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Actor, activist and icon Gillian Anderson is well on her way to becoming a one woman brand, thanks to the launch last year of her incredibly successful - and incredibly delicious - non-alcoholic wellness drinks range, G Spot. While the sparkling, plant-based drinks promise to deliver “thirst-quenching flavours and life-enhancing adaptogens and nootropics that invigorate and boost performance and cognitive functions” and therefore fit seamlessly into the world of ‘wellness’, Ms Anderson herself is wary of the pitfalls of the booming ‘wellness’ industry.
“The wellness industry is a huge part of our lives today, and it touches on most of the consumer brands out there that we can think of,” Gillian tells GLAMOUR. “It's a multi-trillion dollar industry, but it also carries a huge amount of baggage with it. There are so many ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ and feelings of not being good enough and I personally have always struggled with that. I think I've always struggled with being told I should do anything. And so I've kept my relationship with the wellness industry at arm's length because it has felt toxic.”
Through G-Spot therefore, Gillian plans to to create a more purpose-driven and unconventional wellness brand that puts women's self-empowerment, self-expression and pleasure at the forefront, which is why last month, she teamed up with the charity, Wellbeing of Women to host the G Spot x Wellbeing of Women ‘Art of Pleasure’ event at Soho Revue Gallery. The event showcased female artists and celebrated the partnership between G Spot and the health charity that focuses on improving women’s gynaecological and reproductive health through research, education and advocacy.
GLAMOUR caught up with Gillian just after the event to discuss empowerment, entrepreneurship and the power of playing sex therapist Jean Milburn in the Netflix smash hit show, Sex Education.
We're here today to talk about the collaboration with your wellness drinks brand, G Spot, and the Wellbeing of Women charity. Why is this partnership so important to you?
I knew from the beginning when we were starting G Spot and building the wider brand that I wanted being of service to others to be a big part of it. So we did a lot of research to find a charity that felt like it fit.
We wanted to find a charity that was women-centric, because even though our brand isn't solely for women, it is women-centric and Wellbeing of Women is a charity that works across all women's gynaecological and reproductive health. It's a health charity that improves the health of women and girls, babies, through research, education, advocacy, and it felt like a really, really good fit for us.
Obviously your brilliant performance as Dr Jean Milburn in Sex Education has been important in terms of educating both younger and older generations about gynaecological and reproductive health. What have you learned about wellness, self-love and sexual pleasure through playing that role?
It's funny. As I'm starting to be more involved with my production company in terms of the kinds of material I want to be involved with moving forward, and having more of an active role in creating things, I have been paying more attention to the roles that I've played and the impact that they have had individually. And so, one of those, of course, is going to be Jean Milburn.
It was Jean Milburn essentially who started all this because of my “penis and yoni of the day” presence on Instagram [Gillian has become renowned on social media for her hilarious and Jean Milburn-esque posts of phallic or yoni like objects with the hashtag #penisoftheday or #yonioftheday] which kind of established, one: what my presence on Instagram looked like. And, two: the type of humour that was going to be [part of the G Spot brand]... And I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the humour of the show and the fact that even though there's a lot of humour and silliness, lightness and levity in my life, I haven't done a lot of comedy in a public way and that goes back to a self-esteem thing.
“This was not an easy decision to make"
And because as I've been looking at what we call content and IP for my production company, and really doing a deep dive into what about the characters that I have played so far have drawn women and men, and however anybody identifies, to be fans of those characters. Because those characters, in and of themself, separate from me, have huge fan bases; whether that's Jean Milburn or Stella Gibson (The Fall). Maybe I'll leave Thatcher (The Crown) out of it! [laughing]. And so really looking at what it is about those women that inspires people. So the idea of inspiration and what it is about those women that inspires people, has been a big topic.
We’ve wanted to really focus on where women are getting inspired in a way that encourages them to feel self-empowered, to therefore ask for what they need, what they want to embrace, to feel empowered enough to then be able to be of service to others.
Specifically, in relation to your partnership with Wellness of Women, and of course because of the connotations of your brand, G Spot, you have been talking about the power of pleasure and the shame that can often be associated with female pleasure?
It's funny because pleasure on the one hand feels like it has become such a dirty word in a way. It makes people feel uncomfortable, and pleasure is filled with a lot of stigma of guilt and shame, embarrassment, avoidance. And G Spot is about giving women the confidence to do what feels good. Everyone is unique with individual cravings and desires and needs, and women's sexual wellness is a huge part of their happiness. So why not embrace it and celebrate it and help to shift pleasure from the feeling of it being a dirty word to something that actually equates to a form of happiness.
And what's your own relationship and journey like with self-love?
Self-love to me is about accepting you, yourself, me, accepting me as I am, however I am. And particularly today and particularly because of many elements of the wellness industry that can be quite toxic, there are so many people, particularly women and young women, who are really, really struggling with self-esteem, and it's talked about all the time. It's in every magazine, in every newspaper, and everything. It's in magazines that at the same time promote the imagery of exactly that which causes the shame.
