At 8 a.m. in Alberta, Canada, Gillian Anderson appears on a Zoom screen—radiant, a little bleary-eyed, and fully immersed in the chaotic richness of her life. She’s on set in Calgary shooting Netflix’s upcoming Western drama The Abandons, but she’s about to hop on a plane to Copenhagen to visit her partner, The Crown creator Peter Morgan. Meanwhile, she’s juggling motherhood, launching a wellness beverage brand, building a new digital platform called G Ode—and releasing Want, a boundary-breaking new book about female sexual fantasies.
“I’m in all the boxes,” she tells me, voice thick with emotion. “It’s making me emotional! It’s all the boxes.”
Welcome to the vibrant and vulnerable world of Gillian Anderson, curator of women’s desire—and so much more.
The Birth of Want: A New Conversation About Female Fantasy
Inspired by a Classic, Powered by a New Era
The seed for Want was planted years ago when publishers began suggesting that Anderson, known for her sex-positive role as Jean Milburn in Sex Education, write a book on desire. She resisted at first. But the idea stuck, especially as she revisited Nancy Friday’s iconic 1973 book My Secret Garden, which collected anonymous women’s sexual fantasies.
That was the blueprint—but Want takes it further. “It’s sexy, tender, funny, eloquent, beautiful, and heartbreaking,” Anderson says of the collected stories. The letters came pouring in from around the globe—Colombia to China, New Zealand to Nigeria—and spoke to desires that are deeply personal and profoundly universal.
“Though an imperfect term,” Anderson writes, “the word ‘women’ is used throughout.” The contributors include people who identify as pansexual, bisexual, asexual, aromantic, lesbian, straight, queer, trans, and nonbinary. The book, she emphasizes, is a platform for everyone.
More Than Sex: Exploring the Full Spectrum of Want
Yes, there’s sex in Want—a lot of it. From diaper play to best-friend trysts to BDSM, the fantasies reflect the richness of women’s interior worlds. But Anderson’s mission goes beyond titillation.
“To me, this book is not just about desire in the bedroom,” she says. “It’s about the desire of what one wants for oneself in one’s life.”
Her hope? That the book will spark conversations about guilt, shame, pleasure, and agency—conversations women have often avoided or been denied. “When we share it, it weakens,” she says of shame. “When we recognize that other people feel the same way, the burden can lessen.”
G Ode: A Digital Sanctuary for Stories and Connection
What Is G Ode?
While Want captures anonymous letters on the page, Anderson’s next passion project is G Ode (pronounced “geode”), an online platform still in beta. It aims to be a space where women can connect through storytelling—not just about sex, but about the human experience as a whole.
The goal, she says, is to “create a space to connect with ourselves and each other through the power of story.” That mission echoes her larger commitment to amplifying female voices and experiences.
Building a New Kind of Wellness
In tandem with her literary and digital ventures, Anderson is launching a pleasure-focused wellness brand that promises both joy and tangible benefit. The tagline on its website? “We’ve found it. That exact spot. And it feels so good.”
Her ventures align with a deeper cultural shift in the way we talk about women’s health, pleasure, and power. Anderson isn’t just participating in the conversation—she’s shaping it.
Gillian Anderson’s Own Fantasy—and the Role of Acting
From Dana Scully to Jean Milburn to Margaret Thatcher
Over her decades-long career, Anderson has embodied a diverse range of characters, many of whom have complex relationships with their sexuality. She’s quick to point out that portraying a character’s desires has, in turn, taught her something about her own.
“The women I embody also have inner lives, desires, and fantasies, which are vital to understanding what makes them tick,” she writes in her introduction to Want. “And a fair few of them have taught me about sex and sexuality.”
Fiction, Reality, and the Imagination
Anderson contributed her own anonymous fantasy to Want, but she also discusses her evolving relationship with sex openly.
“For me, sex has never felt like a static entity,” she says. “It changes as I grow and change, with every new phase of life.”
