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Gillian Anderson revealed that she was offered half of what co-star David Duchovny was offered—both when The X-Files began and when they were negotiating the new season. As X-Files fans, we're happy to see the show relaunching this weekend. But it's a little disheartening to hear Gillian Anderson tell The Daily Beast that she was offered half of what David Duchovny was offered when negotiations for the revival began. After all, the pair is an iconic duo.
When The X-Files first launched back in the '90s, Duchovny was 33, eight years Anderson's senior. Anderson hadn't racked up quite as many credits as Duchovny, who had appeared in Twin Peaks and The Red Shoe Diaries. When the show began, she said she not only made significantly less than Duchovny, but skeptical Agent Scully was asked to always walk a few paces behind the supernatural obsessed Agent Mulder.
"I can only imagine that at the beginning, they wanted me to be a sidekick," she said. "Or that, somehow, maybe it was enough of a change just to see a woman having this kind of intellectual repartee with a man on camera, and surely the audience couldn't deal with actually seeing them walk side by side!"
Yet most fans would probably agree that Scully was just as important of a character as Mulder. Both characters were equally multi-faceted, and their will-they-won't-they routine and banter was crucial to the dynamic of the show. However, Anderson said that she didn't make the same as Duchovny until three seasons later, according to Entertainment Weekly.
In the time that's passed since the last X-Files episodes aired, both actors have starred in other projects. Duchovny was in the long-running Showtime series Californication. More recently, Anderson starred as DSI Stella Gibson in The BBC's critically acclaimed drama The Fall and as psychiatrist Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier in NBC's Hannibal. Yet once again, Anderson said she was shocked to find herself being offered half as much as her male co-star.
"Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, 'I can't believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane.' And my response always was, 'That was then, this is now.' And then it happened again! I don't even know what to say about it," she said.
In the end, both Duchovny and Anderson were paid the same for the reboot, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
