Women's Lifestyle September 30, 2026 0 Comments

How Gillian Anderson’s Stunning Hollywood Comeback Reveals a Secret Formula for Reinvention—and Why It’s Inspiring Everyone to Level Up Their Game

Fashion Week—why do we still call it that when it’s really a full-blown Fashion Month? Seriously, six days in New York, nine in Paris, a quick weekend in London, then Milan jumps in—talk about a four-city endurance challenge! It’s a glamorous grind that drains the soul and soles alike. Yet somehow, the Miu Miu show in Paris manages to turn exhaustion into pure exhilaration, thanks to Miuccia Prada’s brilliance and the knack for surprise guest appearances—from Willem Dafoe to Kristin Scott Thomas, and most recently, Gillian Anderson stepping onto the runway like she owns every step.

Speaking of Anderson, closing Fashion Week was no small feat. Here’s a woman known for breaking boundaries—from Dana Scully to Margaret Thatcher to that cheeky sex therapist we adore—and now, she’s shaking up the runway and our perceptions all at once. She wasn’t even sure she’d closed Fashion Week until the texts started rolling in! But this moment perfectly kicks off what I’m calling the Andrenaissance—a whirlwind of film, stage, writing, and even a sparkling drink line that’s fighting the good fight against outdated taboos around women’s pleasure. Wondering how an icon like Anderson balances it all, inspires scientists, and dabbles in ‘side hustles’ that matter? Well, buckle up—this story’s got layers as rich as a Miu Miu dress and as bold as its final walk.

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6 min read

Welcome to The Dispatch, a column by Derek C. Blasberg featuring a mix of interviews and reports from the front rows of the worlds of culture, art, and fashion.

I ’m not sure why we still call it Fashion Week. New York Fashion Week is six days long. Paris stretches to at least nine. London is practically a weekend. Add in Milan and it becomes a four-city marathon. More like Fashion Month!

For those lucky enough to attend it all, it’s a glamorous slog. By the time the Miu Miu show that traditionally closes it all out in Paris rolls around, the editors are exhausted, the buyers are weary, and the models’ feet have been worn down to the ankle bones. But Miuccia Prada, Miu Miu’s mastermind, understands the assignment; she knows how to leave us with something unforgettable.

Working with legendary casting director Ashley Brokaw, Miu Miu turns what is often the season’s final runway into one of fashion’s great cliffhangers. You never know who’s going to pop up. For Spring 2025, it was Willem Dafoe. Before that, it was Kristin Scott Thomas. And in the Fall 2026 show this past March, a palpable sense of excitement rippled through the room when Gillian Anderson descended the proto-brutalist steps of the Palais d’Iéna.

Model walking down the runway in a glamorous dress, surrounded by an audience capturing the moment with their phones.

VICTOR VIRGILE/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Anderson closing the Fall 2026 Miu Miu show in Paris in March.

Here was Dana Scully from The X-Files. Margaret Thatcher from The Crown. Jean Milburn, the delightfully frank sex therapist from Sex Education. The Emmy-, Golden Globe–, and SAG Award–winning actress looked completely at home striding across a grass-sodded set in a butter-yellow and bedazzled Miu Miu shift dress, square-toe pumps, and a combed headband that harked back to the ’90s, the era that made her a star. As I discovered when we spoke after the show, though, she was acting on the runway too. “All I could think about was the fact that the Spanx I was wearing under the dress kept rolling all the way up to my crotch almost every time I took a step,” she says. Come to think of it, her stride was slow, smooth, deliberate. “Yep, that’s what I was focused on while I was walking the runway.”

“PEOPLE started TEXTING me, saying, ‘What do you MEAN you closed FASHION WEEK?’ I was like, ‘I did? Did I?’”

Anderson didn’t even realize she’d been given fashion’s biggest honor: the grand finale. “I am so naive about these things that I didn’t really even know enough to be nervous,” she says. “It wasn’t until afterward that people started texting me, saying, ‘What do you mean you closed Fashion Week?’ I was like, ‘I did? Did I?’ ”

Her stroll was a perfect kickoff for the Andrenaissance we’re about to experience. She’s currently on the big screen opposite Hannah Einbinder in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, director Jane Schoenbrun’s surreal horror romance about a queer filmmaker revisiting the cult slasher movie that defined her childhood. She’s currently onstage in London, starring alongside Billy Crudup in a West End revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Later this year, she’ll appear with Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington in the Affleck-directed Netflix thriller Animals. And this month she’s releasing a new book, More, the follow-up to her best-selling 2024 anthology, Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, which compiled a series of essays about intimacy, power, and pleasure written by women around the world.

Two women covered in fake blood taking selfies at a gas station, with a person in a safety vest in the background.

Courtesy MUBI

Anderson and Hannah Einbinder in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The best review of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma so far came from Kristen Stewart. Presenting the film as president of the jury at the Biarritz Film Festival, Stewart called the movie “a glory hole; it’s a geyser.” She added: “It’s the best time I’ve ever had in a movie theater. Ever.”

