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Gillian Leigh Anderson OBE (/ ˈ dʒ ɪ l i ə n / JIL-ee-ən; born August 9, 1968) is an American actress, writer, and activist.She is best known for her roles as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully in the sci-fi series The X-Files (1993–2002; 2016–2018), Lily Bart in the drama film The House of Mirth (2000), DSI Stella Gibson in the BBC/RTÉ crime drama series The Fall (2013–2016), Jean ...
Jun 2, 2021 · Gillian Anderson opens up about leaving Agent Dana Scully and 'X-Files' behind. ... 2021 06:22PM EDT. Gillian Anderson cemented her status as a TV icon playing Agent Dana Scully on Fox's The X ...
- Jolie Lash
- 1 min
Washington, D.C., U.S. Dr. Dana Katherine Scully, M.D., is a fictional character and one of the two protagonists in the Fox science-fiction, supernatural television series The X-Files, played by Gillian Anderson. Scully is a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent and a medical doctor (MD), partnered with fellow Special Agent Fox ...
Apr 18, 2021 · Gillian Anderson aka Dana Scully reunited with her "The X-Files" co-star David Duchovny aka Fox Mulder and introduced him to her dog, Stella. ... April 18, 2021, 10:06 PM UTC / Source: TODAY.
- Overview
- Bio
- Career
- 2016
- Abduction
- Relationships
- Misecllaneous
- Credits
“Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it”
— Dana Scully,
Dana Katherine Scully is one of the protagonists of The X-Files television series. An FBI Special Agent and medical doctor with a background in hard science, Dana was placed in the X-Files unit to monitor and debunk Fox Mulder's work using her scientific expertise and perspective, and to report back to Division Chief Scott Blevins with her findings and analysis.
Despite differences in their backgrounds and beliefs, Scully and Mulder develop a deep trust and understanding of each other.
Early years
Dana Scully was born on February 23, 1964 in Annapolis, Maryland. — (Lazarus, One Breath, Rm9sbG93ZXJz) She was raised Catholic. One of her favorite movies was The Exorcist — (Miracle Man). Her childhood ambitions did not include becoming an astronaut but she did want to get a pony and learn how to braid her own hair. — (Space) The Exorcist On several occasions, Dana's father made her and one or more of her siblings take the family Christmas tree down on the day immediately after Christmas. When Dana was thirteen, her father was stationed in San Diego. While listening to the single 'Don't Look Any Further' her mother came to her and told her that her Sunday School Teacher (who had called her 'Scout' as a nickname) had been murdered in his front yard. This event made her feel, for the first time, that there was real evil in the world. — (Orison) For some or all of her fourteenth year, Dana lived with her parents in a house that had two or more floors, and a porch outside. She slept in an upstairs room of the house. Once, when she was 14, Dana snuck downstairs alone, after her parents had gone to bed. She got one of her mother's cigarettes and went out onto the porch in the dark. She was incredibly scared and her heart was beating, although she was extremely excited - not because of the cigarette, which she found "gross", but because she wasn't supposed to take it and because she was aware that her parents would be extremely angered if they discovered that she had. — (Beyond the Sea) Her father William Scully was a rear-admiral in the US Navy and, as a consequence, the Scully family moved around a lot. She had two brothers, Bill Jr. and Charles (the former older, the latter younger) and an older sister, Melissa. Dana's father used to read Herman Melville's Moby Dick to her when she was a girl. They gave each other nicknames from the book. She called her father Ahab, the captain of the Pequod and he called her Starbuck, the ship's First Mate. — (Quagmire) As a child, Dana was a tomboy, unlike her sister, Melissa. She played with her brothers a lot and they got her a B.B. gun for one of her birthdays. While they were teaching her to use it, Bill Jr. found a garter snake and they shot at it, despite their father telling them to only shoot at cans. Dana was filled with remorse and cried when the snake died. — (One Breath) The Scully family was once stationed at Miramar Naval Air Station. She went to school there with Richard Johansen, son of Commander Christopher Johansen. She and the other children used to play a game called beckons wanted on the footpath outside Commander Johansen's house. Richard Johansen was killed in the Gulf War. — (Piper Maru) In 1966, the Scully family were in Nagoya Farmer's Market, Japan. — (Christmas Carol) When Dana was fifteen, her mother gave her and her sister Melissa a gold cross necklace — (Christmas Carol). Dana Scully once described her personality as a youth in these words: "Ever since I was a child, I’ve never allowed myself to get too close to people. I’ve avoided emotional attachment. Perhaps I’ve been so afraid of death and dying that any connection just seemed like a bad thing, something that wouldn’t last." — (Christmas Carol) The young Dana Scully is played by Tegan Moss — (One Breath) and Joey Shea — (Christmas Carol) as a child, and by Zoe Anderson (Gillian Anderson's sister) as a teenager — (Christmas Carol)
Education and Early FBI Career Medical School/Career
