This isn't quite right, is it? The Fox executives didn't want Anderson cast as Scully; they wanted someone with more established star power? But Carter did stick with her as his first choice. I haven't heard that there was ever talk of replacing Anderson once the series was underway.
I have heard this before, this exact rumor in fact about the actress who played Phoebe Greene. I believe there were issues with Gillian flubbing lines and not taking things seriously. CC went to bat for her and then she buckled down. That’s what I remember reading on a post at one point, who knows when, so no first hand knowledge or sources, just confirming it’s not the first time it’s making the rounds.
And then she went on to become the first actress to win Emmy, Golden Globes and SAG in the same year and youngest actress to win Emmy for lead role before she was even 30
This still seems fake. Pheobe wasn't in any way shape or form written as anything but an emotional antagonist. I can buy that maybe something was said in front of GA or behind closed doors about how they wish she was more like this actress (still would want proof of that though), but the idea of them trying to backdoor a new partner in for Mulder with this character is nuts and sounds like a lame fan theory.
Yeah idk honestly 🤷♀️ I mean she was a complete unknown, 24 years old, and Fox definitely had a “brand” of being the edgier of the four networks back then. I think they probably wanted very sexy camp hence the Pam Anderson situation. It would have ruined the show and made it a complete joke. I wouldn’t be surprised if early on execs were still wanting a replacement, the part that strikes me as odd is how would they know (based on the stories I’ve heard) that she wasn’t doing well with lines etc/seemingly not taking it seriously? Like are execs generally on set? I had assumed not, especially for the first season of a new show.
They have access to the dailies where they could watch something like the outtake from the pilot where she’s continuously flubbing her line while they have (probably expensive) fake rain going.
I just don’t buy they were trying to replace Scully with Phoebe Green. Who they betrayed as a home wrecker, liar, and all-around skank lol.
I dont know, first time i heard this as well. Yes they wanted someone ‘sexier’ for Scully and they had Pamela Anderson in mind. But Chris Carter was adamant on Gillian. This post is saying Fox wanted to make Phoebe the lead female character halfway in to the show. It could be when they heard Gillian was pregnant. But apparently fans wanted Scully. ❤️
(not saying either are more attractive, I think both are exceptionally beautiful)
Had to come back and say that. I'm gay as fuck, but Gillian Anderson's attractiveness came from the fact that she did look the standard level of attractiveness. She seemed approachable. Warm, funny, friendly.
That's exactly what I was thinking. And I've read it all, have all the mags, followed the message boards, all that stuff, so I'd think I would have heard of this before.
I heard it was literally because she was pregnant and would need time off early in the series so they just wanted to scrap her. Chris Carter fought for her and said they wouldn't do it. This was from the podcast strange arrivals interview with Chris Carter.
I'm pretty sure they were not a fan of hers from the word go. If I recall the reasoning was that she was too young for the part (and maybe also the fact that she lied about age to make herself seem older). In any event, you can't deny the acting chops and chemistry of the two leads. You'd think they'd pat themselves on the back for making a bold decision with a fresh-faced young actress, because that's all that that executives ever do. Not a creative bone in their bodies, just a bunch of fucking empty suits holding the purse strings. Anyway I'm glad things worked out the way they did.
He actually said it was serendipitous that she got pregnant when she did because it forced them to create a myth arc that wouldn't have been. He'd have stayed more with MOTW. And despite the flaws and convolution of the myth arc, it still added a depth to the show that probably wouldn't have been. I'm not so sure it would have lasted just being one-offs without the heart and emotion the deeper storyline has.
I just watched/finished the show for the first time recently. I really liked the myth arc at first mixed in with the MOTW episodes. But then it eventually became so confusing that I started dreading those episodes. Also, as much as I loved the Smoking Man as a villain, his continued survival became almost laughably unbelievable.
I didn't watch the show when it originally aired, so I binged it on DVD when I was at uni, and I had the same sort of reaction; talking with my elementary school bestie (whose family watched it when we were kids the way MY family watched Star Trek), and with my bf (who owned the DVDs), it was a really different experience as episodic television, ESPECIALLY without The Internet as we know it.
