Gillian Anderson is smoking weed and drinking wine. She's having casual sex, talking about masturbation, scrotums and all sorts of things that would be deemed "bawdy" by someβall this while surrounded by sex toys. She's teaching the world all about s-e-x in Netflix's Sex Education. It's a far cry from Special Agent Dana Scullyβand that is exactly what the Emmy-winning actress wanted. In the series, Anderson plays Dr. Otis, somewhat begrudgingly, becomes a coitus guru himself, but for his school peers.
It's all for the cash and a crush. For Anderson, the role is a departure from what most TV viewers know her forβthe aliens and supernatural of The X-Files and the murder and mayhem of The Fall and Hannibal. Anderson's resume does include some comedy, including recent flick The Spy Who Dumped Me , but she's usually playing buttoned-up characters in dark dramas. That changed with Sex Education , where she said it was "completely fun" to let loose as Jean.
And this is a similar thing, which is there are elements of her that are definitely elements of myself, but to have the opportunity to kind of jump into something completely different and just let loose and be loose is exhilarating in a way," she said.
Like Anderson, Butterfield is known for his fantasy and sci-fi roots, like Ender's Game and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children , but here, he and Anderson get to be normal folks. Well, as normal as you can be when your mom is a sex therapist who wants to talk to you about why you're staging a scene to make it look like you've been masturbating. While fun, the TV relationship doesn't really mirror Anderson's relationship with her kids.
However, Butterfield said it's somewhat like the one he has at home, "minus the kind of sex therapy part of it, and the dildos spread around the house. It's something you just don't want to talk to your parents about," Anderson added. Butterfield said he found himself relating to Otis, specifically the awkwardness that comes with high school and being a teen.
