If science fiction's leading women had a Mount Rushmore, Gillian Anderson would surely be on it.
The American actress, 57, may have grown into one of the most versatile and acclaimed performers working today, tap-dancing between genres, tones and accents with aplomb. But it was The X-Files, the long-running series in which she starred as FBI agent Dana Scully, that made her a household name.
While Anderson has set a grand return to the genre with Tron: Ares, which was released in cinemas across the Middle East yesterday, she is still interested exclusively in new challenges that will push her forward. Anderson does not mince words when she says she is not interested in returning to the role of Dana Scully, despite reports to the contrary.
“No, I don’t miss Dana Scully,” Anderson says. “In part, that’s because I played her for so long, and also went back to revisit her as a character. I feel like, on the whole, I’ve said all that needs to be said about her. I’m not sure that I have anything left to add to that conversation. Sorry!”
While she may not miss Dana Scully, that doesn’t mean that the genre itself doesn’t still excite her. In Tron: Ares, Anderson plays Elisabeth Dillinger, heir to a tech empire founded by her father Ed Dillinger – the villain of the first Tron film from 1982.
It’s a role that has more in common with the leadership-based roles Anderson has taken on recently, such as Margaret Thatcher in Netflix's The Crown, or Eleanor Roosevelt in The First Lady.
For Elisabeth Dillinger, Anderson was inspired more by her own life than she was by those of Silicon Valley billionaires. That’s because, while she is the chairwoman of the company’s board of directors, she also plays a mother. Elisabeth’s son is Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), the chief executive of Dillinger Systems, who is taking her legacy in a radical new direction. Anderson found the conflict between them eminently relatable.
“I don't have sons who are pursuing military grade weapons, but as a mother myself, whether it's for my sons or my daughter, there is a degree of fear at various points. And yes, sometimes I struggle.
“Sometimes, I have to compartmentalise quite a lot. As a parent, you need to let your kids explore their dreams and allow them to do that, despite your own fear. And sometimes that's easy, and sometimes it's one of the hardest things ever.”
And while her approach to each role is to make it feel real and grounded, part of what she enjoyed most about the filming process was how otherworldly it was.
“I don't think I've ever been on something that was so big, with such a big budget, and where part of the whole modus operandi was to deliver the best of the best,” she says.
“And it was exciting to be on all these practical sets that they had built, flanked by these giant half-circle screens that cost around $30 million on their own, providing extremely real three-dimensional backdrops moving in real time.”
The story follows her son's creation, Ares (Jared Leto), a sentient AI programme that's 3D-printed into the real world to become a soldier for hire. And while this is still science fiction, it's hard to tell, with the rapid evolution of the technology, how much longer before such a scenario comes true.
Only last week, the chatter around Hollywood has surrounded a new actress named Tilly Norwood, whom agents are reportedly in a bidding war to sign. The catch, of course, is that Norwood is entirely AI-generated.
But even as such technology leaves the future of filmmaking in jeopardy, portending a potential future with less and less actual human involvement, Anderson believes that artists such as herself will never stop creating – regardless of whether Hollywood keeps hiring them or not.
“I mean, I've got no control over it. There's nothing I can do. I just have to hope and imagine that there'll still be a desire for human beings as actors. If not, then I'll find something else to do, another way to make it,” says Anderson.
Tron: Ares will be released in cinemas across the Middle East on Thursday
