Gillian Anderson opened up about what it was like to return to work on The X-Files, just 10 days after undergoing a cesarean section during the birth of her daughter.
“I think if I didn’t feel so guilty that I got pregnant in the first season, that I might have taken better care of myself and been more thoughtful about what I needed for my best interest at the time,” Anderson said during an appearance on the Today show Wednesday.
“But I think I was so wrapped up in, ‘I almost got fired, I’ll mess this up, I’ll do whatever they say,’” the actor added. “You know, so yeah, 10 days after a C-section. But we’re still talking about it, right? It’s interesting. Whatever it was, 30 years ago.”
Anderson was 24 when she welcomed her first child, a daughter named Piper, with her husband at the time, Clyde Klotz. Anderson also has two children, Oscar and Felix, with another former partner, Mark Griffiths.
Anderson has spoken about the experience of returning to X-Files so quickly before.
“I know it was the ’90s, I say, but bloody hell ... I wouldn’t have chosen that, had I had the choice,” the Sex Education star said in an interview with Grazia magazine last month.
″[After] the second one, I didn’t work for over a year. It took over a year before I felt like I was ‘in’ my body,” she continued, adding that she “had help and I still struggled.”
Anderson is part of a crew of Hollywood stars ― mothers in particular ― who have been open about what it’s like to return to work after having children.
Last month, Christina Ricci said that she had “no bond” with her daughter, Cleopatra, when she was a baby because the actor was away from home filming Yellowjackets.
“Last year, I was commuting back and forth to Vancouver for Yellowjackets. [Cleopatra] didn’t know me. We had no bond. So that was very upsetting,” Ricci said on an episode of Shannen Doherty’s Let’s Be Clear podcast.