Scully went to medical school but chose not to practice medicine — (Pilot). She did her residency in forensic medicine and learned that severely burnt bodies could sometimes show cadaveric heat rigor or heat stiffening — (Fallen Angel). She also learned that halfway to a miracle was imagining it — (Miracle Man). While studying for her medical boards, she forgot her own birthday. — (Lazarus)
FBI Training and Early Career
While studying at medical school just prior to March 1990, Scully was recruited by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Believing the FBI was a place where she could distinguish herself, Scully attended the FBI Academy — (Pilot). Other members of her class included Marty Neil, nicknamed "J. Edgar, Jr." by Scully and some or all of her classmates, and Tom Colton. — (Squeeze) Scully would also become familiar with the forensics instructor at the Academy, Nancy Spiller, who she and at least some of her classmates nicknamed "the Iron Maiden". — (Ghost in the Machine) Another of Scully's instructors was Jack Willis. The two had the same birthday and, after dating for almost a year, they became romantically involved in a relationship that lasted at least until 1991. — (Pilot) In her first day at the Academy, Scully learned that every fingerprint is unique. — (Squeeze) She later accepted a position as instructor at the Academy. — (Pilot)
Assignment to the X-Files
In March 1992, while still teaching at the Academy, Scully attended a meeting where her career was reviewed by FBI Division Chief Scott Blevins, the Cigarette Smoking Man and a third man. She was instructed by Section Chief Blevins to work with Fox Mulder, whom she already knew by reputation. Because of Blevins' belief that Mulder had developed a consuming devotion to the X-Files, Scully was assigned to assist her new partner in his investigations of the files, to write field reports on their activities, and to provide observations on the validity of their work. — (Pilot) Prior to her new assignment, she had occasionally spent days in court. — (Fire) , "I forgot what it was like to spend a day in court", implying that she had done so on several occasions previously. When this was is not entirely certain, although the most likely time would be prior to her assignment to the X-Files, allowing her enough time between the events before her assignment and the October 1993 setting of "Fire" for her to forget her days in court.Class of '89 The first X-file that Scully investigated with Mulder involved the unexplained deaths of several high school students. For the first time in her life, Scully witnessed the exhumation of a coffin, in which one of the victims had been buried. After it was discovered that the body inside the coffin was actually a desiccated, mummified corpse that did not seem human, Scully examined the deceased body, determining that it was indeed not human but mammalian and finding a gray metallic implant in the subject's nasal cavity. As the other victims' bodies had been found with two small bumps on each of their backs, Scully was extremely worried when she discovered two similar marks on her own back, but her fears were put to rest when she learned that the marks were only mosquito bites. Though she refuted Mulder's claims of alien existence and his definition of "time loss" for a peculiar experience the agents shared, Scully was alarmed but accepting when she discovered evidence seemingly suggesting that Billy Miles, a paralyzed teenage boy, was the actual killer. At one point, Scully was struck across the head by the butt of a gun belonging to the boy's detective father, who had demanded that she and Mulder leave the area and stay away from his son. Later, however, Billy Miles' paralysis suddenly disappeared and he claimed to have been acting under orders provided to him through an implant in his nose, a claim that was supported when Scully showed her superiors the metallic object she had found in the exhumed body's nose earlier. — (Pilot) On the X-Files that Scully subsequently investigated with Mulder, she typically remained skeptical. — (Deep Throat, Squeeze) In July 1993, Scully's former classmate from the FBI Academy, Tom Colton, introduced her to a case involving a series of murders in which each victim's liver had been ripped out of their body. While working on the case with Colton and Mulder, as well as members of both the Baltimore Police Department and the FBI's Violent Crimes Section, Scully was attacked by the murderer, Eugene Victor Tooms, in the bathroom of her own apartment. Moments before Tooms could rip Scully's liver from her body, Mulder burst into her apartment, having learned of Scully's danger. Together, the agents were able to handcuff the killer, who was ultimately jailed. — (Squeeze) On another early investigation, Scully worked with Mulder on a case that involved the disappearance of Colonel Robert Budahas and reports of UFO activity near Ellens Air Base. After Mulder went missing, Scully captured an employee from the military base, who had lied that he was a reporter, and discovered that Mulder was being held captive in the base. She managed to arrange Mulder's release by exchanging her prisoner for him. As Colonel Budahas had been returned, Scully closed the case, file DF101364, in the belief that she and Mulder had learned nothing while attempting to investigate it. — (Deep Throat) In September 1993, Scully took time off to concentrate on her personal life, leaving Mulder to investigate a murder case in which he believed the killer was the mythological Jersey Devil. However, she later helped her FBI partner with the case by taking him to see her former professor, Dr. Diamond, at the University of Maryland. From then on, Scully continued to assist Mulder with the investigation. — (The Jersey Devil) Later that month, Scully helped investigate several murders which Mulder believed had been committed by a poltergeist. During the investigation, she and Mulder were involved in an unexplained automobile collision when the agents oddly lost all control of their vehicle and it reversed into another motor car. However, both agents, and the driver of the other vehicle were uninjured. Scully confirmed that she was fine by being checked out by paramedics, but she soon after complained to Mulder of having a "waiting-in-line-at-the-DMV-sized" headache. — (Shadows) In October 1993, Scully spent a day in court with Mulder, a rare event while the agents had been investigating for one case of X-Files. Scully's attitude to the files themselves was occasionally mocking - soon after leaving the court, she joked that Mulder finding his car unlocked, when he felt sure he had indeed locked the vehicle, was likely an X-file. She subsequently worked on developing a profile that helped to catch murderous arsonist Cecil L'Ively. — (Fire) Later that month, while investigating a case that initially did not seem to be an X-file, the agents encountered a murderous Central Operating System in control of a building where it was housed. In its attempts to remain active, the computer system presented the agents with a series of challenges, including the sudden halting of an elevator, which threw Scully to the floor but did not harm her, and the electrifying of a door to a room from where the computer system could be shut down. Scully tried to access the computer room by climbing into and through air-ducts in the building, however the COS turned on the ventalation system with her inside. Scully attempted to keep moving, but she lost her grip and was sucked backwards screaming. Scully was nearly sucked into the fan, but she managed to escape from danger by shooting the fan in the airducts. A windblown and shaken Scully entered the computer room and aimed her gun at Peterson to force him to let Mulder to infect the computer system with a virus that caused the system's destruction. — (Ghost in the Machine) After Mulder was captured by the US Army while intruding on an area of Townsend, Wisconsin, that they had quarantined, Scully learned that Section Chief McGrath had ordered a full inquiry with a recommendation that the X-Files be shut down. She was assigned to bring Mulder back to Washington, D.C., before a hearing with McGrath. Although she ultimately completed her assignment, Scully first helped her FBI partner investigate the area where he had been captured, lending assistance to medical staff at County Hospital in Townsend as they worked on saving several soldiers inflicted with extreme burn wounds after having entered the same area as Mulder. Unfortunately, Scully and the hospital medical staff only managed to save two soldiers. During the investigation, Mulder and Scully also met Max Fenig, who referred to the latter as "the enigmatic Doctor Scully". After she and Mulder returned to the FBI's headquarters, Scully alone defended her FBI partner before he was questioned himself. Fortunately for them both, the X-Files remained open. — (Fallen Angel) While investigating a peculiar double-murder case, Scully first encountered several clones, two of whom were young members of the Lichfield Experiment's Eve Series and had each individually killed her own father at the same time. As she and Mulder worked on the case, Scully was assaulted by an older member of the Eve Series and consequently lost consciousness. Later, Scully drank a diet soda, unaware that it had been poisoned by the two seemingly innocent cloned girls, but she fortunately didn't drink enough to even make her sick before she and Mulder discovered that the clones were actually malevolent and were guilty of having murdered their fathers. Although the girls tried to escape, they were ultimately caught, in part thanks to Scully, and were confined to the Whiting Institute for the Criminally Insane. — (Eve) In January 1994, Scully's father died. Strangely, she thought she saw him in her house before she was informed of his death, although the image she believed she had seen subsequently disappeared. She returned to work immediately and soon encountered Luther Lee Boggs, a criminal on death row who claimed he was capable of channeling souls. Despite her usual skepticism regarding similarly bizarre explanations, Scully opened her mind to believe Boggs' claim, after he seemed to be channeling the soul of her recently deceased father. By following clues provided to her by Boggs, Scully was able to save the lives of two innocent teenagers, Elizabeth Hawley and James Summers, and managed to evade death herself. However, after Boggs was executed, Scully began to rationalize the nature of the information he had given her, admitting that the reason she could not continue to believe in extreme possibilities was her intense fear to believe. — (Beyond the Sea) While investigating the possibility that the Kindred - a sect of religious isolationists - had been involved in a series of murders in which each victim's body showed the presence of huge amounts of pheromones, Scully acted stunned when she twice had hand-to-hand contact with a male member of the Kindred called Brother Andrew and, on the second occasion, was rendered motionless, unable to resist an attempt by Brother Andrew to seduce her. After Mulder freed her from the situation, she lost all memory of the event. However, with information that Brother Andrew had provided her, Scully and her FBI partner realized that the murders had been committed by a single killer, Marty, who had once been a member of the Kindred. Scully was assaulted by both Brothers Andrew and Martin before they and the rest of their sect entirely disappeared. — (Gender Bender)
In 2016 the X-Files were re-opened when Walter Skinner was contacted by Tad O'Malley with compelling new evidence about an abduction conspiracy. Scully returned to work for the FBI with agent Mulder on the request of Skinner. — (My Struggle)
Dana reveals her mother's living will—as she understood it—allowed life support to be applied if Maggie's life could be extended by its use. This provision was added after Dana's experience in a coma, but Maggie revoked it and replaced it with a DNR a year before Maggie's coma. Dana wasn't aware of this change. After Maggie was extubated, Dana and Fox sat by her bedside. Charlie called, and when Maggie heard his voice she opened her eyes. Whether this was in response to Charlie is unclear, because Maggie's last words were to Mulder; "My son is named William, too". She then died, and her body was taken away for organ donation harvest. — (Home Again)
It had become apparent to members of the Syndicate that despite the closure of the X-Files project, Mulder and Scully seemed determined to continue their investigations under the radar of their superiors. Scully, in particular, was identified by name as a problem by Alex Krycek, a rogue operative working for the Syndicate, but posing as an FBI agent to spy on Mulder and separate him from Scully. Although Mulder and Krycek were partners for some time, Mulder and Scully's own partnership never frayed and the Syndicate opted for more extreme measures.
In 1994, a mental patient named Duane Barry escaped a psychiatric institution and took hostage several people in a travel agency in Virginia. Duane Barry claimed he was an alien abductee and had been taken multiple times. Barry was also a former FBI agent and as a result, the FBI - and Mulder, due to his experience with alien abduction cases - were called in to negotiate. A situation arose for a trade of an injured hostage and Mulder took his place. Mulder empathised with Duane and attempted to talk him down. As he did this, Scully became involved in the investigation, having been called on by Mulder to investigate Duane Barry's history.
Scully was convinced that Duane was not an alien abductee, as Mulder thought he was, but was instead a dangerously unstable and pathologically disturbed man, who had suffered an injury in the line of duty which left him suffering from paranoid delusions. With Mulder and Scully's help, the siege was brought to an end with Duane being shot by FBI tactical team members.
Mulder later came to Scully with evidence of what Duane Barry had described during the siege – an alien implant, found embedded in his body, along with other implants in other areas. After taking the implant for ballistics analysis, Scully ran it through a supermarket scanner on her way home and found that a serial number presented on the display. At her apartment, Scully rang Mulder's answering machine and communicated what she had found, positing that it was as if someone were using it to catalogue him. As she did so, a noise outside her window disturbed her and opening the blinds, Scully was horrifed to find Duane Barry, who smashed his way into her apartment and knocked her down, as she screamed over the phone for Mulder's help. — (Duane Barry)
Mulder arrived at the scene later to find both Scully and Duane Barry gone. Duane travelled to Skyland Mountain, with a captive Scully in the trunk and Mulder and the FBI in pursuit. Despite attempts by the Syndicate to block Mulder reaching the mountain, he eventually did, but Scully was nowhere to be found, having already been taken away by what was later revealed to be a military operation. — (Ascension)
Approximately four weeks later, Scully mysteriously reappeared in a D.C. hospital, with no record of how she returned. As her condition deteroriated, Mulder was hellbent on vengeance against those who had put her in such a condition. It was only due to the intervention of Scully's sister, Melissa, that Mulder was able to finally put his anger aside and sit with Scully as she fought for her life. A short time later, Scully woke from her coma, with no recollection of what happened to her. — (One Breath)
FamilyRomantic InterestsColleagues and MentorsEnemiesReligious Beliefs
Dana Scully is a skeptic who favours scientific methods but she also was raised a Catholic and could often be seen wearing a small golden cross around her neck, a Christmas gift from her mother at a young age. It would seem that Scully embraced Christianity as a youth but, in her own words, lost her faith "in a way" and "drifted from the church" as she became a scientist, influenced by the scientific community's materialistic views. When Mulder discovered Scully's cross necklace in Duane Barry's car, he was surprised to see she wore it, considering her skeptical nature — (Ascension). Scully once spoke to a priest at a confessional, saying, "It has been six years since my last confession." The conversation indicates that Scully had to come full circle to find the truth, from faith to skepticism and back to faith. — (Revelations) While fighting cancer, Scully refused spiritual guidance from Father McCue. When death seemed near, she broke down and asked the priest to minister to her faith — (Gethsemane, Redux, Redux II). She later attended church services at his church — (All Souls). A copy of the Holy Bible was in Scully's bedroom — (Orison). When phenomena relating to Christianity came up during Scully's investigations with Mulder, she was usually rather credulous while Mulder was typically the cynical one, often suspecting religious fraud. It is unclear whether Scully fully believes in Catholicism or not and she repeatedly battled internally with this; she has regularly expressed scientific ideas that come in contradiction with the Christian faith and vice versa. Scully's faith and scientific rationalism often appear to run along two parallel courses, science being a matter of the head, faith a matter of the heart. Her position in 2008 as a medical doctor at the Catholic Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital in suggests she has found a way to reconcile the two. — (The X-Files: I Want to Believe) The X-Files
Immortality
There are hints given throughout the series that Scully may actually be immortal. The earliest known reference to this occurs in Season 3, during the episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose". Mulder and Scully investigate a man (Clyde Bruckman) who can predict how people are going to die. When Scully asks Bruckman how she is going to die, he smiles and replies, "You don't." In the episode "Never Again", Scully got a tattoo of an Ouroboros. The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol symbolizing immortality and the cyclic nature of the Universe. The immortality thread was again mentioned in "Tithonus". Scully investigated Alfred Fellig, a crime scene photographer who claimed to have the ability to predict when people would die. Fellig told Scully he saw Death come for him once but missed; it took someone else instead. As a result, he could not die. Scully was accidentally shot by her new temporary partner, but before she died, Fellig asked her to look away. Scully recovered fully, but Fellig died instead. Mulder suggested that Fellig took her place in death, which if true, suggests she is now immortal, as Fellig was. Fellig, at the time of his death, was approximately 200 years old, and his death was by his choice alone. Fellig's age can be extrapolated by using his reference to the Yellow Fever epidemic in New York City (1791-1799) as a child. In another episode, "Monday", Scully and Mulder are repeatedly killed in an explosion but eventually survive because the day keeps replaying which allows them to change the events that take place leading up to their demise. The reason that is suggested in the episode for this ultimate deja vu is that what is supposed to happen by fate is not what has been observed, to include Mulder and Scully's death. The day finally continues only after Scully and Mulder survive the episode. This would suggest that Scully or Mulder had been fated to not die. It was also hinted that Scully may have obtained her immortality from the chip that was implanted in her neck. The Cigarette Smoking Man took Scully to see the 118-year-old Marjorie Butters, who looked very healthy at such old age. Marjorie had the same chip implanted "En Ami". This is probably a direct result of the alien technology that was used to create an alien/human hybrid that would survive the black oil (known as Purity) in the impending global viral holocaust. However, Agent Scully could still be killed, as were many other women with the implant, but she would probably be resistant to the effects of age, disease, and harmful pathogens that most are not.
Common Sayings
In the course of the show, Scully frequently repeats herself, employing specific words and arguments, with minor variations, in commonly encountered situations. To gain entrance to a restricted area: "I'm a medical doctor." To undermine Mulder's theory: "Are you suggesting...?" or "There is no scientific explanation for..." or "There is no conclusive evidence..." To explain a report filed with Skinner: "Sir, Agent Mulder believes..." When calling Mulder on the phone: "Mulder, it's me." When searching for her son William: "Where's my BABY!?" When questioned: "I have seen things that I cannot deny."
+Season 1
•- Pilot (1993) ... Dana Scully
•- Deep Throat (1993) ... Dana Scully
•- Squeeze (1993) ... Dana Scully
•- Conduit (1993) ... Dana Scully
•- The Jersey Devil (1993) ... Dana Scully
Apr 3, 2024 · April 3, 2024, 5:20pm. Ever since The X-Files seemingly concluded with Season 11 back in 2018, star Gillian Anderson has explained why she had no interest in reprising her role as Dana Scully in ...
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Apr 3, 2024 · Appearing on NBC’s Today this morning, Anderson acknowledged how every interview she does (including this one!) eventually circles around to The X-Files and whether she would ever play Dana ...
