Actress Gillian Anderson on her Wide-Spanning Career

AMANPOUR: So let’s talk about the really serious themes. First and foremost, this Ivo van Hove camera work is remarkable because one of the cameras is stuck right into the makeup mirror where you do a lot of your scenes. And there’s one where you can see, you know, you’re doing this with your face. You’re taking off the makeup. And then there’s another way you literally morph 10 years or more. More?

ANDERSON: Thirty.

AMANPOUR: Thirty years.

ANDERSON: Yes, yes.

AMANPOUR: Thanks. Sorry, Gillian.

ANDERSON: That’s all right.

AMANPOUR: But what does that feel like? A, as a woman, B, as an actress, what does it feel like to be seen and shown doing that every night?

ANDERSON: That doesn’t bother me at all. That’s the essences of — it’s one of the essences of what this play is about. It’s not just about aging but that is certainly at the core of her insecurity, you know, as well as her whole life has been her work. And if her — if she’s no longer going to be Able to even work, then what is she? And she doesn’t even know — she keeps saying over and over again she doesn’t even know herself. So many people seem to know her but she doesn’t know herself. But to speak to what you just asked, it’s not — I mean aging is inevitable. It was fascinating to go through this prosthetic process that — so Ivo’s right-hand man and husband of 30 years and production Designer, art designer, came up with this idea of projecting — because there’s a lot of videos that’s projected up on the screens of us. But projecting my face as I’m sat in front of the mirror, in front of the audience, up there, they’re going through an aging process of 30 years.

AMANPOUR: Yes. So it was shocking and moving.

ANDERSON: And — but I’m touching my face at the same time. So you don’t quite know what’s happening. How am I — if I’m sat there, touching my face, how is that aging working? So it’s prerecorded. It’s six hours of prosthetics. Extraordinary work by Millennium who do a lot of movie work. And first of all, it was fascinating to go through the process. I mean I’ve aged before in something that I had done, but it wasn’t — the quality that you get today, in today’s prosthetics that are done. And it was moving for me to see it in real life because there were no seams.

AMANPOUR: Not scary?

ANDERSON: No, not scary. But I wonder if part of not being scary is that I am in a relationship with somebody who is my age. We are very aware of the fact that we are our age and celebratory of the fact that we are our age and that we are going through this together. And when I sent him these pictures, he was very moved and touched and felt compassion and love and understanding.