Gillian Anderson Teases Conversations With Ryan Coogler About X-Files Reboot

Gillian Anderson has been in conversation with Ryan Coogler about his proposed reboot of The X-Files a lot lately. Her latest comments on the project come from an interview on the British news show This Morning on Wednesday, where she said reiterated her complete support for Coogler. As for the question of whether she will appear in the show — that’s more complicated, and Anderson still couldn’t say much. She told ITV that she is very open to appearing in the reboot, but there are factors out of her control. It’s unclear if she’s referring to pay scale issues, licensing issues, or simply the creative direction of the new show.

“I spoke to him, and what I said was, ‘If anyone were to do it, I think you are the perfect person and best of luck, call me,’” Anderson said on Tuesday. “At some point, if the phone rings and it’s good and it feels like the right time, then perhaps.”

Anderson actually kicked off the latest round of talk about The X-Files at the beginning of April, when she was a guest on The Today Show here in the U.S. She reminded fans that this project was on Coogler’s radar, and voiced her emphatic support for it. “I cannot think of a better way around for a reboot to happen, I think he’s a bit of a genius,” she said at the time. There’s a chance it will happen. Whether I am involved in it is a whole other thing, but in his hands … But I am not saying no, because I think he’s really cool, and I think if he did it, it will be done incredibly well, and maybe I’ll pop in for a little somethin’ somethin’.”

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Coogler himself then discussed the project a few weeks later during an interview on the Last Podcast on the Left. The director was promoting his new horror movie Sinners, which is in theaters now, but said that he expects The X-Files to be his next project after that.

“I’ve been excited about that for a long time and I’m fired up to get back to it,” he said. “Some of those episodes, if we do our jobs right, will be really f—ing scary.”

The X-Files first aired from 1993 to 2002, and was then revived briefly from 2016 to 2018. The show starred Anderson as FBI Agent Dana Scully, a skeptic, and David Duchovny as Agent Fox Mulder, who believes in UFOs and many related supernatural phenomena. They use FBI resources to try and prove or disprove the supernatural causes behind unsolved cases, and often stumble into strange stories they weren’t expecting.

The X-Files is streaming now on Hulu for those that want to revisit the original series. Coogler’s reboot has not officially been ordered yet, so there’s no telling when we might see it for ourselves.