Movies - TV
Gillian Anderson Really Didn't Care For One Part Of
Her X-Files Character
By LYVIE SCOTT
Although “The X-Files” fans love Scully’s red hair, Gillian Anderson revealed in an interview with Empire that she only dyed it because there was an “executive directive” from an unknown source to change it from the “kind of mousey brown” she had in the pilot. In fact, she didn’t care much for the red, and she immediately got rid of it when the series ended “to keep some semblance of privacy.”
Despite her initial dislike for it, Anderson had to sport the red hair again for the 2008 film “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” but it wasn’t as red as fans would’ve liked, and she revealed that it took nearly 20 hours to change from her usual blonde. By the time “The X-Files” revival rolled around seven years later, her hair was too damaged, and she was advised against dyeing it.
Ironically, it was at the time of the revival that Anderson finally made peace with the red and even said in an interview with EW that she “was really looking forward” to being a redhead again. However, her hair had hit its limit when she went blonde for BBC’s “The Fall,” so to the disappointment of fans, she was forced to wear a strawberry blonde wig for the revival.