In one letter, a woman imagines living three parallel lives—raising kids, sleeping with bad boys, and exploring love with another woman. Anderson resonates with that longing for multiplicity. Writing, she says, lets her live more than one life. But acting?
“It’s different,” she says. “When I’m acting, I rarely get into the mindset of the character fully. I’m too aware of the camera, the director. It feels disassociated somehow.”
Still, she acknowledges a certain overlap. Her character in The Abandons—the formidable Constance Van Ness—has a young, handsome lover. “Does that tick a box for me? I don’t know.”
On Fearlessness, Fantasy, and Filming on Horseback
“I Just Throw Myself In”
The day before our interview, Anderson galloped a palomino across a prairie in full period costume. She shares a photo of herself in a wide-brimmed black hat, wind billowing through her dress, mountains rising behind her.
Planes, trains, horses, a lightning storm on the ride back—it was a long day. But for Anderson, the chaos is welcome.
“I throw myself and think later,” she laughs. “I jump, and then, ‘Oh, thank God they caught me.’”
That go-for-it approach applies to her stunt work too. “In The Great, I threw myself out a window but forgot to hold on to something. I landed on the windowsill. It was fine.”
Her attitude toward risk is reflective of her broader life philosophy. She’s not interested in letting fear block her path—especially not now, when she’s in a season of yes.
The Politics of Pleasure: Contextualizing Want in the Cultural Moment
Sex, Shame, and the Female Experience
Anderson hopes Want will help dismantle the lingering shame many women carry about their sexual desires. And that shame, she emphasizes, doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
“This conversation is not just about sex,” she says. “It’s about the deeper fear and guilt and diminishment of self that so many women feel.”
She references a recent article by Georgina Lawton in The Guardian, which highlighted epidemic levels of loneliness among young women aged 16 to 29. “That demographic is lonelier today than 70-year-olds,” Anderson notes. “To me, all of that is what’s interesting—through the lens of sex, desire, want, shame, guilt, joy, sadness.”
She sees Want not just as a book, but as a sociopolitical act.
From AOC to Michelle Obama: A Cultural Shift
Anderson began reading submissions for Want during the Democratic National Convention, surrounded by impassioned political speeches from women like Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“It feels like everything is suddenly out loud,” she says. “Like there’s less concern about backlash. Everything’s on the table now.”
That energy—raw, fearless, inclusive—is what she wants Want to embody.
Beyond the Book: Activism, Artistry, and Meaningful Work
This Moment Feels Different
In a career filled with meaningful roles, Anderson says this chapter feels especially fulfilling. “Sometimes, as an actor, you do interviews and try to sell something you don’t really believe in,” she admits. “But this moment? This book? There’s a lot of meaning behind what I’m talking about.”
She’s not just promoting a project. She’s facilitating a dialogue that she believes is crucial—especially for women.
“It belongs to all the women who contributed,” she says of the book. “And to all the women who feel seen and heard by it.”
Learning from Constance Van Ness
As for The Abandons, Anderson is still unpacking what her character, Constance Van Ness, might be teaching her. “She’s the first real baddie I’ve played,” she says with a grin. “That’s fun—I’m getting fun out of it, that’s what I’m getting.”
Sometimes, Anderson says, it’s the audience who reveals to her what a character means. But for now, she’s enjoying the ride: “Right now, it’s about people in fresh air, animals, and enjoying the moment.”
Final Thoughts: Living, Loving, and Saying Yes
Gillian Anderson is a woman in full bloom—artist, mother, activist, entrepreneur, explorer of desire. She’s galloping across literal prairies and metaphorical boundaries with the same reckless abandon.
Her life is loud, full, and emotionally rich—and she’s not shying away from any of it.
“I feel incredibly lucky,” she says. “And this book feels like it’s in the service of women. That makes it even more meaningful.”
As we wrap up our conversation, she sips her coffee, eyes bright, energy rising with the sun in Alberta. And she smiles. “It’s a pleasure,” she says.
And truly, it is.
