Scully and Mulder 'Aren't Together,' But Gillian Anderson Says She and 'X-Files' Costar David Duchovny's 'Adult Friendship' Still Has 'Kinetic Energy'

"People know we are good friends now and that we've found our way into an adult friendship," Anderson says of her costar

Photo: Photograph by Nico and courtesy of The EDIT, NET-A-PORTER.com

Mulder and Scully may not have ended up together, but the stars who play them still have a spark.

“People know we are good friends now and that we’ve found our way into an adult friendship,” Gillian Anderson tells The Edit of her The X-Files costar David Duchovny. “But there is something that will always remain between us, a kinetic energy that is tangible when you see us in a room together.”

The stars are returning for a limited, six-episode X-Files revival on Fox, and Anderson, 47, admits it was a challenge to step back into the character she first played when she was 25.

“I struggled in the first week. I was trying to find the Scully of the past, rather than accepting time had passed. She and Mulder aren’t together and she’s carved out a world for herself, in medicine, working with a particular disease, with children, assisting surgeons,” says Anderson. “You get the sense that she goes to work, she goes to her apartment, and that s her life. There is something missing and, of course, the thing that s missing is Mulder.”

Anderson recently opened up about showing her sons Felix, 7, and Oscar, 9, her favorite X-Files episode. Unfortunately things didn’t go as planned.

“They had nightmares for weeks!” Anderson said on The Talk Wednesday. “They’ve seen Harry Potter, they’ve seen Voldemort, they’ve seen Orcs, they’ve seen everything [and this scared them]. It literally is the bane of my existence.”

The X-Files returns to Fox on Jan. 24 at 10 p.m ET.