this party started.

And I dropped out because I thought,

everybody's just kind of not,

nobody has any real direction.

They're getting really good at being a senior,

a sixth-year senior, a seventh-year senior.

Yeah, whatever it is.

A lot of great people, but at the same time,

I just thought like, fuck, there's a whole world out there.

I want to get in it. I want to get in the world.
But that's the thing that I think a lot of teens these days are... The thing of the whole world as an oyster, in a way that obviously that's a very privileged perspective to have.

But I feel like kids these days, that's not necessarily the perspective that they have.

It doesn't feel like that is what is on offer anymore.

There's something, and I don't know what, you know, the degree to which. That it's harder or it's easier?

No, harder.

So many kids are floundering right now.

So many teens are just, or young 20s.

It's because of the.

It's the fucking phones.

Oh my gosh. or it's easier? No, harder.
So many kids are floundering right now. So many teens are just, or young 20s.
You want to know why? It's because of the fucking... It's the fucking phones.
Yeah, it is. It is.
I'm serious. I'm dead serious.
It is. On the one hand, you're seeing the world out there because everybody's posting them and their holidays on yachts and this, that, and the other, but it feels so unreachable and so, you know, it actually has the opposite effect, I think, for a lot of things.
Instead of aspirational, it's kind of... I couldn't agree more in this idea that you can kind of go into your phone and lose yourself into all four corners.
You're not really experiencing anything. You're getting the micro dopamine hits and stuff.
There are lots of books about it right now. But at the same time, you're not actually getting that real-world experience that we all had the privilege of getting.
And while you're looking at it, you're sitting next to your friend not having a conversation while they're looking at somebody's life, too. And obviously, as you say, there's tons of books written about it.
But it's a really serious problem today. Jillian, can I ask you, can I nerd out on The Fall? I love that show so much.
And I wish, it's one of those shows that I wish I could watch it again for the first time. Because I found it so engrossing.
It was so gripping. And what was that process like? Your character was very intense on that show.
Well, it was, I mean, the premise is great. So in the show, you're with the serial killer for an equal amount of screen time as you are the superintendent detective who is tracking him, which is me.
And I think it was the first time, I don't know what it was the first time, but it felt quite unique that, you know, that set felt quite unique at the time. So it started, you know, it started where I was brought a script and I'd been in the process of producing something myself that I couldn't get there.
I was really, really struggling with the writers and the other producers to get the script to where it needed to be. And then this script landed in my lap and it was like, now that is writing.
And it was so spare, you know? It was just, it was like, and I've spoken about this before, it felt like when I was reading it, my experience of the character, it almost, despite the fact that it was so spare,

it felt like my fusion with her was almost alchemic. And because there wasn't a lot to go on in a typical American way of reading a script where it's all described, you know, all the descriptions are in the directives in between where you get so much information, you feel like you're slightly treated like an idiot.
but this was really beautifully, beautifully spare

