Gillian Anderson, the disbelieving Agent Scully from The X-Files, was a bit of a romantic when she was a young, Los Angeles-bound woman, and though following her then-boyfriend from New York to L.A. eventually led to her getting the sweet X-Files gig at the age of 24, she hopes her daughter doesn’t succumb to such foolishness. Chasing boys around the world is, after all, an utter waste of time.
That’s what Anderson had to say in a recent interview when asked about her daughter Piper’s impending “gap year.” Piper is 18 and eager to explore the world, which hopefully won’t lead her to following some guy in a smelly t-shirt on a barefoot walking tour of Patagonia. One shouldn’t spend one’s time idling in remote corners of the world with aimless young men, no matter how virile their armpit pheromones seem.
Speaking as a concerned mother, Anderson said she hoped her daughter wouldn’t be as young and itinerant as she was:
I went to visit him and ended up selling my return ticket and staying. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have gotten The X-Files…but at that point I might have stopped and thought: ‘Actually do I want to live here? Am I not enjoying living in New York?’
Right now my daughter’s planning a gap year and I’m hoping she will properly explore the world, but I keep thinking what happens if she meets somebody and that somebody lives somewhere else and she decides that actually what she wants to do is be with that person and go and start having kids.
I’m encouraging her to follow her heart in big things rather than following men. The amount of time wasted on that… ridiculous.
Not following men (or anyone, really) is pretty good advice, except on those rare occasions when it coincidentally lands you a gig on one of the most beloved TV shows ever. Piper always has the, “Well you followed some guy to L.A. and got to hang out with David Duchovny for nine years straight” card to pull when she calls her mom about wiring money so she and Chet can continue their motorcycle tour of Chile.
Image via Getty, Alastair Grant