Gillian Anderson: Just don't ask her about aliens

Gillian Anderson, 34, lived in London until her family moved to Michigan when she was 11. She studied drama at DePaul University, Chicago, and at 24 she landed the role of Dana Scully in the TV series The X-Files, broadcast in 90 countries. She starred in The House of Mirth, to critical acclaim, and is currently making her London stage debut in Michael Weller's What the Night Is For. She has an eight-year-old daughter, Piper, by her former husband Clyde Klotz.

Tell me about What the Night is For.

It's a play about true love, honesty and fearlessness. It deals with the concept of whether there is one right person for somebody to be with. And if that's so, will they really be the answer or will we always be looking for the same answers in different people, over and over again?

Heavy stuff. What is the night for?

I guess it depends on where you are and what country you're in. In London, the night doesn't start until 10pm, when you finally sit down for a meal with a group of friends in a restaurant. Then you just talk – you have great conversations about life and politics and everything. Afterwards, you might go to a bar or a club. In LA, the night starts a lot earlier. You have a really early dinner, at like 6pm, and you might see a movie. Then everybody says good night and you go home and read in bed or something. Somewhere else, it might just be about being at home with your family, sitting around the fire and making little collages with your kids and whatever. It just depends.

The two central characters meet on a school reunions website. Is that something you've ever considered getting involved with?

There was nobody in my high school that I would ever consider going out with, either then or now. The one guy I actually had a huge, huge crush on died years later. He suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide. It was a terrible story. Sure I've thought about going on one of those websites, but the friends I have from school still know what's happening to everyone, so all I have to do is just ask them.

Do you look back on your childhood in London with fond memories?

It's all very odd, because I was an only child until I was 13, so I remember it being a very solitary existence. I had a few friends, but it wasn't like, "OK, whose house am I going over to today?" It was kind of like, "Can we call up Sarah and see if she wants to play with me?" Being an only child and being around grown-ups all the time, you start to feel like you are a grown-up and begin to behave like one.

That's quite ironic – you recently said that you were giving yourself two years to grow up finally.

You're right. I did everything the wrong way round. On the one hand, when I was a child I always felt like I was a grown up, but now that I am a grown-up, I don't feel like one. Sometimes I think I can't possibly have an eight-year-old daughter and all this responsibility; this is like something that an adult has, not me!

After nine years playing Dana Scully did you sometimes find it difficult to see where she ended and you began?

I think there was less of me in her at the very beginning, but after being with her longer, I definitely started to inform her more and she started to inform me. I'm very clear about what I've learnt from her as a separate character, just in terms of strength and standing up for oneself and honesty. There was a certain point when I thought, hang on a minute, am I like that? She has really good attributes, but what aspects of these are similar to me, and what aspects am I completely bullshitting my way through? I had no idea how to be just completely in pursuit of justice and truth like her. At that time of my life, I didn't really know who I was, but as I started to come into my own, she became a little bit more of me, and less of a separate entity. Maybe during an argument or a conversation where I was talking about something very serious I might have gone "Whoah... that was a Scully moment". But at the same time, we're totally different in so many ways. There are times when I behave in a certain way or I'm swearing a lot, and she'd never fucking do that.

How did you end up getting married by a Buddhist priest on the 17th hole of a golf course?

We were in Hawaii, and it was the most beautiful place we could find. The guy who was marrying us, the Buddhist, took us around in his mini-van and showed us all these locations, but we just couldn't find the right place. And then suddenly, he went "Oh, I've got an idea", and took us to where he played golf. It was on the edge of the ocean and there was a single tree: it was beautiful. There was nothing significant about the 17th hole – it was just the nicest hole. It's actually quite ironic, because I despise golf.

Is it true that you never really got on with your X-Files co-star David Duchovny?

We were just two people who were thrown into an intense, unbelievably complicated, stressful situation that at times neither of us wanted to be in ... Some days you're going to wake up and be able to say "Hey, good morning, glad to see you" and some days you're going to wake and go "I never want to see your face again for the rest of my life". End of story. You know, we're both very complicated human beings. I have hang-ups. He has hang-ups. Let it just be that. Does it have to be anything else?

You've done scores of interviews. What question really pisses you off?

It's like: "Are you a believer? Do you believe in aliens?" I swear if I hear that one more time ...

So, do you believe in aliens?

Don't you dare! I don't have to answer that. This is your opportunity to say, you know what? I honour you: I will never ask you that question!

'What the Night is For' is previewing at the Comedy Theatre, London SW1. For tickets, call 020 7369 1731 or visit www.thenight.info