and yet you got you just got who she was what the world was who the different voices were in it and it was so it was really special and you know i'm i i met them and and the you know the producers and the director and and and it was a fantastic experience you know I'd just come off of I don't know which version of which Hollywood thing I had just finished doing but all of a sudden I was in Belfast shooting this little series and it was a real collaboration you know it was I went from from being on something where I was so detached and so not part of the creative process to all of a sudden being with these guys in Belfast and really immersed and included in the conversation and you know in the end got to make notes on the edit and all that of stuff. So it was the first time that I was being allowed into that part of it.
And, you know, if I wanted to go back to London, you know, it was a matter of texting the travel coordinator as opposed to sending an email to somebody at Fox. And a month later, they tell you that, yes, you can and cannot take that flight.
So it felt like the whole experience of it was like this is this is what it is this is the real thing you know this is what I want to do this is what I want to do and you know she was an extraordinary character I felt before it aired when I started to do press I remember saying to the press who hadn't really seen it yet you, they do or they don't watch the screeners that they're sent, and I kept thinking she's really good for women. Like, she needs to be out there.
There's something about her, I think, that is going to be incredibly empowering for women, and I don't think we've seen someone like her before on the screen. She had the same sort of impact to me as DCI Tennyson from Prime Suspect.
There were a lot of similarities, very strong. I mean, you bring a lot of strength to your characters.
You played a bunch of very strong characters throughout your career, including Margaret Thatcher, I was going to say, you kind of go from that to, not directly, you do stuff in between, but then you do, then you play Margaret Thatcher, which, in The Crown, to great acclaim and really just a wonderful performance. Incredible.
Incredible performance. Thank you.
And I just think, like, that must bring with it its own set of risks and challenges and burdens. And you invite a tremendous amount of criticism, right? The thing is those kind of things come along and you can't not say yes.
I mean, you know what I mean? I think I've always, you have to say yes to those things and then deal with your fear afterwards almost. And it's the same thing with doing theater is saying yes to things that are terrifying.
And then at some point when you're halfway through rehearsal, you're feeling like, what the fuck was I thinking? Like, what made me think that I could do this or that I should and now I'm stuck and I've got to do this in front of a thousand people every single night? Like what is wrong with me? Or then it's over and you've crushed it and now you've got the confidence and now you're ready to take on even something bigger. The next thing that you get to say yes to because yeah, that's what it's about, right? I've always thought that the confidence about stuff lives on the backside of actually doing it.
You know, it's completely appropriate that you're fearful beforehand and that you shouldn't worry about the fact that you're not confident going into it because confident lives on the backside of actually executing it. Like once you've done it, you've kind of...
And then it gives you courage enough to say yes to this thing next time that is even a bit scarier. Or you don't worry about the result and you just do the work.
Amen, brother. I think for Thatcher it was a bit of that, which is, okay, I'm going to do everything I can to try and succeed with this.
I'm going to start working on it a year in advance. I'm going to study everything, watch everything, read everything.
Yeah, you do the work. And then you show up and you you just do your best job.
And you don't know until afterwards whether people are going to go, oh my God, did you see that piece of, like, what was she thinking? Yeah. We'll be right back.
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Terms and more at AppleCard.com. This episode is supported by FX's Dying for Sex, starring Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.
Inspired by a true story, this series follows Molly, who after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, decides to leave her husband and explore the full breadth of her sexual desires. She gets the courage and support to go on this sex quest from her best friend Nikki, who stays by her side through it all.
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And now back to the show. Do you remember that first day of being there with the hair and all of it and thinking like, here we go.
Fuck this better fucking work because I am out on this motherfucking limb now. What's amazing is...
I passed on it just so you know. I was first.
You didn't agree with the wardrobe though. That was why.
Yeah, I mean... But the thing is you see her silhouette.
You see, you know, the minute the wig goes on and you get into costume and you see the silhouette alone. I could have talked like Daffy Duck and you would have believed I was Margaret Thatcher because the silhouette was so spectacular.
Had you been, you had already been living in England for a while before you started doing that? Yeah, I'm, so we finished X-Files in 2002 and I moved back to the UK. We were always going to move back again when I was a kid and we just never did.
And so it was always a dream of mine to at least be, you know, part of my life to be back there. So I went back and I did a play and then stayed.
And so I've been living there since 2002. Wow.
And was there extra pressure playing Margaret Thatcher being a resident now? Like, because, you know, being in America, you could play Margaret Thatcher and maybe if it did go sideways, you'd get a little more space between those who might criticize. I think so.
I think because most of the theater work that I was offered as a young person were British plays. I did The Philanthropist.
I did Absent Friends off Broadway. I kept because of my accent, because that was basically my first way of speaking was with a British accent.
So that was easy for me. And so I was living in the UK.
They've kind of adopted me from quite early on of being back there as a professional person post X-Files as being a, you know, they've taken me on as being one of them in a way. But playing somebody that has that iconic history there in that particular country.
She is such a divisive character. I mean, people feel really, really strongly about Margaret Thatcher and not all of it is positive.
So in playing her period there or from over, you know, whether we shot it in the States to be aired there, it would be the same reaction. The people that hate her still hate her and the people that love her still love her.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting.
Jillian, just talk to us for a second. It's quite a responsibility being the person who asked the secret person on.
You got to keep the show going. You got to have some questions.
Yeah, you got to kind of keep it moving a little bit. Well, I want to talk to you about your book, Want.
And I wanted to ask if it came post doing your show, Sex Education, or prior to it. How did that all? Yeah, it came.
So in Sex Education, I play, it's a Netflix series. We did four seasons.
I play a sex therapist. And in the process of, or during the period of time of being on that show, you know, my character's house is filled with sex paraphernalia and pictures of vaginas and penises and all kinds of tantric stuff on the walls.

And I kept taking pictures.

And so I kept wanting to post these pictures.

