Animal Rights Activists

"Just like Mitch Pileggi, I too had a crush on you."

"Gillian's a lot of fun, very intelligent, has great ideas and creates a lovely atmosphere on set."

"You've got to go for it, and once she had her confidence, it was as though there was nothing she could not do. To this day, she is one of the most remarkable performers I have had the privilege of working with, and I would work with her again in a second."

"Honestly, Gillian Anderson as the next James Bond would be the greatest thing of all time."

"Being with Gillian was like going to a surprise party. Gillian had an eight-line part in a French farce but turned it into a star role just by the attitude she brought to it. She has an incandescence."

"I have to say something about Gillian Anderson before we go on. Have you seen her in The Fall? This is just an amazing actress, just an amazing actress. I just have to throw that in there. So she's had to sort of transcend Scully, I think, and she has."

"She's a fantastic wonderful actress and she's an extremely funny person as well. So we had some good fun quality time together."

"Outstanding. Fantastic. She's a stunning living legend."

"I knew I was gay when I would stay up and watch Saturday Night Live, put on a wifebeater and lift weights. Also, I'd masturbate to Gillian Anderson in The X-Files... That's when my mom found out."

"I'm in awe of Gillian's work of late, all of the stuff that she’s done. Oh my god, The Fall, she’s amazing in that! It's just always great to see a great actor, so that's exciting right there. And Duchovny is everybody’s favorite puppy dog."

"I thought Gillian Anderson was amazing in The House of Mirth, also adapted from a Wharton novel. She should certainly have been nominated for an Oscar. Will you put that in, please? Every now and then I think there is huge injustice in our business."

"You are our most censored guest ever... But it was my fault; I asked you what was your favorite curse word and you continued to use it like 48 times."

"Who wouldn't be infatuated by Gillian Anderson?! Gillian Anderson could play a rabbit and I would be totally be infatuated by her."

"... Gillian Anderson. One of the nastiest actors I have run into in all these years in the business. David was just the sweetest, and kept me from walking off the job."

"G-Money, as I call her."

"Just finished watching the utterly compelling series The Fall on Netflix. What an amazing and beautiful actress. That's Gillian Anderson of course. I knew she was amazing when she was in Bleak House, but she gets better and better."

"I mean I was OBSESSED with The X-Files and I wanted to marry... She was the one person who I was like, 'We're gonna get married. One of these days, she and I will finally meet and this will finally happen.' So last night I was just sitting next to her like, [whispers] 'It's Gillian Anderson, oh my God.' I don't even know what I said or how I answered the questions; I was just looking at her like, 'She's so beautiful.'"

"Just saw Gillian Anderson in A Streetcar Named Desire at St Ann's warehouse. She was remarkable, powerful, funny, tragic."

"I think that’s the fun of playing with such an iconic actress like Gillian Anderson who really expands to fill the vessel of whatever role she’s inhabiting. Working with her has been such a joy: A, I love her as a human being and find her to be such a bright spark of light, and B, it’s a ball to throw some absolutely ridiculous dialogue her way and see how it spins off the edge of her bat. If you are watching the show and you see a particularly bloated piece of dialogue, chances are it’s a direct quote from one of the Thomas Harris books that I’ve fetishized over in the process of making the show, and there are some doozies where I'm like, 'this is such a great line — I want to make it dialogue but it’s so over the top... I’ll give it to Gillian!' So that’s a joy."

"What self-respecting gay man doesn't want to be Gillian Anderson?"

"There is such a clever quality to Gillian's performance where she's balancing so much in terms of tone that she goes from these very serious pontificating scenes about the nature of what they’re doing to virtually a broader comedy of sorts."

"[She's] one the of the most elegant and savage performers I've worked with. We're boxing each other off the stage every night, with love."

"There's a recognition, an animal recognition, of meeting your match. Stanley is not going to give up and neither is Blanche. That’s what’s exciting about what Gillian has done is empower Blanche. Her performance is very strong – she's a warrior – a glamorous warrior."

"Gillian is every bit as hot, and hotter. It's somewhat shocking."

"Gillian's a really hard working actress. I can tell you that much. A lot of times when I give up on a scene, she stays in there. She never doesn't try to do it as well as she can. That can be pretty inspiring. And infuriating."

"Gillian has beautiful eyes. Her eyes anchor me to the scene. They're big and they're blue and they're wet."

