She is no stranger to playing powerful figures at pivotal moments in history, but when Gillian Anderson was offered the role of groundbreaking journalist Emily Maitlis in Netflix’s hotly anticipated new film Scoop, she turned it down.
“When I was first asked to play her, I said: ‘Absolutely not. No way,’” reveals Gillian, 55, who previously portrayed Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, Wallis Simpson in Any Human Heart and Eleanor Roosevelt in The First Lady.
“‘It’s too hard.
