Gillian Anderson is revisiting an early same-sex relationship with more detail than she has shared before, describing how difficult it was to understand her feelings as a teenager when she did not have the language she has now.
In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Anderson said one of her first relationships was with an older girl while she was in high school in Michigan. She remembered the relationship as feeling “secretive and illicit and wrong” and said they believed they had to hide it.
Anderson said she did not think of herself as gay at the time because she had also had boyfriends. Looking back, however, she said she “didn’t have the language for it” and acknowledged that even in later relationships with women, she did not necessarily imagine those relationships lasting forever.
The comments arrive as Anderson stars opposite Hannah Einbinder in Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a queer horror film whose themes of desire and identity have prompted Anderson to reflect publicly on parts of her own adolescence.
Anderson Says the Relationship Felt Like Something She Had to Hide
Anderson moved from London to Grand Rapids, Michigan, when she was 11 and has long described feeling out of place during her teenage years. In the new interview, she recalled being a punk teenager in a conservative town, struggling with low self-esteem and feeling distinctly different from the students around her.
Her relationship with the older girl became another experience she felt unable to discuss openly. Anderson said a later boyfriend eventually learned about it and ended their relationship, while she herself was still trying to understand what the earlier romance meant.
What has changed most, she suggested, is not simply the language available to describe sexuality but the way she now thinks about permanence in a relationship.
Anderson said the person she considers her life partner happens to be a man, but that she believes she would recognize the same kind of connection if that person were a woman. She contrasted that outlook with her younger years, when she did not necessarily envision her relationships with women becoming lifelong partnerships.
This Is Not the First Time Anderson Has Discussed Dating Women
In a 2012 interview with Out, she said she had been in a relationship with a girl for a long period during high school and confirmed that she had also had relationships with other women.
At the time, Anderson was careful not to make those experiences stand for her entire identity. She said her relationships with women had been the exception and explained that knowing she remained attracted to boys affected the way she understood her sexuality as a young person.
‘Camp Miasma’ Brought Anderson Back to Her Teenage Years
View this post on Instagram
The subject has also surfaced while Anderson promotes Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Speaking recently with the Los Angeles Times, Anderson said there had been several moments during her teenage years when she was with women, although she was unsure whether she thought of herself as questioning her sexuality at the time.
She connected those experiences to the isolation she remembers from high school. Anderson said she had rarely discussed that particular period or how alone and different she felt from the other students around her. She also said she wished a movie like Camp Miasma had existed when she was that age because it might have made her feel seen.
In Schoenbrun’s film, Anderson plays Billy Presley, a reclusive former scream queen who starred in the original installment of a fictional 1980s slasher franchise. Einbinder plays Kris, a younger filmmaker hoping to resurrect the property who seeks Billy out and develops an increasingly intimate relationship with her.
The movie began its U.S. theatrical release on Aug. 7. Anderson has described the project as meaningful partly because of the way it explores desire, fear and experiences that people can struggle to articulate.
Anderson’s Recent Work Has Kept Returning to Sex and Desire
Camp Miasma also arrives during a period in which Anderson has increasingly made conversations about sexuality part of her creative work. Her role as sex therapist Jean Milburn on Netflix’s Sex Education helped lead to Want, her 2024 collection of anonymous women’s sexual fantasies.
A follow-up, More, is due from Abrams Press on Sept. 15 in the United States. Like Want, the new collection gathers anonymous submissions about women’s desires, with Anderson curating and introducing the material. Anderson has connected the projects through a broader interest in removing shame from conversations about sex, desire and identity.