Gillian Anderson
Born: August 9 1968
Where: Chicago, Illinois, USA
The actress will always be remembered as special agent Dana Scully in the popular TV sci-fi series The X-Files.
However, she has also made several well-regarded forays into film, including her portrayal of Lily Bart in The House of Mirth and Alice in The Last King of Scotland.
The daughter of a computer analyst and film production executive, her family moved to Puerto Rico soon after he birth and then to Crouch End in London so her father could attend the London Film School.
When Anderson was eleven years old, her family moved again, this time to Grand Rapids, Michigan where she attended Fountain Elementary and then City High-Middle School.
While at school, she was voted "girl most likely to get arrested" by her classmates.
After studying fine arts at the Goodman Theatre of Drama and Arts at Chicago's DePaul University, she made her big screen debut in the 1992 drama The Turning.
However, it was the following year that she landed her big break as Scully opposite David Duchovny's Mulder in The X-Files.
(at just 5ft 3ins many of her scenes had to be shot with her standing on an apple crate).
Her commitment to the series restricted her film outings to the comedy dramas Chicago Cab and The Mighty and the rom-com Playing By Heart with Angelina Jolie.
In 2000, she attracted critical acclaim after Terence Davies cast her in his big screen version of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.
In 2005, she starred in the Belfast-set The Mighty Celt, for which Anderson had to deliver a thick Irish accent.
The same year she had a cameo in Michael Winterbottom's comedy A Cock and Bull Story and went on play Lady Dedlock in the TV version of Bleak House.
In 2006, she starred alongside James McAvoy in the Idi Amin biopic The Last King of Scotland and went on to appear opposite Danny Dyer in the brutal revenge drama Straightheads.
Recent work includes the comedy How To Lose Friends And Alienate People as well as a return to the character of Scully in The X-Files: I Want To Believe.
