The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson Pays Homage to Her Days in the FBI Basement With Tortured Poets Meme

Who’s afraid of little old Scully?

On Friday, X-Files alum Gillian Anderson, formerly known as Dr. Dana Katherine “Mrs. Spooky” Scully, tweaked a popular Taylor Swift-inspired meme to reflect her time on the Fox drama.

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“You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me,” she posted on X, above a photo of her with former co-star David Duchovny (aka Special Agent Fox Mulder) in the F.B.I. basement office their characters shared.

The caption is a lyric from “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?,” a track from Swift’s recently released Tortured Poets Department album. “I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me/ you wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me,” Swift sings in the song, which is a rage-fueled reflection on the life of a teen star and people’s reactions to it.

Professionally speaking, The X-Files did raise Anderson: It was her first major acting job and her first series-regular television role. The supernatural drama ran nine seasons (from 1993 to 2002), spawned two feature films, then was revived for an additional two seasons in 2016. (Have you checked out our controversial Mulder-Scully theory?)

During the Season 11 run in 2018, Anderson made it clear that she no longer wanted to play the enigmatic forensic pathologist known for pragmatic rationalism. “It’s been an extraordinary opportunity. I’m extremely grateful. [But] I don’t want to be tied down to doing one thing for months and months,” she said at the time. “I like to be challenged as an actor. That’s why I got into this business. And it’s time for me to hang up Scully’s hat. This is it for me — I’m really serious.”

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That said, in April, Anderson indicated that she would be open to appearing in Ryan Coogler‘s in-the-works X-Files reboot.

“I’m not saying no, because I think he’s really cool,” she told Today. “And I think if he did it, it probably would be done incredibly well. Maybe I’ll pop in for a little somethin’-somethin.’”

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