Gillian Anderson returns to the role of Agent Dana Scully six years after The X-Files went off the air. Though The X-Files: I Want to Believe was the first time she's been paid to be Scully since, Scully never really left her.
Scully Returns
"I don't do things, mannerisms or something and think, 'Oh, that was kind of like Scully' but by the same token I don't know how much of me today wasn't influenced by the fact that I got to play her for such a long time," said Anderson. "It's possible that there are aspects of my seriousness or my independence or my inquisitiveness about the medical profession or science or something that aren't directly related to the fact that I lived with her for such a long time, but that's hard to qualify and hard to say."
The film's snowbound setting reminded Anderson just how hard it is to recite long passages in freezing weather. "I think one of the more physically challenging aspects for me at the time were that there were a couple of scenes where we had quite a bit of dialogue and when you're in that kind of weather and the wind is slightly blowing and the snow is coming down, your lips actually do freeze. They do. There were a couple of times that were reminiscent of the pilot. There was a scene in the pilot where we're in this pouring forest rain that's freezing and I'm screeching at him about one thing or another."
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Both Anderson and costar David Duchovny got a crash course in returning to Scully and Mulder. "I didn't have all the running around that David had to do, but I did have my own unfortunate beginning which was starting with one of the most difficult scenes for Scully in the film. It's later on in the script and she goes through a range of emotions in confronting Billy Connolly's character. I just had a really hard time for those first couple of days that that scene was. I had a really hard time just finding her, finding her voice. I think I must've gone through 10 other characters in the process of trying to get to her when I had assumed that I would be able to show up on the first day and it would just be there."
Perhaps it took some Scully/Mulder banter to bring the magic back. "It wasn't until I think day three when we got to work together, not just necessarily in a familiar environment which it really wasn't, but in the environment of each other and the relationship and that it kind of felt natural and familiar and I felt like I'd landed this time. Whatever it is that's between us was there from the second that we started working together and it's not quantifiable. I think it's something that is unique and yes, they got lucky, but it was something that Chris had seen which is why he fought so hard, specifically, and this is something that's been written about a lot, to cast me over someone else. He saw something between the two of us that was unique. Whether it's luck or that we were meant to be with each other all along, I don't know."
The X-Files: I Want to Believe opens to theaters today.
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