The film follows Einbinder’s character, Kris, a young queer filmmaker determined to reboot a cult slasher franchise that first made Anderson’s character, Billy Presley, famous. After a string of uninspired remakes (and remakes of remakes), Kris travels to the isolated summer camp where the original film was shot—and where its reclusive star still lives. What begins as a horror movie evolves into something stranger: part coming-of-age story, part romance, part meditation on identity, shame, desire.

“So I understood why it would make sense that I would be in this film,” Anderson deadpans. “I’ve become very open and conversant in all things sex, and this is very much a film diving deep into the shame and the fears that circle around intimacy and sex.”

Two individuals in formal attire stand in a forested area marked by police tape.

20th Century Fox/Kobal/Shutterstock

Anderson and David Duchovny in The X-Files.

When Anderson signed on to play an FBI agent chasing extraterrestrials in The X-Files back in 1993, could she ever have imagined becoming a prominent voice in conversations around female sexuality? “Actually, there is alien tentacle porn,” she jokes. “But it is all part of my life and career. Obviously, other than my children”—Anderson is a mother of three—“my life as an actress still takes precedence over all.”

“I’m constantly APPROACHED by WOMEN who say that they are now a SCIENTIST or a MATH TEACHER or a PHYSICIST because of SCULLY.”

Anderson is remarkably matter-of-fact when I mention the Scully Effect, the name given to the now multiple generations of scientists, doctors, engineers, and even FBI agents who credit Dana Scully with inspiring their careers. (According to a 2018 study released by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media—a nonprofit research and advocacy organization founded by actress Geena Davis—63 percent of women familiar with The X-Files said seeing Anderson’s character increased their own confidence that they could succeed in a male-dominated field.) “It’s still something that I am made aware of on a regular basis,” Anderson says. “I’m constantly approached by women who say that they are now a scientist or a math teacher or a physicist because of Scully. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s amazing.”

Since her Fashion Week cameo in Paris, Anderson has barely stopped moving. She’s dialing in to a video call from a hotel room in Marrakech, where she’s filming an as-yet-unannounced project. Her feet are propped up on the desk, her long blond hair pulled over one shoulder; behind her, a tote bag and its contents are sprawled across a perfectly made bed.

A woman with styled blonde hair wearing a blue suit speaks into a microphone surrounded by reporters.

Des Willie/Netflix

Anderson as Margaret Thatcher in The Crown.

Born in Chicago and raised between London and Michigan, Anderson has lived a life as geographically varied as her career. She has spent decades moving between America and Britain, stage and screen, Hollywood blockbusters and independent films. These days, she’s based in London alongside her partner, Peter Morgan, screenwriter and creator of The Crown.

She leans back and smiles when I ask about her nonacting roles. “What does my partner call them?” she says, referring to Morgan. “My side hustles!”

As a global ambassador for L’Oréal Paris, she has encouraged the company to expand its support of women in science. Late last year, she shot The Julia Set, a coming-of-age drama starring Chase Infiniti as a gifted young mathematician navigating the fiercely competitive world of the Putnam exam, a notoriously rigorous mathematics competition. Anderson’s science-world profile even came in handy in helping to get the film done. “I connected the producers to a philanthropist who gives away a lot of money to promote women in science—and when the financing fell out of this film, she ended up coming in and filling in the gap,” Anderson says. When The Julia Set is released, Lyda Hill Philanthropies will promote the film to encourage women to pursue careers in STEM fields.

A woman in an orange dress holds a drink while standing beside a woven chair in a stylish interior setting.

Eleven/Netflix/Kobal/Shutterstock

Anderson as Jean Milburn in Sex Education.

Both Want and the new book, More, were inspired by Nancy Friday’s landmark 1973 collection, My Secret Garden, which compiled fantasies from a diverse range of women amid the sexual revolution, all submitted anonymously. “What was extraordinary was that the book created a platform for women to express their deepest and darkest desires—and also so much tenderness and joy,” she says, adding that Friday’s work proved the importance of anonymity. “It offered a level of freedom to express. The readers felt seen and heard themselves, and the writers felt seen even in their writing, even though they were anonymous.”

“The big TAKEAWAY is asking YOURSELF, why am I COMPLICIT in not GETTING what I say that I want?”

Anderson has embraced the role of facilitator in a way she never expected. Reading thousands of submissions convinced her that despite living in a culture saturated with sex, shame still governs so many women’s lives. “The big takeaway,” she tells me, “is asking yourself, why am I complicit in not getting what I say that I want?”

And then there’s G Spot, Anderson’s line of sparkling drinks made with adaptogens and nootropics. “I wouldn’t have done that if it hadn’t been for Jean Milburn”—her Sex Education character. She’s found herself fighting algorithms and advertising policies that treat its name as too risqué for a can of soda. “Who’d have thought you can sell rubber fuck-me dolls on Amazon but you can’t sell a drink called G Spot?” she says. I looked it up, and she’s right. “That fact has encouraged me to keep going with it because I’m determined for it to become a word that doesn’t immediately have such big misogynist, knee-jerk reactions.”

Rather than back down, Anderson is determined to make the name—and the conversation around women’s pleasure—less taboo. Dana Scully wouldn’t have seen this coming.