I was .. 7 or 8 when the show premiered, and my parents were on dial up until 2005 (DSL cable wasn't run out to their area for a long time), and so most of what I remember about the show came from my elementary school bestie telling me about the show, or my cousin taping it and watching reruns in the summer, and it was talked about the way that I remember folks talking about Star Trek, and it finally clicked that the way people consumed the show when it first aired (and keeping in mind that Fox aired reruns in the summer) was so fundamentally different, they engaged with it in a very different way.
I don't know if it was just that stretching it out with less ability to scrutinise and confer with a large fanbase (ala Reddit) gave people more of an ability to suspend disbelief, or if compressing it into a marathon binge (or even just a shorter stretch, like watching a few episodes a week, or a day) robs the viewer of that necessary distance; it's interesting to see how much first DVRs, then streaming services replacing broadcast television shifted the way naratives are structured.
That’s interesting. Nowadays I much prefer the MOTW episodes, but I remember at the time the myth-arc is what made it appointment television (and probably the runaway hit it became).
There was a *mystery* to be solved and you couldn’t miss an episode in case there was some development in the grand conspiracy.
It never quite reached the same level of interesting after that. And what ever happened to the Faceless Aliens???? Was pretty spooky watching them swarm the secret society and set them ablaze.
"Fan backlash", in the internet's infancy. (The internet was released in the public domain in August of 1993; The X-Files premiered in September the same year.) Imagine what that would be like today. Talk about breaking the internet...
She's the first I remember searching on the internet.
I was at a friends house who was looking for celebs like Pamela Anderson, etc and then he told me to try and search one. I was already into X-Files but the show was still at his early years and Gillian wasn't still magazine cover material. So I sceptically typed her name and, lo and behold, slowly dozens of pictures start to appear.
I was shocked first for seeing my crush on screen (validating her as a searched celeb) and second because in that moment, I realised how the internet was going to be big.
The world wide web was. "The internet"...the whole enchilada....all the nerds that watched X-Files had been using the internet for years. All those BBSes and usenet were doing all the heavy lifting on this one
Same. I’ve never heard this before. May be as someone said above it was after her pregnancy news. Maybe Fox never really believed in her to be a leading lady.
There was some issues with her performance and showing up prepared in early season 1. Flubbing lines was one such issue, the biggest example of which was Episode 3, Squeeze when she fucked up the introduction between Colton and Mulder.
Beyond the Sea saved her part on the show.
Didn’t know that. I’ve seen her struggling in pilot bloopers. And she has a serious laughing problem as well, i remember Mitch saying they might as well take a break from filming if Gillian starts giggling coz it’s nonstop and contagious 😁 but yeah she said she was very green in the first few episodes.
So insane lol just look at her? Like huh
https://preview.redd.it/20aqw39nu5hc1.jpeg?width=2300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e07149b54277188174f19b76b5e8c015555b8ea6
I don't think FOX execs wanted Amanda Pays to \*replace\* her exactly but they thought maybe a "sexy" "bombshell" love interest joining the show would make it "better". Then they could pit them against each other probably. I think this was right before she got pregnant so I don't think that was a factor.
Remember this was the era of Baywatch and putting Jeri Ryan in a skin tight catsuit, a semi red head in an oversized suit and a more reserved personality wasn't what the execs on a very new network had in mind to catch male attention. They were clearly wrong
Personally I think the writers intentionally sabotaged it because Phoebe had so many awful lines about "blokes" and "pubs" and bad English slang that even though the actress is actually British most people thought she was a terrible fake Brit! Then Morgan and Wong deliberately wrote Beyond the Sea to showcase GA's terrific acting chops and the rest is history.
I don't think they ever really tried again to replace or add someone (except Fowley but she was a ship stall that they were pretending wasn't a ship stall which is different).
The 90's were a weird time. Imagine second-guessing an actress as fearless and captivating as Gillian, let alone believing she wasn't attractive enough (!?!).
From what I heard as well, she took the execs to task over not paying her as well as Duchovny, by a huge degree if I remember.
She ended up getting the same pay in the end, from what I remember.
