Gillian Anderson Reveals Bizarre Rule 'X-Files' Creator Made Her Dialogue Follow For Nine Years—And Whoa

Gillian Anderson has amassed a distinguished career on stage and screen, from her Emmy award-winning performance as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on The Crown to earning rave reviews as Martha in a London revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?

But if there is one role for which the award-winning actress is recognized more than any other, it has to be her portrayal of the extraterrestrial-skeptical FBI agent Dana Scully on the hit series The X-Files.

Indeed, with her coiffed red hair and perfectly fitted suits, Anderson's performance as the doctor-turned investigator quickly made Scully one of the most iconic characters of all time.

An oft- overlooked element of Anderson's Emmy-winning portrayal, however, was her long, dense sections of dialogue with co-star David Duchovny, who played fellow investigator Fox Mulder, as well as the semi-monotonous style in which their characters spoke.

During a recent appearance on Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, Anderson revealed there was more to her character's dialogue than met the eye:

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Anderson admitted that Mulder and Scully's way of speaking was strikingly unusual, which she initially felt was meant to be in keeping with the sinister style of the show:

"There was a particular way that we used to speak in the show that wasn't a normal rhythm and syntax."

"It was slightly backwards, which felt like it was almost part of the cryptic aspect of the series."

During the filming of the second feature film based on the series, 2008's The X-Files: I Want To Believe, show creator Chris Carter revealed a long-hidden truth about the way he wrote Scully's dialogue.

Anderson explained:

"It wasn't until we were working on, I think the second feature, and I was sitting in a parked vehicle, waiting to shoot, and our showrunner and creator, Chris Carter came up to me, he was directing the feature, and he looked at my sides, where my lines were, and he said, 'look, no widows'."

"And I said, 'what are you talking about', and he said 'no widows on your little paragraphs that each character has'."

"The word went all the way to the end with the period, so, it didn't end half-way through that line, so it was a perfect rectangle."

When co-host Matt Gourley noted that Anderson's dialogue was written "visually" for nine years, Anderson let out nearly a decade's worth of frustration by forming two fists and lifting the middle finger of each hand.

Host O'Brien then commended Anderson for "struggling with [Carter's] OCD" while declaring his fascination with Carter's writing style himself, labeling him a "frustrated student of architecture."

As the interview began making the rounds on X (formerly Twitter), Anderson's fans had a lot to say about this revelation.

Some couldn't believe that anyone had the patience to write this way, while others confessed to understanding Carter's need for his scripts to look a certain way:

Mastering Scully's unusual dialogue must have been a challenge to Anderson. Maybe mastering Carter's "visual" style of writing helped her interpret the works of Ibsen, Williams, and Albee in her prolific stage career following The X-Files run.