X-Files Star Shares Wild Arrest Story In Grand Rapids

Anytime a local hears their city being name-dropped in the wild, it's a giddy moment. That's what happened during the latest episode of Conan Needs A Friend, Conan O'Brien's podcast. However, this name drop comes from a very random story about someone you may not have known was a Grand Rapids native, and it's pretty funny.

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Gillian Anderson, who played Dana Scully on The X-Files and is a two-time Golden Globe winner, started her interview with Conan in an unexpected way: by recounting a tale of a young rebellious phase involving glue, crystal meth, and a trip to prison.

Gillian Anderson's Complicated Time In Grand Rapids

Gillian Anderson wasn't born in Grand Rapids, but her family did move here when she turned 11 (after spending most of her childhood in London). This was where she got her first acting role while interning at the Civic Theatre, of all places. A few years prior, it was also where she found herself deep into her "punk phase", complete with her hair shaved on both sides and a pierced nose. Apparently, during this time, she was also voted "most likely to be arrested" by her class.

In an interview with the Guardian, she explained what it was like moving to Grand Rapids: "We were in a small Republican town. There were only six punks there. We were weird. It's not like London."

As Conan points out, she made good on that when she was arrested while doing a harmless prank (oh, and while on crystal meth). The story starts at the 10:30 mark, where Anderson details that she was trying to "glue the locks shut [on the building] so no one could get in the building the next day".

She then goes on to reveal that because she was on crystal meth at the time, she managed to talk the cop out of the breaking and entering charge and into a trespassing charge that landed her in prison for the night.

She moved to Chicago after graduating high school, and clearly, things worked out for her. Either way, the image of a punk girl with shaved hair and a British accent fleeing the police around Downtown GR is quite a humorous affair.