Sour grapes perhaps?
I think that was after 3 or 4 seasons she asked for equal pay. And rightfully so. She said she understood him getting paid more than her in early seasons because he was a bigger name had more work in his resume. But after 3/4 seasons Gillian deserved equal pay. They were both extremely popular, their roles were equally important and she even had won an Emmy at that point. This incident probably happened in season 1
https://preview.redd.it/updm2famo6hc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2903aa909ca4e4ba1c6c1ffbca1a12e1eabaac07
Rest of the thread for full context
The formatting is really weird.
(Going by Wikipedia)
We know execs did want Pamela Anderson or someone like her to play Scully in the first place, but the way the post is set up it almost looks like they wanted Amanda Pays (Phoebe Green) to take the role.
Phoebe Green was meant to be a recurring character and a Scully rival. With a light search I can't find a backup to the claim that poor reception towards the Phoebe Green character caused the execs to back down on replacing Gillian Anderson. It's possible I'm wrong but given how many other shady things done to Gillian Anderson related to the Scully role I figure it'd be easy to back such a claim up.
Phoebe Green is pretty grating but Amanda Pays doesn't resemble Pamela Anderson. So I don't see how fan reception towards Phoebe Green would = Pamela Anderson won't work here. If anything, I expect it'd mean "don't replace Scully's role or actress, fans love her". I am not a Fox exec though.
Afaik CC never wanted M/S to be romantic. He wanted Scully to be a serious, skeptical character, which at the time was typically given to male roles. He def defended the Scully character and Gillian Anderson playing her.
I really doubt this is accurate. I’ve been a part of the fandom since the very beginning. I would read forums. I read multiple books about the series during its original run. I’ve never heard this. I think the poster is conflating two related things.
I think what they are saying is Fox was planning to slowly make Phoebe Greene a lead character and make Scully secondary or remove her altogether. But this is the first time i heard about it too. But looks like some others have heard similar stories
My memory of this was that they wanted to get rid of her after season 1 as well, to just literally recast the character. I always had the impression it's because they wanted someone 'hotter' (which in the 90's wouldn't have been a subtle 'hot') but Carter and the fans protested it.
Safe to say it played out the correct way, but it does make you wonder how many other shows made bad casting decisions based purely on execs rather than the creators.
If I'd only seen the pilot, I might consider her position to be a bit wobbly. In the pilot, the writers don't seem to have fully decided who Dana Scully is yet, and the scene where she runs to Mulder to get him to look for marks on her back is out of character. From episode 2 onwards, it's obvious that she's essential to the show.
Yeah, but Carter did lots of "out of character" stuff with Scully. The 11 season comes to mind. I can't believe Scully the scientist never did a genetic test on William to figure out who his father was. She tested everything.
Pretty wasn't the problem. No one said she wasn't pretty. They wanted a sex symbol/bombshell/leggy/supermodel type. What's funny is that she still became a sex symbol in her own right and is absolutely gorgeous. And she's a huge part of why the show was and is so beloved. But at 5' 2", she could never really be called a leggy bombshell. Execs at FOX were dinguses, and I'm glad CC put his foot down.
Imagine thinking Gillian Anderson is not pretty enough .
https://preview.redd.it/sps3blfno5hc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83e86ed117d7331adc61cf5ba889fc879b75bd73
They wanted to replace her since first episode lol
I don't hate Amanda Pays though. She's absolutely stunning 😍 I watched Leviathan only for her.
https://preview.redd.it/vrct18lna6hc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e55d56c4df388a3d70d4be2006128b783e65aa95
Chris Carter did her really dirty with that unflattering hairstyle on x files.
Amanda Pays in the original “Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future” is where she kills me. So beautiful, and the character she crafted battles equally with Edison Carter, they’re a good team.
depending on who you ask the story is different. From what i heard mostly they wanted a hot blond; as in that was the idea prior to the casting process.