"...Gillian Anderson, the best co-star anybody could have."

"I think she gets better and better and she's more and more beautiful every year. And she's just... she's a dream."

"She's a fantastic amazing actress. That’s so evident in her work; in everything she has done – I think especially in The Fall, but she's so fun as well... For my money, she's really sweet and funny and easy and has really giggly childish side to her that comes out often on set. She's great and I can't say enough of good things about her. She's brilliant."

"I was looking for someone who had that kind of period look; I wanted the film to look like Singer Sargent portraits and I saw her extraordinary face and that kind of luminosity that one associated with Greer Garson in the late 40s. I just thought... she'll never meet me; she'll never say yes."

"She's so remarkable. She's not one of those actors who just does her usual thing every time. She's completely different in everything she does – she even has a different voice in every role."

"I think she's got a wonderful stillness in her performances, so that she never seems to be acting particularly. She just brought a terrific sense of tragedy to this part, a woman who has spent her life being so contained, with almost no ability to express herself."

"My secret crush of a famous person that people will actually have heard of? I'm quite conventional. I really love Gillian Anderson. Like, ever since she was Scully and I wasn't even out then. It always surprised me but now I know. I love Gillian Anderson. I like red heads so I quite like Susan Sarandon and Helen Mirren. But Gillian Anderson -- totally, totally love that."

"I didn't want her to look kind of perfect, but one of the things about Gillian is that she always kind of looks stunning, just because she's got such an interesting face. There's such an intelligence going on in her acting, I think, your eye is drawn to her."

"One of the reasons why I thought she is the best actress of her generation is because she is incredibly focused, understated, truthful, detailed, intelligent, with an underpinning of emotion that she chooses, for the most part, to keep in check."

"I gaze at her perfect skin, unable to suspend my disbelief. One of the more unnerving things about Anderson is that no photographer has ever done her justice; in the flesh, she is 10 times more exquisite than on the page – today, as I now point out, being no exception."

"Gillian Anderson is one of a kind. She's lovely. She's a fantastic mother. A steadfast friend. More beautiful today than she's ever been. And a natural actor who was born to her art."

"I had to fight for Gillian. Not because of her youth or relative inexperience, but because she didn't fit the network's or the studio's idea of the prime-time tootsie. She didn't have the usual assets they thought of in a TV man-woman relationship."

"I was very lucky to see the brilliant Gillian Anderson as Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic in London the other night. She is just exceptional... what a power house."

"When I did The X-Files I didn't have a lot to do with her, except when I was lying there dead. But she was so sweet; she welcomed me to the set, she thanked me for being a part of the show. An Amazing woman. I think she also broke boundaries, because on television she wasn’t this tall statuesque blonde that you would expected that the network would cast. They cast this really interesting, beautiful, nonetheless but interesting, intelligent woman. And I think she changed the way people perceived women on television, because she broke the mold. She wasn't what you expected and she ended being probably one of the most beautiful. So I have huge admiration for her."

"Predawn has always been undervalued as a witching hour, she thought. Midnight, in prose and poem, had gotten all the glory. At this hour, though, people had to gather their lonely, enervated willpower and make the first choices of the day. For that you needed raw courage."

"But “everyone knew” were words of death in scientific research."

"Every fictional character is based on someone. My English teacher told us that."

"Is that the ultimate paradox of life, she wondered, that the universe should become less clear with age?"

"“Do you think I am ill? Mentally?” “Not at all. I believe you had a reaction to something—” “Like an allergy? Peanuts? We don’t have food allergies in Haiti,” she said with disgust. “We cannot afford to.”"

"If irony were clean water, this would be a paradise."

"The United States ambassador’s proposal for a demilitarized zone between the nations had been met with derision in India, whose pundits pointed out that Pakistan could not even establish a de-terrorized zone within it own borders."

"“How do you have a child without being terrified all the time?” “Well, that’s the big secret to parenting, Ben,” Caitlin whispered. “You are terrified all the time. You get used to it. It becomes part of the background. Except for the times when it stabs you through the heart.” He gazed at her a moment, then looked down at his menu. “That was probably the worst sales pitch ever for having kids,” he said."

"I cannot abide red tape. It never strangles bad ideas, only good ones."

"I'm damaged in many ways. And yet a lot of what my fight is about is pushing through that to live a meaningful, sane existence and make a difference and play to my strengths."