1994-95 1996-97 1998 1999-00 2001-03 2004-06

Here Magazine
August 19, 1996

Exclusive Interview:
A paranormal cop on screen, her most hair-rasing moment had nothing to do with the X-Files
Gillian Anderson: "THE NIGHT I SAID YES TO MR WRONG"

Gillian Anderson recalls how a lover popped the question over dinner and she said yes to please the waiters.

Gillian Anderson isn't easily ruffled. But the memory of one close encounter still sends a shiver down her spine. It was the night the star of TV's hit series "The X Files" found herself accepting a marriage proposal that she didn't want.

Then an unknown actress, Gillian was being wined and dined at a restaurant by a boyfriend she had been dating in Los Angeles for several months. "Suddenly he asked me to marry him," Gillian recalls, "and he presented me with a ring while the waiters and other diners looked on.

"I should have said no. I didn't want to marry him. But how could I, when every was watching me and willing me to accept?

"So I said yes, but it was stupid because, looking back, I was simply accepting the marriage proposal just to please the waiters.

"It was only when I went to Vancouver to file "The X Files" that I realised it was all a mistake. It was the first time I'd been away from him and could think clearly.

"I realised I wasn't meant to be this man's wife and I put a stop to any wedding."

Happily for Gillian, 27, she met Mr Right soon afterwards when she fell in love with Clyde Klotz, the art director on "The X-Files". and married him after a whirlwind three-month affair. "It wasn't quite love at first sight," laughs Gillian, who has become a TV sex symbol all over the world in her role as FBI agent Dana Scully, investigating unexplained cases.

"It was Clyde's smile that first attracted me. He was very quiet, rugged and cool, but I soon realised he had a lot to say and that he was a very intelligent man.

"We were in my kitchen when Clyde asked me to marry him. For some reason the TV was on, showing a couple in bed and the guy was proposing to the girl. . That's when Clyde popped the question, and I knew it was right."

Gillian and Clyde flew to Hawaii and tied the knot on the 17th hole of a golf course on New Year's Day, 1994. The only other person there was the minister who pronounced them man and wife.

"We sent a letter to my mum and dad, with a strict instruction not to open it until New Year's Day," she says. "My Mum had already met Clyde and my dad was in a good mood that day, so they were happy."

Gillian and Clyde were back at work on "The X Files" two days later. But, as they were soon to discover, she was already pregnant. At a party to celebrate the launch of "The X Files" she sat at a table with a woman who was psychic. Gillian recalls: "It really shook me when she said I was going to have a baby.

"I told her I'd just started "The X Files" and I could not possible be expecting. But she insisted: 'You're going to have a little girl.' In a month and a half I was feeling nauseous and I realised she was right."

Fearing her pregnancy might jeapordise filming for the show, Gillian confided in co-star David Duchovny, who plays Fox Mulder. He agreed to keep her secret until she was ready to tell the producers.

"It was a bit of a bombshell for them, it wasn't in my contract not to get pregnant, but it is now." adds Gillian, who was back at work just six days after baby girl Piper was born.

When she was younger Gillian lived in London for nine years. "I went though a punk stage and horrified my parents," she recalls.

What really shocked her mother and father was the ring in her ose. "I fainted when it was inserted. My father was furious about it."

Gillian freely acknowledges that "The X Files" has changed her life. Until she was chosen to play Dana Scully, she had made only one minor TV appearance.

"I thought they wanted someone drop-dead gorgeous with bigger breasts. I was lucky they chose me."