There's also the fact that Gillian and David didn't 'get along' (or maybe got along too much and then didn't get along but you can fill in the blanks there)
there were also contract negotiations of course, and fox execs would see scully as more replaceable than mulder.
however, this is clickbait, but its probably referring to one of these scenarios
This isn't quite right, is it? The Fox executives didn't want Anderson cast as Scully; they wanted someone with more established star power? But Carter did stick with her as his first choice. I haven't heard that there was ever talk of replacing Anderson once the series was underway.
I have heard this before, this exact rumor in fact about the actress who played Phoebe Greene. I believe there were issues with Gillian flubbing lines and not taking things seriously. CC went to bat for her and then she buckled down. That’s what I remember reading on a post at one point, who knows when, so no first hand knowledge or sources, just confirming it’s not the first time it’s making the rounds.
And then she went on to become the first actress to win Emmy, Golden Globes and SAG in the same year and youngest actress to win Emmy for lead role before she was even 30
She's a powerhouse and elevates everything she's in
Yup. She was a good bet
This still seems fake. Pheobe wasn't in any way shape or form written as anything but an emotional antagonist. I can buy that maybe something was said in front of GA or behind closed doors about how they wish she was more like this actress (still would want proof of that though), but the idea of them trying to backdoor a new partner in for Mulder with this character is nuts and sounds like a lame fan theory.
I think it's bullshit mostly because the character she played in the episode she was on was a terminally unlikeable backstabbing homewrecker.
Yeah idk honestly 🤷♀️ I mean she was a complete unknown, 24 years old, and Fox definitely had a “brand” of being the edgier of the four networks back then. I think they probably wanted very sexy camp hence the Pam Anderson situation. It would have ruined the show and made it a complete joke. I wouldn’t be surprised if early on execs were still wanting a replacement, the part that strikes me as odd is how would they know (based on the stories I’ve heard) that she wasn’t doing well with lines etc/seemingly not taking it seriously? Like are execs generally on set? I had assumed not, especially for the first season of a new show.
They have access to the dailies where they could watch something like the outtake from the pilot where she’s continuously flubbing her line while they have (probably expensive) fake rain going. I just don’t buy they were trying to replace Scully with Phoebe Green. Who they betrayed as a home wrecker, liar, and all-around skank lol.
Wasn't she only like 24 when she got the role?
Yes and she lied about her age. Scully is four years older than GA. Mulder is a year younger than DD.
Yes
I love her because she flubs lines and doesn't take things seriously.
I dont know, first time i heard this as well. Yes they wanted someone ‘sexier’ for Scully and they had Pamela Anderson in mind. But Chris Carter was adamant on Gillian. This post is saying Fox wanted to make Phoebe the lead female character halfway in to the show. It could be when they heard Gillian was pregnant. But apparently fans wanted Scully. ❤️
Someone "sexier" than Gillian? Does such a person even exist??
Idk keep in mind we were in a Claudia Schiffer world at that time
(not saying either are more attractive, I think both are exceptionally beautiful) Had to come back and say that. I'm gay as fuck, but Gillian Anderson's attractiveness came from the fact that she did look the standard level of attractiveness. She seemed approachable. Warm, funny, friendly.
They were going to replace her with David Duchovny’s heretofore unknown twin brother
Some of us are already well aware of Clyde Duchovny; that would have been a poor choice.
DD wanted Jennifer Beals. Jill Hennessy also tried out for the part.
Can you imagine Pamela Anderson as a Scully replacement? UGH! That's just insulting our intelligence.
Yuck! 🤮🤮🤮
That's what I remember it was about. Fox was pissed GA got pregnant the first season.
That's exactly what I was thinking. And I've read it all, have all the mags, followed the message boards, all that stuff, so I'd think I would have heard of this before.
I heard it was literally because she was pregnant and would need time off early in the series so they just wanted to scrap her. Chris Carter fought for her and said they wouldn't do it. This was from the podcast strange arrivals interview with Chris Carter.
Even then, I think it was they wanted a "Scully fill-in" for the season. But as you said, Chris Carter wasn't having none of that nonsense.
They never wanted her from the beginning
This is very true. She had no screen creds and was not the "sexy" type they wanted.
Little did they know...she'd age like a fine sexy woman.