And the girl who does my,

because I don't post things myself,

does my Instagram.

She kept saying, you can't post it.

This is like a peanut.

Instagram is not going to let you post a penis.

Sean, is that true?

That is not true.

I can tell you that

is untrue.

Anyway,

I started posting them anyway

and I would do like a yoni of the day

or penis of the day and then people would send

me pictures of

penises or yonis in nature

like a poodle with a

butt. Yeah, it was nice.
So it started this kind of thing. Penises in nature, yeah.
Anyway, so my professional life started to mix, mingle a little bit with my personal life in that Instagram as an example of anything to do with my personal life. I don't ever post personal things.
But so there was a, you know, a cross-pollination that was happening there. And so I, people would talk to me.
I mean, not in a therapeutic way, but I, a lot of stuff that came to me was, since then, has been part of that bigger conversation about sexual well-being and particularly for women. And so in the 70s, Nancy Friday wrote a book called My Secret Garden, and she did the introductions to chapters, and she invited women to send in letters to her about their sexual fantasies.
And it was a book that, so anonymous letters from women, particularly, mostly in America, writing about their sexual fantasies. And it was like a number one book.
All of a sudden, everybody wanted it. It's a good idea.
Women were carrying it in their purses. But it was a real insight into, you know, what women think about when they think about sex.
And we thought we discussed doing a modern day version of it to see whether, you know, in the age of, sorry, Franny, pornography and, you know, shows like Sex Education or Euphoria or, you know, where everything is out there all the time and you have access to it, to what degree have fantasies, particularly for women, changed over time? And so I put a call out about a year and a half ago to women around the world to write to me anonymously. Bloomsbury set up a portal so that they could do it anonymously.
And we collected about 1,800 women started writing letters and about 800 of them finished them. And then we've put about 174 of them in the book.
Wow, that's wild. It's wild.
So some of them didn't finish. Correct.
I'm just going off what you... Some of them didn't finish.
Okay. That is correct.
Okay. Now, did you notice a big difference between the content of those sexual fantasies now versus years ago in the original book? Well, the most interesting thing to me is the degree to which there are so many rules today about what is appropriate and what is not, whereas back then animals show up and...
Wow, I think it would be the opposite. Like it would be more permissive today.
Yeah, you'd think it would be the opposite. But, you know, we've got the most extraordinary letters from, you know, young teens who have yet to have sex, you know, talking about their fantasies to mothers of many children, single parents, and what it's like trying to do the same old, same old with your partner to 20-somethings in the dating world and how what exists in their head is different from what they experience out in the real world.
It's really interesting. And we've got letters from literally all over the world.
there's we also ask the women um you know we also invited um the trans community and you know genderqueer people and um yeah it feels quite egalitarian it feels it's how does that word mean equal oh okay yeah it feels like it's an equal opportunity for anybody to pitch in and to talk about their experience. And it does.
I heard you got like thousands of letters from an Amanda A from Los Angeles. This is unconfirmed.
Very unsatisfied. There was a run on stamps in our local post office.
Amanda, where are you going? I'm running to the post office. I'll be right back.
She's just got a stack of letters. Huh.
She's really... Wow, well, that's...
Wow, what an awesome... That's really cool.
Yeah, it is a cool thing. It's a really interesting insight.
I would have thought that porn would have showed up a lot more in the fantasies. There's a lot of women, no matter how intense the fantasy gets, at the end of the day, just wanting to be seen for who they are, just wanting to be held, wanting care, wanting somebody to look in their eyes, or the you know, or, you know, the opposite woman who by day are in charge of 500 employees and the CEO of this, that, and the other, and they just want somebody else to be in control.
So they, you know, and so it's just, it's fascinating. Will, why are you crying? Well, I'm not crying.
I'm saying it's dusty. Will, what is going on? I'm just saying, hold me.
Jillian Anderson, you have been more than generous with your time on what I imagine is your day off. And so thank you so much.
Thanks for everything. Been such a fan of yours for the longest time.
They're very sweet. Yeah.
And your new book, Want, is out now. Did you do an audio version of that book? Yes.
Yes, but it's not me. Hey, cool it, baby.
Do you read the letters? Do you? So I wrote the introductions to each chapter, and I read the introductions, but then there are women, other women, who read the fantasies. Got it.
All right. Copy.
We'll send Jason the audio. I can't get the hang of the reading.
It's top to bottom, left to right. Sure.
Right? Sure. Jillian, thank you, honey.
Thank you. It was so nice to meet you guys.
Great to meet you, too. I'm a fan of your show.
And yeah, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
Enjoy the rest of your time in Calgary.

