Subject: LA TIMES Article with GA
From: [email-masked] (Sickleweed)
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 08:43:26 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files

Okay folks, here's the article in the LA Times in which GA takes center 
stage (finally!).  It's actually quite sad; I feel really bad for her 
now. There was a great photo of her also on the first page.  It's the 
Calendar section, BTW.

Here goes (WARNING: Longish but interesting):

"In Search of the X-Factor: Fame's Been Elusive for GA Despite Her 
Finding Success on 'X-Files'"

by Jon Matsumoto

You would think GA would command a little more respect.  After all, the 
27 year old actress has played a vital role in transforming Fox's "The 
X-Files" from cult favorite when it began two seasons ago into mainstream 
sensation today.  
An entire subculture has developed around the noirish Friday night 
series, which is currently the third-highest-rated drama among 18- to 49 
year old television viewers.  Conventions, comic books, related 
merchandise and Internet bulletin boards have all been outgrowths of this 
chilling show about two FBI agents (played by GA and DD) who investigate 
the paranormal and the supernatural.
Yet of the two co-stars, it has been the more conventionally sexy 
Duchovny who has landed most of the national media attention.  For 
instance, Duchovny has appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" 
three times; Anderson's first slated appearance on the program last 
November was postponed until February.
"May that [postponement] was actually a good thing because I'm actually 
nervous about doing 'Letterman,'" a philosophical Anderson observes 
during a late-morning interview at a Sunset Strip restaurant.  "But there 
must be a [cosmic] reason why I [haven't received the widespread 
recognition].  I have to believe there's a reason why it's worked out 
this way, whether it's not supposed to happen to me yet or maybe it's not 
supposed to happen [at all].  Maybe I was meant to have a longer period 
of privacy."
Anderson is no stranger to facing and overcoming adversity.  When she 
first auditioned for "The X-Files" in 1993, the red-headed actress seemed 
a longshot for the role of FBI agent and medical doctor Dana Scully.  Fox 
was looking for a more leggier, more bombshell-type than the petite 
Anderson.  But the show's creator and executive producer, Chris Carter, 
insisted on hiring her.
It proved to be a sage bit of casting.  Anderson has brought an acute 
intelligence and intensity to the usually unflappable Scully.  Still, the 
stage actress entered the project with virtually no experience in fron of 
a film or TV camera.
Initially she felt so unsure of her work in "The X-Files" that whenever 
the director and the producers huddled together on the show's set, she 
feared she was about to be fired.
"When we shot the pilot, I was terrified," reveals Anderson, who studied 
acting at the National Theatre of Great Britain, Cornell University and 
the Goodman Theater at DePaul University.  "I didn't know what I was 
doing.  I didn't know what hitting the mark was.  I didn't know those 
[television and film] structures.  I learned, slowly."
Both Anderson and Duchovny have four additional seasons remaining on 
their contracts with the XF.  But Anderson has serious reservations about 
the show's ability to stay vibrant for more than two or three more seasons.
"I'm praying to God that it won't go [four additional years]," Anderson 
says with a laugh.  "You have to wonder how much longer they can pull off 
these original scripts.  After a while they are going to have to start 
pulling from old ideas and everyone's going to be comparing this one to 
that one.  I hope they have the sense to pull out before the show gets 
stale."
Making the Scully character as multifaceted as possible within the show's 
often emotionally cold climate has been a challenge for Anderson.  "The 
X-Files" deals almost exclusively with the work lives of Scully and 
Duchovny's Fox Mulder.  For Anderson, keeping Scully fresh and authentiv 
has been made particularly tough by her character's difficult function as 
the skeptical scientific voice amid a barrage of bizarre paranormal 
happenings.  Mulder is the show's true believer and is more often cast as 
its heroic figure.
"If there's one thing that's frustrating, it's being skeptical all the 
time," complains Anderson, who in real life is actually more open to the 
existence of paranormal events than Duchovny.
"Sometimes I get into ruts where I say, 'I can't say this anymore'.  But 
CC has a very specific formula that works.  For Scully to all of a sudden 
become a believer just like Mulder would ruin the dynamic of the show."
Though she's known to "X-Files" fans as the strait-laced Scully and as a 
mother and wife, Anderson sees herself as a nonconformist.  Born in 
Chicago but also raised in London and Grand Rapids, Mich., she spent her 
teen years as a rebel who found solace and identity in punk fashion and 
bands like Dead Kennedys and the Circle Jerks.
"I was angry and it was my way of keeping people at a distance," she 
remembers.
Andersonstill describes herself as an outsider who has limited patience 
for the pretense and superficiality that she finds in some aspects of the 
entertainment industry.
"David can slip into any situation and be absolutely charming about it," 
she says. "I'm not like that.  If I walk into a party that's too filled 
with agents and producers and I feel uncomfortable, I'll leave.  I'm not 
going to walk around and schmooze."
Anderson has managed, however, to whip up the necessary courage to attend 
her first "X-Files" convention this Sunday at the Burbank Airport 
Hilton.  "I'm nervous about the whole thing," she acknowledges. "But it 
would be silly not to experience one.  It will be my one and only 
convention experience."
Anderson seems particularly excited about the prospect of acting in 
feature films.  She was in Los Angeles recently, away from the show's 
Toronto home, to discuss several movie possibilities.  Still, her choices 
are somewhat limited by "The X-Files" exhausting 9 1/2-month shooting 
schedule and her desire to spend more time with her family.
"It's like death sentence, really" Anderson says of her demanding role in 
"The X-Files".  "But you get all the mineral baths, good catered food, 
flowers and all that stuff.  So it's a good death sentence."