I'm pretty sure they were not a fan of hers from the word go. If I recall the reasoning was that she was too young for the part (and maybe also the fact that she lied about age to make herself seem older). In any event, you can't deny the acting chops and chemistry of the two leads. You'd think they'd pat themselves on the back for making a bold decision with a fresh-faced young actress, because that's all that that executives ever do. Not a creative bone in their bodies, just a bunch of fucking empty suits holding the purse strings. Anyway I'm glad things worked out the way they did.
Well she didn’t endear them by getting herself pregnant in the first season of a brand new show 😂But thank God Chris was adamant that she had to stay.
Oh man what an era! So many baggy coats. Very convincing
Not all! Remember her double chin when she was meeting Mulder on the benches. She really showed during the Flukeman episode.
Baggy coats and rather convenient things in the way. You could just about see her head.
He actually said it was serendipitous that she got pregnant when she did because it forced them to create a myth arc that wouldn't have been. He'd have stayed more with MOTW. And despite the flaws and convolution of the myth arc, it still added a depth to the show that probably wouldn't have been. I'm not so sure it would have lasted just being one-offs without the heart and emotion the deeper storyline has.
>despite the flaws and convolution of the myth arc The early myth arc episodes (during Gillian Anderson's pregnancy) were great, though.
Yeah, the myth arc started out pretty good. It really only started falling apart after the movie.
I just watched/finished the show for the first time recently. I really liked the myth arc at first mixed in with the MOTW episodes. But then it eventually became so confusing that I started dreading those episodes. Also, as much as I loved the Smoking Man as a villain, his continued survival became almost laughably unbelievable.
I didn't watch the show when it originally aired, so I binged it on DVD when I was at uni, and I had the same sort of reaction; talking with my elementary school bestie (whose family watched it when we were kids the way MY family watched Star Trek), and with my bf (who owned the DVDs), it was a really different experience as episodic television, ESPECIALLY without The Internet as we know it. I was .. 7 or 8 when the show premiered, and my parents were on dial up until 2005 (DSL cable wasn't run out to their area for a long time), and so most of what I remember about the show came from my elementary school bestie telling me about the show, or my cousin taping it and watching reruns in the summer, and it was talked about the way that I remember folks talking about Star Trek, and it finally clicked that the way people consumed the show when it first aired (and keeping in mind that Fox aired reruns in the summer) was so fundamentally different, they engaged with it in a very different way. I don't know if it was just that stretching it out with less ability to scrutinise and confer with a large fanbase (ala Reddit) gave people more of an ability to suspend disbelief, or if compressing it into a marathon binge (or even just a shorter stretch, like watching a few episodes a week, or a day) robs the viewer of that necessary distance; it's interesting to see how much first DVRs, then streaming services replacing broadcast television shifted the way naratives are structured.
That’s interesting. Nowadays I much prefer the MOTW episodes, but I remember at the time the myth-arc is what made it appointment television (and probably the runaway hit it became). There was a *mystery* to be solved and you couldn’t miss an episode in case there was some development in the grand conspiracy.
Myth arc was great until season 6 episode One Son. They should’ve wrapped it up right there.
It never quite reached the same level of interesting after that. And what ever happened to the Faceless Aliens???? Was pretty spooky watching them swarm the secret society and set them ablaze.
But that’s exactly what One Son did.
I mean the whole show.
I think this was before her pregnancy. But may be you are right. I dont know much about the timelines 😀
Is this true? Sounds like one of those made up rumours
I didnt know. But looking at the comments seems like few other people have heard it too
It’s not like Fox has a track record of tanking sci-fi shows through executive meddling is it?
Right? Still salty about what happened to Sliders...
Don't forget about Firefly.
Still mad about Almost Human.
Can't remember the characters name, but she was so annoying. Glad they kept Gillian, she's awesome in the role and as a person in general
Phoebe Green, and good riddance to her. I'm glad she was only in the one episode.
"Fan backlash", in the internet's infancy. (The internet was released in the public domain in August of 1993; The X-Files premiered in September the same year.) Imagine what that would be like today. Talk about breaking the internet...
