Actress uses ‘X-Files’ fame for charity
Published: June 1, 2007
The long-rumored return of “The X-Files” to the silver screen seems as elusive as some of Special Agent Fox Mulder’s alien theories.
The truth is out there, but star Gillian Anderson, like her facts-first character, Special Agent Dana Scully, wants to see it in writing.
“I’m waiting for a script to be delivered,” Anderson said during a recent visit to Grand Rapids. “It’s apparently in the works, but I’m not sure until such time as there is a script. We all want it to happen.”
Anderson, a 1986 graduate of City High School, starred with David Duchovny in the Fox television series from 1993 to 2002, as well as the 1998 film, “The X-Files: Fight the Future.”
Now living in London, she visited Grand Rapids recently to celebrate the 90th birthday of her grandmother, Louise Lane of nearby Rockford, and show off her 6-month-old son, Oscar.
“He’s been a bit cranky because he’s teething,” Anderson said, “but right now he’s fairly smiley and content.”
During her visit, Anderson, 38, spoke at a fundraiser for neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder that causes tumors to form on nerves. Anderson’s brother, Aaron, who is working on his Ph.D. at Stanford, has been diagnosed with NF1, a moderate form of the disease.
Neurofibromatosis is one of many charities Anderson supports, including a variety of causes in Africa, from AIDS to artists to elephants.
“It’s an unexpected benefit of celebrity,” she said. “I discovered the benefits of someone who is in the public eye pointing attention to something that needs attention.”
Anderson and her following of “The X-Files” fans have raised money for a school in Uganda. She speaks excitedly about getting the school on the electric grid or raising enough money for a borehole so the community can have fresh water.
“It’s been an extraordinary experience,” she said. “Over the years, `X-Files’ fans have donated money and gotten involved in raising money and started to volunteer because they see me volunteer.”
Although she didn’t get a chance to visit the remodeled Grand Rapids Civic Theatre, where she served as an intern in the mid-1980s, she has fond memories of her first theater production at Actors’ Theatre, “And a Nightingale Sang.”
“I remember the feeling of being on stage when you feel like the audience is with you. It was the first time I felt that, and there was the ‘aha moment.’ ‘This is what I want to do.’”
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