Gillian Anderson is officially retiring as FBI agent Dana Scully – for good this time. The X-Files made a triumphant return last week for season 11, and as rumours had been swirling recently that she’s leaving the show, the 49-year-old actress has now confirmed the news.
“It’s time for me to hang up Scully’s hat. It just is,” she said at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour.
“I’m finished, and that’s the end of that.”
“It never occurred to me, nor was it discussed or suggested, that it was now a new series – that we were starting a new series,” she said, according to Variety. “So I said, ‘Yes, I will do this.’ But in my mind, it had always been that it would just be one season.”
“There are lots of things that I want to do in my life and in my career, and it’s been an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary character, and I am hugely grateful,” she continued.
The X-Files originally ran from 1993 to 2002.
“But there’s lots of other stuff I want to do, and I don’t really want to be tied down to months and months of doing any particular one thing that I feel like I’ve done.”
Despite one of the show’s lead stars walking away, co-star David Duchovny, who plays Agent Fox Mulder, is keeping the door open for more episodes.
“So whether it can go on, who knows,” he said. “[But] I’m good either way. I’m good with this being the end; I’m good with it not being the end. I can’t see the future. I don’t know. Whatever comes across my desk, I take a look at if it’s written.”
“I’ve tried to say goodbye to Fox Mulder many times and I failed. And they all went and did the show without me, so how do you like that?” David joked. “I’m feeling pretty pissed off, now that I remember.”
Season 11 premiered last week.
The 57-year-old is of course referring to when he left the show after season 7, occasionally making appearances in season 8 and 9. He then made a full comeback to the show for the latest revival in 2015.
The X-Files creator Chris Carter has other plans, however, believing the show can’t go on without Scully.
“For me, ‘The X-Files’ is Mulder and Scully. I think if it were without Scully, I wouldn’t do it,” he told Collider. “That’s not my X-Files.”
The X-Files airs Thursdays at 8.30pm on Showcase.
