GILLIAN ANDERSON: FROM THE X FILES TO THE FALL

Gillian Anderson

The Grandma is a great fan of Dana Scully, a fictional character played by Gillian Anderson, who celebrates today her birthday.
 

Congratulations!

Gillian Leigh Anderson (born August 9, 1968) is an American-British film, television and theatre actress, activist and writer. Her credits include the roles of FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the long-running and widely popular series The X-Files and DSI Stella Gibson on the BBC crime drama television series The Fall.

More information:  The Official Gillian Anderson Website

Among other honours, Anderson has won a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Gillian Anderson as Special FBI Agent Dana Scully

After beginning her career on stage, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully on the American sci-fi drama series The X-Files. 

Anderson's character on The X Files initiated a phenomenon referred to as The Scully Effect; as the medical doctor and the FBI Special Agent inspired many young women to pursue careers in science, medicine and law enforcement, and as a result brought a perceptible increase in the number of women in those fields. The Scully Effect remains a subject of academic inquiry.

More information: The X Files

Her film work includes the dramas The Mighty Celt (2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Shadow Dancer (2012), Viceroy's House (2017) and two X-Files films: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998) and The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). 

Gillian Anderson as DSI Stella Gibson

Other notable television credits include: Lady Dedlock in Bleak House (2005), Wallis Simpson in Any Human Heart (2010), Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (2011), Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier on Hannibal (2013–2015), and Media on American Gods (2017–present).

Aside from film and television, Anderson has taken on the stage and received both awards and critical acclaim. Her stage work includes Absent Friends (1991), for which she won a Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, A Doll's House (2009), that earned her a Laurence Olivier Award nomination, and a portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (2014, 2016), for which she won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress and received her second Laurence Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress. 

More information: The Telegraph

Anderson is the co-writer of The EarthEnd Saga novel trilogy and the self-help guide book WE: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere.

Anderson has been active in supporting numerous charities and humanitarian organizations. She is an honorary spokesperson for the Neurofibromatosis Network and a co-founder of South African Youth Education for Sustainability (SAYes). 

Dana Scully and The Grandma

Anderson was appointed an honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2016 for her services to drama.

Anderson is bidialectal. With her English accent and background, she was mocked and felt out of place in the American Midwest and soon adopted a Midwestern accent. To this day, her accent depends on her location, as she easily shifts between her American and English accents. 

In May 2013, during an interview with BlogTalkRadio, Anderson addressed the matter of her national identity: I've been asked whether I feel more like a Brit than an American and I don't know what the answer to that question is. I know that I feel that London is home and I'm very happy with that as my home. I love London as a city and I feel very comfortable there. In terms of identity, I'm still a bit baffled.

 More information: Gillian Anderson-Twitter

 Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, 

but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears. 

Gillian Anderson

DAVID DUCHOVNY: FROM TWIN PEAKS TO THE X FILES

David Duchovny

The Grandma is a great fan of Fox Mulder, a fictional character played by David Duchovny, who celebrates today his birthday. 

Congratulations!

David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is an American actor, writer, producer, director, novelist, and singer-songwriter. 

He is known for playing FBI Agent Fox Mulder on the television series The X-Files and writer Hank Moody on the television series Californication, both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards.

Duchovny appeared in both of the two X-Files films, the 1998 science fiction-thriller of the same name and the supernatural-thriller The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). 

He executively produced and starred in the historically based cop drama Aquarius (2015–16). 

More information: Biography.com

Duchovny received an A.B. in English literature from Princeton University, and an M.A. in English literature from Yale University, and has since published two books, Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale in 2015 and Bucky F*cking Dent in 2016.

David Duchovny as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder

Duchovny was born in New York, New York, in 1960. He is the son of a school administrator and teacher, and a writer and publicist who worked for the American Jewish Committee. Duchovny's mother is a Lutheran emigrant from Aberdeen, Scotland. His father was Jewish; Duchovny's paternal grandfather was a Jewish emigrant from Berdychiv, Russian Empire, now in Ukraine, and Duchovny's paternal grandmother was a Jewish emigrant from Russian Poland, now in Poland. His father dropped the h in his last name to avoid the sort of mispronunciations he encountered while serving in the Army.

Duchovny attended Grace Church School and The Collegiate School For Boys; both are in Manhattan. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University in 1982 with an A.B. in English literature. He was a member of Charter Club, one of the university's eating clubs. In 1982, his poetry received an honorable mention for a college prize from the Academy of American Poets.

More information: David Duchovny Music

The title of his senior thesis was The Schizophrenic Critique of Pure Reason in Beckett's Early Novels. He played junior varsity basketball at Princeton. He received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Yale University and subsequently began work on a Ph.D. that remains unfinished. The title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis was Magic and Technology in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry.

David Duchovny as DEA Agent Denise Bryson

Duchovny appeared in an advertisement for Löwenbräu beer in 1987. The next year he appeared in two scenes in Working Girl (1988). 

He had a recurring role as a transgender DEA agent on the series Twin Peaks and played the narrator and host in the long-running Showtime erotica/soft-core TV series Red Shoe Diaries. 

In 1992, he played the role of Rollie Totheroh, in the biographic film Chaplin, directed by Richard Attenborough and based on the life of Charlie Chaplin. 

In 1993, Duchovny began starring in the science fiction series The X-Files, as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, a conspiracy theorist who believed his sister had been abducted by aliens. The show evolved into a cult hit and quickly became one of The Fox Network's first major television hits. According to X-Files creator Chris Carter, Duchovny turned out to be one of the best-read people he knew. 

More information: Duchovny Central

After getting the role, Duchovny thought the show would not last for long or that it would not make as much impact as it did. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz called Duchovny amazingly smart. Spotnitz further stated that Duchovny was behind some of the main characteristic ideas behind Mulder. 

Fox Mulder and The Grandma

During The X-Files run, in between the fifth and sixth seasons, Duchovny co-starred alongside Gillian Anderson in The X-Files: Fight the Future, a 1998 motion picture that continued the X-Files storyline. He remained with the series until quitting in 2001, partly because of a contract dispute that occurred after season seven finished filming. Duchovny appeared in half of the season eight episodes, but did not appear in season nine until the series finale in 2002. 

He also provided the voice for a parody of his Mulder character in, the episode The Springfield Files of the animated comedy series The Simpsons. Duchovny has been nominated for four Emmy Awards.

In March 2014, NBC announced that a new TV series, entitled Aquarius, would be produced starring Duchovny. Duchovny portrayed a 1960s police sergeant investigating small-time criminal and budding cult leader Charles Manson.

More information: David Duchovny-Twitter

In March 2015, Duchovny was announced as returning in a six-episode continuation of The X-Files. 

If you're smart, you'll always be humble. 

You can learn all you want, but there'll always be somebody 

who's never read a book who'll know twice what you know. 

David Duchovny