And because of social media and the impact that the messaging in social media and the perfectionism that is often presented through snapshots of people's lives, et cetera has. Also the isolationism that is being created by everybody being so focused on their devices, it is creating, and it's beyond an epidemic, of low self-esteem and self-hate.
And so a lot of what we talk about within the brand and what G Spot is about, is about accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now. That we're not trying to promote perfectionism or expect perfectionism. That we are promoting self-acceptance really to a degree, and to a big degree.
And that means, right now, in this moment, not when I have shed 10 pounds or when I have a firmer butt, or when I am financially solvent.
And then if we can find a way to truly feel okay with how we are as we are, whoever we are and however we identify, then that is contagious in a way; it is incredibly empowering, that is embracing a feeling of self-power. There's an element of strength and tenacity, and I guess it also encourages you to look up.
Going back to the strong female characters who you’ve played who’ve become inspirations, this is a good time to discuss “The Scully Effect” - the fact that there's academic research in the US to show that your iconic role in the ‘90’s hit show, The X-Files as FBI Special Agent and medical scientist, Dana Scully, had a direct impact on women and young girls entering into STEM careers and scientific education. What a legacy. How do you feel about that?
I know. It's extraordinary… I was going through a border somewhere recently, and the border patrol guard told me that she went into law enforcement because of Scully. And I've heard that so many times. It’s incredible. The degree to which that character had impact, and as a medical doctor, as a scientist she was not represented at the time on television. What was on television was Baywatch, and very interesting that right now Pamela Anderson is embracing another aspect of her whole self at this particular age (by not wearing makeup). But at the time, we were very much not... I would say ‘pitted against each other’is too strong, It was more of a comparison. There was the Pamela Anderson with all her physical attributes, and there's Gillian Anderson, who was the suited-up, very different Anderson!
Back to current day and you've obviously launched into the wellness industry with G-Spot, but I know you find elements of the wellness industry problematic?
Well, I do. I mean, it's interesting. It feels like this is unconventional wellness is what we're embracing (at G Spot). It's tricky because the wellness industry is a huge part of our lives today, and it touches on most of the consumer brands out there that we can think of. It's a multi-trillion dollar industry, but it also carries a huge amount of baggage with it. There are so many ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ and feelings of not being good enough and I personally have always struggled with that. I think I've always struggled with being told I should do anything. And so I've kept my relationship with the wellness industry at arm's length because it has felt toxic.
But also I've never really been one to jump on a bandwagon or to do what other people are doing. And so anytime something becomes a trend, I lose interest. …But I guess connecting with us at the same time is about connecting with the idea that there's potentially another way of doing it, and why does the wellness industry sometimes, or more than sometimes, make us feel so shit?
And when the wellness industry is a trillion-dollar business, why are so many women, because that's who I hear from most of the time, feeling more miserable than ever? And so, I do think that at the heart of being well, there should be an element of enjoyment in it, an element of pleasure in that. And so I guess that's why it feels unconventional, because I don't necessarily see that out there,
How do you feel about ‘Gillian Anderson’ becoming a brand through branching out with G-spot?
I mean, firstly, I'm not giving over my acting career. My day job is my first and foremost focus. I've also been a business woman and an entrepreneur for a long time. I guess this venture kind of started with the creation of G Spot, which you are right to say kind of came out of having played Jean Milburn.
The idea of the name came because of Jean Milburn and my presence on Instagram, et cetera. But it's very much a side venture. The recent (SAG-AFTRA actors) strike has allowed me a great deal of time to focus on it, but I'm just about making it a more public, forward-facing aspect of.
I know that the products, whether it's drinks or other things that we are going to be expanding in, or whether it's my production company and how they all relate to each other, it's all kind of coming back to the same thing, which is about messaging more than it is about adding something
“As women, we know that sex is about more than just sex. But so many of us don’t talk about it.”
Finally, what does empowerment mean to you?
I guess empowerment is like an inner strength, and I know that I feel more of a sense of my inner strength when my whole being is well, and, yes, how much of that has to do with a good night's sleep, and how much of that is to do with whether I've found any time for myself? That's a big part of it, is not just finding time for myself, but making it a priority, I think. We recently did a survey of women for G Spot, asking women how much time a week they spend committed to their own pleasure, whatever that pleasure might be. And one in five women said that they never commit any time to their own pleasure.
And the study also found that out of 1,000 women, that on average they spent 30 minutes a week for me-time. And yet, in the survey, seven out of 10 women considered solo sexual pleasure key to their wellness and self-care.
So much of that I think is about not only making (self-care) it a priority, but really committing to make it a priority, which I too struggle with, particularly now as I'm busier than ever, but also asking for it. That means asking for help, the help with childcare, or asking a partner to do something for you that would be pleasurable, or asking a partner to just support your own time; going for a walk by yourself, or going for a walk with a friend. Whatever it is. That, to me, self-empowerment means having the courage to ask for what you want and need."