Bye, Jillian.

Nice to meet you.

Thank you.

Bye, Jillian.

Bye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The great Jillian Anderson.

Bye.

Bye.

Will, nice guest.

Yeah, good guest, right?

Hey, huh?

Yes.

She's a talent.

She's a talent of, she's a, I mean, but it's interesting because she did Dana Scully, as

we pointed out, her name.

Yeah, loved.

Character that everybody knows, massive hit, global, not just one of those shows that

was really big here.

And then it came back. Huge globally, came back.
They made a couple movies in the interim. The movies were good too.
But to be able to kind of step out of that and then step into, and not just step into one more iconic role, but step into like three or four other or eight or 10 great roles continuously and recreate, reinvent herself. Yep.
Super, super tough to do and super admirable. Yeah, super talented.
And by the way, it's always wild. I mean, we talked a little bit about it when you associate somebody so much with the character that made them famous.
Yeah. And then you see them in interviews or outside of that world.
Just her having that T-shirt on, the Wu-Tang Clan shirt, and we're talking about her kid. You just see her as, and then Margaret Thatcher, of course, and all the other stuff.
You see her as a completely different human being. Yeah, and then she's like this totally chill, cool, really smart, interesting person.
Can we revisit Sean's theory on evolution? Yes, I love him. So the spaceship's planted? So the spaceship, do all the humans come out of the spaceship or just two of them and then sort of like an Adam and Eve, they come down and they're sort of egg-shaped? No, no.
We have to have had come from somewhere. Somebody or something made us, right? So it's evolution.
All right, Doc, I'm with you so far. But we're not the only planet in the entire universe.
So you're not having this nonsense about the Big Bang, right? All the science stuff is not working for you? No, yeah, for sure I am. Yeah, no, all that works.
But I'm just saying we can't be the only species. So because we're not the only species, and there is intelligent life.
Like if you don't think there's more intelligent life than us out there. No, we all agree.
That's not in dispute. But I think people are saying that perhaps these other aliens, the alien life form also came from what was originally sort of created with sort of this big bang.
And who was responsible for the bang. Yeah, but I don't think it's- You're suggesting that maybe the aliens lit that fuse.
Correct. I don't know if it's a who as much as it could be a what.
Or a spaceship. But I'm open to anything.
With a real big exhaust system, right? Yes. Just like, boom, it was some sort of a backfire.
But you're saying at some point, somebody from Tatooine came here. That's right.
Not from Naboo, because give me a break. No, right.
But definitely somebody from Camino and Tatooine, they came in, they're like, hey, let's go. Jakku.
You're talking about Jakku, not Nobu. That's a sushi restaurant.
Jakku. No, Jakku.
I'm I'm not talking about Nobu, Malibu. Right.
You know, it's funny. My cousin, he's from Alderaan, and he...
I'm sorry about his passing. They blew up the whole planet.
They blew up that whole planet. Don't know stuff about it.
Yeah, Ald'll go on. Okay? Stop knowing shit.

None of it's real.

You may find it when ready.

Remember?

So if you know everything, Sean,

then what would you call someone who's got dual citizenship like she does?

You know, she's from, she's got England.

She's got America.

Well, you might call her.

What would you call her?

You might call her bi-coastal.

No, no, no, it's not coastal. It's not coastal.
Oh, not fucking bi-coastal. No, no, no, it's not coastal.

It's not coastal.

Oh, not fucking bi-coastal.

Get back to the microphone.

She would be bi-what?

Bi-what do you mean?

Anything but coastal, motherfucker.

It's two countries, bro.

It's bilingual?

No.

No, bi-what?

No, they both speak English.

I don't know.

Listen.

I don't know the answer,

but I want something better than bi-coastal.

Guys, hang on.

Will's got it.

Hang on, Sean.

Will's got it.

Sean, Jason, you guys are at odds right now,

and I want you to be more in sync,

and I want you to be bye-bye-bye.

Don't move the microphone away like that's got it. Bye-bye-bye.
Like the podcast version of a mic drop. Off of NSYNC.
We're going to appreciate the effort on that, and judges will allow Armjarf, Bennett Barbaco, and Michael Grantary. Smart Less.
week early. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com

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