Gillian Anderson is clearing the air after she cautioned fans from sitting in the front row during her West End performances in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
“Hi everyone, just to say — the video doing the rounds is me talking with women I go back over 20 years with,” Anderson, 58, wrote in a Sunday, October 4, X statement. “Please don’t say anything negative to or about them.”
After a recent performance of Virginia Woolf, the X Files alum greeted attendees at the stagedoor when she was heard telling specific individuals that it was too “distracting” for them to sit in the front row.
“We’re thrilled to be doing this show, but for people in the front row, please be aware that in such an intimate venue, we can all see you,” she added on Sunday. “Sometimes, it can be a tad distracting! That’s all. All good.”
Anderson concluded, “On with the show and love to everyone and thank you to all of those coming.”
Anderson is currently starring as Martha in the West End revival of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, directed by Marianne Elliott at the Soho Place in London.
“It was definitely a bucket list,” the actress told What’s On Stage in an interview published Thursday, October 1 of joining the production. “Years would go by and it had a certain undulations to it, and then there was a certain point where it was, ‘OK, it’s definitely time.’”
Anderson stars opposite Billy Crudup’s George in the new Virginia Woolf staging.
“I confess, roles have never occurred to me where I’m, like, ‘I got to play Henry VI,’ that’s not the way that I think,” Crudup, 58, told the outlet of landing his role. “But, when Marianne wrote to me and said would you consider George, I said, immediately yes. The reason is, not because it was a bucket list role, but because the times that I’ve seen the play, the reactions that I’ve had were overwhelming.”
As for Anderson, she gushed that Crudup is “phenomenal” as George.
“He’s as much [of] a workaholic and perfectionist as I am, and so that suited me and us,” she continued. “You, kind of, need that for a play like this.”
Crudup felt the same working with Anderson.
“She’s as professional as you will have out there, and I just felt like I was with a colleague whose someone I would like to work like and want to work with,” he acknowledged. “You collaborate in that way. We speak a very similar language and we both are dedicated to trying to present this play as envisioned by Marianne Elliott.”