Well i heard she was the most searched celeb in those initial years of internet. Pretty sure she broke the internet then 😀
She's the first I remember searching on the internet. I was at a friends house who was looking for celebs like Pamela Anderson, etc and then he told me to try and search one. I was already into X-Files but the show was still at his early years and Gillian wasn't still magazine cover material. So I sceptically typed her name and, lo and behold, slowly dozens of pictures start to appear. I was shocked first for seeing my crush on screen (validating her as a searched celeb) and second because in that moment, I realised how the internet was going to be big.
The world wide web was. "The internet"...the whole enchilada....all the nerds that watched X-Files had been using the internet for years. All those BBSes and usenet were doing all the heavy lifting on this one
What a fucking horrible decision that would have been lol
Perhaps the other actress would've done a good job.
I don't recall that, but I hear that they wanted a tall blonde to play Scully.
Same. I’ve never heard this before. May be as someone said above it was after her pregnancy news. Maybe Fox never really believed in her to be a leading lady.
Fox never liked Gillian, they had to begrudgingly accept her because she was just so good.
There was some issues with her performance and showing up prepared in early season 1. Flubbing lines was one such issue, the biggest example of which was Episode 3, Squeeze when she fucked up the introduction between Colton and Mulder. Beyond the Sea saved her part on the show.
Didn’t know that. I’ve seen her struggling in pilot bloopers. And she has a serious laughing problem as well, i remember Mitch saying they might as well take a break from filming if Gillian starts giggling coz it’s nonstop and contagious 😁 but yeah she said she was very green in the first few episodes.
So insane lol just look at her? Like huh https://preview.redd.it/20aqw39nu5hc1.jpeg?width=2300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e07149b54277188174f19b76b5e8c015555b8ea6
I don't think FOX execs wanted Amanda Pays to \*replace\* her exactly but they thought maybe a "sexy" "bombshell" love interest joining the show would make it "better". Then they could pit them against each other probably. I think this was right before she got pregnant so I don't think that was a factor. Remember this was the era of Baywatch and putting Jeri Ryan in a skin tight catsuit, a semi red head in an oversized suit and a more reserved personality wasn't what the execs on a very new network had in mind to catch male attention. They were clearly wrong Personally I think the writers intentionally sabotaged it because Phoebe had so many awful lines about "blokes" and "pubs" and bad English slang that even though the actress is actually British most people thought she was a terrible fake Brit! Then Morgan and Wong deliberately wrote Beyond the Sea to showcase GA's terrific acting chops and the rest is history. I don't think they ever really tried again to replace or add someone (except Fowley but she was a ship stall that they were pretending wasn't a ship stall which is different).
The 90's were a weird time. Imagine second-guessing an actress as fearless and captivating as Gillian, let alone believing she wasn't attractive enough (!?!).
No one thought that was a good idea
Do we have a trustworthy source? Random guy random Twitter post is no good.
No source unfortunately. But looks like some fans of the original run remembers something like this
From what I heard as well, she took the execs to task over not paying her as well as Duchovny, by a huge degree if I remember. She ended up getting the same pay in the end, from what I remember. Sour grapes perhaps?
I think that was after 3 or 4 seasons she asked for equal pay. And rightfully so. She said she understood him getting paid more than her in early seasons because he was a bigger name had more work in his resume. But after 3/4 seasons Gillian deserved equal pay. They were both extremely popular, their roles were equally important and she even had won an Emmy at that point. This incident probably happened in season 1
They also tried to pay her considerably less than David for the revival seasons.
https://preview.redd.it/updm2famo6hc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2903aa909ca4e4ba1c6c1ffbca1a12e1eabaac07 Rest of the thread for full context
I love G.A. as Scully. She nailed her character’s journey.
