Gillian Anderson Slams Hollywoods Gender Pay Gap

has hit out at Hollywood gender pay gap and reveals she was offered 'a huge percentage less than a male co-star'.

The American actress, 57, has enjoyed a 40-year career in the industry and is known for iconic roles including Dana Scully in The X-Files and Jean Milburn in Sex Education.

Despite taking home an and a for playing Dana in the sci-fi drama, Gillian famously still struggled to receive the same pay as her male co-star, .

Gillian eventually closed the wage gap in the '90s during the original nine seasons but as the miniseries made a revival in 2016, the actress faced the same battle she did two decades before when she was offered half the salary of David to return.  

Speaking on an episode of Josh Smith's Great Chat Show on Wednesday, Gillian said that it came as a shock as she didn't think it would still be an issue all those years later.

She said: 'I think for a long time I either didn't want the responsibility of being a role model or being labelled as a role model. 

'I felt like after a while talking about equal pay, talking about The Scully effect… It felt like old news to me at a certain point, I kind of pushed back against it, and I was like, "oh my God, they want to talk about this again." 

'And it wasn't until being offered a huge percentage less than my male costar that I suddenly thought, actually, I need to f**king talk about this because this is still an issue and I didn't realise that.'

Gillian continued: 'I've been pushing it away because it felt like old news, but actually it's still in our present…. Being famous so young, it felt like very often I have been running from the fanbase outside the hotels or in the airports, the paparazzi. I'm a very private person and so I have fought it. 

'I feel like since working on the book, since embracing sex education and my character in Sex Education, since launching my functional drinks brand [G Spot] and talking to brands and companies…

'In the last couple of years, I have been embracing that and actually starting to kind of enjoy it a little bit. 

'I've said no a lot in my life, "No, I won't you know, speak of the university. No, I won't be too vocal of an advocate for something." And I'm starting to say yes.'

Gillian - who was to reprise her role as Special Agent Dana Scully - was only offered 'half' of what they were to pay David according to the Daily Beast.

'It was shocking to me,' she told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. 'Given all the work that I had done in the past to get us to be paid fairly.' 

The War & Peace actress fought for equality on the original series when the studio required Gillian to stand several feet behind David in every scene for the first three seasons. 

David played FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on the hit show, and was never filmed side-by-side with Gillian. 

'I can only imagine that at the beginning, they wanted me to be the sidekick,' Gillian said of Fox's no-equal-footing rule. 

'Or that somehow, maybe it was enough of a change just to see a woman having this kind of intellectual repartee with a man on camera,' she continued. 

She quipped: 'Surely the audience couldn’t deal with actually seeing them walk side by side!'