Imagine, for a moment, that a respected middle-aged British male character actor – Jason Isaacs, let’s say – had been cast in the lead role of a sex therapist in a popular, Gen Z-focused Netflix series, called something like Love Lessons. Then imagine that Isaacs had become seemingly so obsessed with blurring the lines between himself and his character that he had not only edited a book about men’s sexual fantasies, anonymously including one of his own in there, too, but had begun a secondary career appearing on podcasts in which he encouraged men to freely discuss their peccadilloes and penchants, however taboo they might seem.

Why is Gillian Anderson so difficult to warm to?

It would, of course, never happen – not even for a man as likeable as Isaacs. Yet something very similar has taken place with his Salt Path and Sex Education co-star Gillian Anderson, a woman who seems to have turned into her Sex Education character Jean Milburn, only with added froideur and grandeur. (Her Instagram profile, where she boasts 3.5 million followers, describes her as ‘Actor. Author. Activist. Dog Mum.’) When Anderson recently appeared on Davina McCall’s podcast Begin Again, the blurb gushed that ‘this episode is about giving yourself permission to explore your wildest fantasies, the power of desire and the importance of asking what you truly WANT – not only in the bedroom but in LIFE!’

The territory........

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