'If I didn't feel so guilty': Gillian Anderson on returning to The X Files set 10 days after giving birth

Returning to work after having a baby is a very personal and often emotional decision, but for Gillian Anderson it was one based off guilt. 

The actress opened up about returning to work on The X Files just 10 days after giving birth to Piper, her first child, in 1994 during an interview on Today with Savannah Guthrie. 

"If I didn't feel so guilty that I got pregnant in the first season, I might have taken better care of myself and been more thoughtful about what I needed for my best interest at the time," the actress explained. 

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Anderson shares Piper with production designer Clyde Klotz and is also mum to Felix, 17 and Oscar, 15, who she shares with ex Mark Griffiths. 

"But I think I was so wrapped up in, 'I almost got fired, I'll mess this up, I'll do whatever they say.' So yeah, 10 days after a C-section," she continued. 

"But we're still talking about it, right? It's interesting. Whatever it was, 30 years ago."

The guilt of not only letting people down, but the potential of being fired for not being able to work definitely impacted her decision, and is something a lot of women are still grappling with today. 

Landing the role of Dana Scully in The X Files was Anderson's big break, but the show's creator Chris Carter recently revealed it took a lot to get her over the line. 

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Both Anderson and David Duchovny were relatively unknown when they were cast in the series, when going over the auditions Cater explained he wrote a simple "yes" for Duchovny and "For Gillian I wrote 'Test'," he told Inverse. 

Though it's "ancient history," the series creator claimed that Fox wanted a "bombshell type, ideally someone like Pamela Anderson" to take on the role of Scully and pushed back on casting Anderson.

"Even though Gillian's beautiful, she wasn't their idea of sexy. First, because they didn't understand what I was trying to do with the show. And she was an unknown, so that never helps."

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