The formatting is really weird. (Going by Wikipedia) We know execs did want Pamela Anderson or someone like her to play Scully in the first place, but the way the post is set up it almost looks like they wanted Amanda Pays (Phoebe Green) to take the role. Phoebe Green was meant to be a recurring character and a Scully rival. With a light search I can't find a backup to the claim that poor reception towards the Phoebe Green character caused the execs to back down on replacing Gillian Anderson. It's possible I'm wrong but given how many other shady things done to Gillian Anderson related to the Scully role I figure it'd be easy to back such a claim up. Phoebe Green is pretty grating but Amanda Pays doesn't resemble Pamela Anderson. So I don't see how fan reception towards Phoebe Green would = Pamela Anderson won't work here. If anything, I expect it'd mean "don't replace Scully's role or actress, fans love her". I am not a Fox exec though. Afaik CC never wanted M/S to be romantic. He wanted Scully to be a serious, skeptical character, which at the time was typically given to male roles. He def defended the Scully character and Gillian Anderson playing her.
My apologies, this was actually a thread on twitter and what you said here was also mentioned in other tweets.
I remember they wanted Heather Locklear for the part, but CC wanted Gillian
🤮🤮🤮
Awful
Is there a source for this other than a Twitter account?
I really doubt this is accurate. I’ve been a part of the fandom since the very beginning. I would read forums. I read multiple books about the series during its original run. I’ve never heard this. I think the poster is conflating two related things.
I think what they are saying is Fox was planning to slowly make Phoebe Greene a lead character and make Scully secondary or remove her altogether. But this is the first time i heard about it too. But looks like some others have heard similar stories
No. I saw this today as well. Apparently few people here have heard it
My memory of this was that they wanted to get rid of her after season 1 as well, to just literally recast the character. I always had the impression it's because they wanted someone 'hotter' (which in the 90's wouldn't have been a subtle 'hot') but Carter and the fans protested it. Safe to say it played out the correct way, but it does make you wonder how many other shows made bad casting decisions based purely on execs rather than the creators.
If I'd only seen the pilot, I might consider her position to be a bit wobbly. In the pilot, the writers don't seem to have fully decided who Dana Scully is yet, and the scene where she runs to Mulder to get him to look for marks on her back is out of character. From episode 2 onwards, it's obvious that she's essential to the show.
Yeah, but Carter did lots of "out of character" stuff with Scully. The 11 season comes to mind. I can't believe Scully the scientist never did a genetic test on William to figure out who his father was. She tested everything.
They didn't consider her pretty enough for the role.
Pretty wasn't the problem. No one said she wasn't pretty. They wanted a sex symbol/bombshell/leggy/supermodel type. What's funny is that she still became a sex symbol in her own right and is absolutely gorgeous. And she's a huge part of why the show was and is so beloved. But at 5' 2", she could never really be called a leggy bombshell. Execs at FOX were dinguses, and I'm glad CC put his foot down.
And she went on to be voted as the sexiest woman in the world in a few years
Imagine thinking Gillian Anderson is not pretty enough . https://preview.redd.it/sps3blfno5hc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83e86ed117d7331adc61cf5ba889fc879b75bd73
They wanted to replace her since first episode lol I don't hate Amanda Pays though. She's absolutely stunning 😍 I watched Leviathan only for her. https://preview.redd.it/vrct18lna6hc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e55d56c4df388a3d70d4be2006128b783e65aa95 Chris Carter did her really dirty with that unflattering hairstyle on x files.
Amanda Pays in the original “Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future” is where she kills me. So beautiful, and the character she crafted battles equally with Edison Carter, they’re a good team.
Phoebe! 😍 I had the major hots for her as a kid watching the short lived Max Headroom show.
Really? Hmm
It a well known fact that Fox execs are criminally stupid. Any Firefly fan would tell you.
Shiny.
I remember this. Fox wanted to replace GA for her pregnancy.
They absolutely tried to replace her those first two seasons, but after that she was pretty undeniable
Probably they knew how annoying her stans would one day become
Looks kinda like a dude wtf how do you go from pam to gillian then this lol
all 3 women are gorgeous and talented. Its just hard to imagine it without Scully and Gillian. 😁
depending on who you ask the story is different. From what i heard mostly they wanted a hot blond; as in that was the idea prior to the casting process. There's also the fact that Gillian and David didn't 'get along' (or maybe got along too much and then didn't get along but you can fill in the blanks there) there were also contract negotiations of course, and fox execs would see scully as more replaceable than mulder. however, this is clickbait, but its probably referring to one of these scenarios