How Gillian Anderson Played The Crown's Margaret Thatcher and Sex Education's Jean Milburn
A portrait of Gillian Anderson against a maroon background with a graduating pattern of bubblegum pink dots. She wears a brown dress with a braided high neck-line. Below her face reads: Queue & A in a pink box.
QUEUE & A

Gillian Anderson

Netflix stars answer Queue’s questions about creativity and craft.

16 July 20214 min read

The Crown and Sex Education star Gillian Anderson takes her turn answering Queue’s Q’s.

When did you get your SAG card?
Gillian Anderson: I got my SAG card doing a commercial, I think in New York, might’ve even been a Hardee’s commercial, or something like that.

Who or what inspires you the most?
GA: Art in any form. I get incredibly inspired when I go to galleries, or see dance, or hear music; any form of exceptional creating inspires me.

Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) speaks to reporters. Her blue eyes match her blazer perfectly, and her hair coiffed. Her pearl earrings swallow her ear lobes.

If you could play any other character on The Crown, who would it be?
GA: Probably Princess Margaret, and I think everybody in the cast would say that. I mean, except Tobias, who wants to play Diana, but that’s a whole other story. Princess Margaret gets away with a lot and it looks like a lot of fun to do.

What inspired you to pursue a career in acting? What was something that made you really fall in love with acting or the craft itself?
GA: I saw Out of Africa when I was very young. I mean, I must’ve been, because I saw it when it first came out. It was Meryl Streep and Robert Redford, and it was very romantic, and set in the plains of Africa. At the time I wasn’t tuned in to how politically incorrect it was but seeing Meryl transform into that character, and how present she was in the role, I was completely in awe and wanted to do exactly that.

Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) talks to someone on the phone. She sits at a desk covered in papers, a bottle of water, and a green lamp. She wears a navy blouse.

What is your dream role to play?
GA: Well, my dream role for a long time was to do Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, and I have had an opportunity to do that a couple of times now so I kind of feel like I’ve done the one that will stay with me for decades. I don’t necessarily have another character who is a dream role, but I feel like because so much of my career, almost a decade, was taken up with X-Files and a lot of the women that I’ve played have been, not necessarily similar, but cut from a similar cloth in terms of their strength and fearlessness and dare I say fierceness. I feel like I need to play some characters who are more unraveled, or have less of a grasp on sanity and reality, or don’t quite have things as together as a lot of the women that I’ve played.

Given that you played Margaret Thatcher, is there anyone else in history you would want to play?
GA: Well, I’m just jumping into playing Eleanor Roosevelt, who might’ve been on that list actually. And I’m so excited, and have been immersing myself in research. She’s just such an extraordinary woman and I have nothing but admiration and respect for her. So I’m at this juncture: daunted by the prospect of it, yet honored to jump into her shoes.

What was the last thing you watched on Netflix?
GA: Pretty much all of my Netflix list is documentaries, and a lot of them are crime docs. I’m partway through two different docs right now, and what I watch just depends on my mood on any given night. One is Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, very creepy. And the other one is Sophie: A Murder in West Cork. I’d listened to a podcast of the latter called West Cork that had really stayed with me and so very pleased there’s a documentary hot on its heels. Thanks Netflix!

Denis Thatcher (Stephen Boxer) and Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) sit together. Denis wears a grey suit, and Margaret wears a blue suit and matching hat.

Denis Thatcher (Stephen Boxer) and Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson)