From FBI Agent to Sex Therapist: A Career of Transformation
Gillian Anderson has built a career on transformative roles, from FBI agent Dana Scully in The X-Files to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. But it was her portrayal of Jean Milburn, an uninhibited sex therapist in Netflix's Sex Education, that opened her mind to a deeper understanding of human desire and inspired an unexpected project.
Anderson's role as Jean Milburn, mother to socially awkward teenager Otis who sets up an underground sex therapy clinic at his high school, proved to be more than just another acting challenge. The series, created by Laurie Nunn and produced by UK-based production company Eleven, premiered on Netflix on January 11, 2019, and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Within its first four weeks, the show reached an estimated 40 million households, garnering critical acclaim and opening up conversations around sexuality, relationships and identity.
A Literary Project Inspired by Hidden Desires
The experience led Anderson to launch an ambitious literary project: collecting anonymous sexual fantasies from women around the world. Published on September 17, 2024, by Abrams Press, Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous became an instant New York Times bestseller. The book was inspired by Nancy Friday's groundbreaking 1973 work My Secret Garden, which first broke the silence around women's inner sexual lives.
In a recent appearance on NPR's Wild Card with Rachel Martin, a podcast named one of the 10 best podcasts of 2024 by The New York Times, Anderson reflected on what the project taught her about desire. The show's unique format uses a deck of cards to guide guests through questions about life's biggest questions, creating an atmosphere for unexpectedly revealing conversations.
Discovering the Deeper Dimensions of Desire
Anderson discovered through the thousands of submissions she received that women's fantasies often transcend the purely physical. Many contributors described desires that had little to do with sex itself, revealing deeper yearnings for connection, freedom, power, or simply being truly seen and understood.
The actress, who won Emmy and Golden Globe awards in 1997 for her portrayal of Dana Scully in The X-Files, brought the same intellectual curiosity to this project that has defined her career. More recently, she earned another Emmy and Golden Globe in 2021 for her supporting role as Margaret Thatcher in the fourth season of The Crown, which was released on November 15, 2020, where she appeared in six episodes.
A Portrait of Multifaceted Female Desire
What emerged from Anderson's exploration was a portrait of female desire as multifaceted and complex, encompassing emotional, psychological and spiritual dimensions alongside the physical. The anonymity of the submissions allowed women to express thoughts and feelings they had never shared before, creating a collective portrait of hidden inner lives.
Through this work, Anderson came to understand that desire operates on many levels simultaneously. For many women, fantasies serve as a safe space to explore aspects of themselves that societal expectations might otherwise suppress. The project revealed that what people truly want often goes far beyond conventional definitions of sexuality.
By encouraging women to share their secret thoughts without judgment, Anderson has continued the conversation that her Sex Education character championed on screen. The book stands as a testament to the power of creating spaces where people can express their authentic selves, and to the revelation that understanding desire means understanding the full complexity of human experience.
