Books
One Nightstand With Gillian Anderson
The actor and author shares four books — including one she’s about to adapt for TV — that have shaped her life.
In One Nightstand, celebrity readers and writers join us in the blond at 11 Howard to discuss four of their favorite books, allowing us to learn about their tastes and lives in the process.
“Whenever I hear that actresses don’t have socials, I think, hot damn,” says Gillian Anderson, star of Sex Education, The X Files, and The Crown. The 56-year-old actor is in New York to promote her new book, Want, which presents the anonymous sexual fantasies of more than 100 women, Anderson included. Surfacing their stories is important — “I just loved the idea of offering a platform to women who may not even think of themselves as being creative,” she says — but that can come at a cost.
“Part of [promotion] in this day and age is actually putting yourself out there more and creating videos and doing BTS,” she adds. “Finding a way to do that without feeling like I am giving away too much or selling my soul in some way — it took me a long time.”
I’m meeting with Anderson to talk about books — not just her own, but four of her all-time favorites. “I was an only child until I was almost 13 and had a lot of time playing on my own in the garden,” she says of her first choice, In The Forest by Marie Hall Ets. “I had a wild imagination. I didn’t have an imaginary friend… but childhood books are really meaningful, and they immediately bring back rich and profound feelings.”
Another book which stirred profound feelings was Anderson’s second choice: Decolonising My Body by Afua Hirsch. “We’re talking a lot about identity and race and politics, but also about the impact of colonialism on body image, and it’s just something that I had never considered before,” she says. “I felt like I was learning a lot in reading her book.”
Elsewhere, Anderson often reads with the goal of finding works to adapt, as she did with her third pick: Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid. “I really, really wanted to win that bid because I just can’t wait to watch it,” she says of her attempt to acquire the rights. Anderson lost out that time — she was beaten by Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad Productions and Sight Unseen Pictures — but she had more luck with the fourth book on her list: The Coast Road by Alan Murrin.
“I’m co-producing with another production company,” she says of the project, being developed by Fiddlehead Productions together with Element Pictures. “I love casting things, and finding opportunities for good actors, and particularly a diverse range of actors and nationalities. I like finding things that can potentially expand people’s understanding in that way.” Her top choices? Jessie Buckley and Elisabeth Moss. Find out why below.
