Age: 57
female
Gillian Leigh Anderson OBE (born August 9, 1968) is an American actress, writer, and activist. She is best known for her roles as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the sci-fi series The X-Files (1993–2002; 2016–2018), Lily Bart in the drama film The House of Mirth (2000), DSI Stella Gibson in the BBC/RTÉ crime drama series The Fall (2013–2016), Jean Milburn in the Netflix comedy-drama series Sex Education (2019–2023), and Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of the Netflix drama series The Crown (2020). She has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. Born in Chicago, Anderson was raised first in London and then in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She later started her career onstage in New York City before achieving international recognition for her work on The X-Files. Her film work includes the dramas The Mighty Celt (2005), The Last King of Scotland (2006), Shadow Dancer (2012), and Viceroy's House (2017), as well as the X-Filesfilms Fight the Future (1998) and I Want to Believe (2008). Her 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), Media in the first season of American Gods (2017), and Eleanor Roosevelt on The First Lady (2022). Anderson has also received awards and acclaim for her stage work, which includes Absent Friends (1991), for which she won a Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer; A Doll's House (2009), for which she was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress; Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (2014 and 2016), for which she won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress and received a second Laurence Olivier Award nomination; and All About Eve (2019), for which she received a third Laurence Olivier Award nomination. Anderson has supported numerous charities and humanitarian organizations, being an honorary spokesperson for the Neurofibromatosis Network and a co-founder of South African Youth Education for Sustainability (SAYes). She has lived in London since 2002 and was appointed an honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2016 for her services to drama. Description above from the Wikipedia article Gillian Anderson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
The gods sent monsters to the five kingdoms to remind mortals they must kneel. I’ve spent my life kneeling―to their will and to my father's. As a princess, my only duty is to wear the crown and obey the king. I was never meant to rule. Never meant to fight. And I was never supposed to be the daughter who sealed an ancient treaty with her own blood. But that changed the fateful day I stepped into my father’s throne room. The day a legendary monster hunter sailed to our shores. The day a prince ruined my life. Now I’m crossing treacherous lands beside a warrior who despises me as much as I despise him―bound to a future I didn’t choose and a husband I barely know. Everyone wants me to be something I’m not―a queen, a spy, a sacrifice. But what if I refused the role chosen for me? What if I made my own rules? What if there’s power in being underestimated? And what if―for the first time―I reached for it?
