Gillian Anderson Embraces Villainous Role in Netflix’s Thrilling New Series ‘The Abandons

Amid a sea of male-centric Westerns, Netflix’s The Abandons carves a unique niche by spotlighting powerful female leads. This series shines with the talents of Gillian Anderson from The X-Files and Lena Headey of Game of Thrones fame, as they portray two fiercely protective mothers embroiled in a battle for their families’ survival in a gripping narrative of class conflict.

In this intense saga of wealth and struggle, Anderson and Headey deliver memorable performances as their characters navigate a harsh world, embodying strength and determination. Kurt Sutter, the brain behind this frontier drama, pulls no punches, crafting a story rich with formidable women, high stakes, and a defiance of conventional norms.

The narrative unfolds in 1854 within Washington Territory’s Jasper Hollow, focusing on two widowed mothers leading vastly different households. Anderson’s character, Constance Van Ness, is at the helm of a prosperous family, having inherited and expanded her late husband’s lucrative mining enterprise.

Constance’s ambition to dominate the frontier puts her at odds with Headey’s character, Fiona Nolan, who leads a makeshift family of orphans and misfits known as the Abandons. Fiona, grounded in faith, stands resiliently against the Van Ness family’s attempts to displace her and her children from their cherished cattle ranch.

Both women operate outside the bounds of law and order, particularly as their lives become intertwined through murder, hidden truths, and the quest for a lucrative land rich with silver. In a recent interview ahead of the series’ debut on December 4, Anderson and Headey discussed the refreshing distinctiveness of these roles.

Constance wants to take over the frontier, but she’s up against Headey’s equally fierce Fiona Nolan, the head of a found family of orphans and outcasts known as the Abandons. This faith-driven mother of four refuses to let the powerful Van Ness family drive her and her children from the cattle ranch and home they built.

Neither plays by the rules nor the law, especially when their fates become linked by murder, secrets, and a bid for a piece of land with silver underneath. Anderson and Headey described how unique these roles were in a sit-down interview just before the seven-episode series premiered on December 4.

For Anderson, who portrays evil with delicious menace, this was a career first. “Well, I haven’t really played a baddie before, and I was interested in exploring that,” she explained, adding, “I was also interested in this time period, which I’d never really studied before, or necessarily even paid that much attention to, even when I was in school.”

Anderson also expressed an appreciation for being out in nature while filming. “There was the chance to go out and be in the sun, in the dust, with the horses, and the fabulous costumes in the middle of the mountains, and dive into a story that was about survival…day-to-day survival…and I feel like I haven’t necessarily had that as a through line in any of the stuff I’ve done before.”

TV lovers have adored Anderson for her role as Dana Scully in one of the longest-running science fiction series in network TV history, The X-Files. The Fox series ran for a total of 11 seasons from 1993 to 2018 (the original episodes ran for nine seasons from 1993 to 2002 with a two-season revival from 2016 to 2018).

We’ve seen Anderson play it tough before as Scully, a medical doctor-turned-FBI-agent who worked alongside David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder to investigate unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Though a strong woman like Constance, Scully was not cruel.

And then fans grew to love an entirely new side of Anderson as Jean Milburn in Netflix’s hilarious and touching Sex Education. In this role, she portrayed an unconventional and oftentimes overly involved mother and successful sex therapist who becomes deeply entangled in her son’s life and the school’s sex ed issues.

This role in The Abandons allowed Anderson to go in an entirely new direction. She said the chance to work with Headey was also a big draw. “It felt like it would be so much fun! And I liked that these are two stand-alone, fierce rivals.”

When asked how she got into the mind of a woman whom she referred to as a “baddie,” Anderson paused before answering. “How does one ever get into anything? It’s part of the work that you do to try and imagine what her life must be like. I am a mother of three, and I think that parents do unnatural things to protect their young. I also think that a lot of what she’s doing is self-serving. I think it’s just burning resentment.”

Anderson’s villainous turn elevates Netflix’s The Abandons and marks a defining new chapter in her career that fans won’t soon forget.