Gillian Anderson opened up about her wild teenage era on a new episode of Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend.
Anderson told O’Brien during the episode released on Monday that she was “doing a little crystal meth” when she was arrested for breaking into her own high school as a teen.
“Well, we were trying to glue the locks shut so that people couldn’t go in the next day,” she said of the prank she pulled during her “punk” phase. “I had pointy buckle boots on, and they had a very thin sole,” she recalled of the moments leading up to her arrest.
“And so when the security guard was chasing me through downtown Grand Rapids, I stepped on a nail,” she said. “That’s what slowed me down.” O’Brien called the prank “aggressive,” but Anderson said, “Yeah… that was kind of me at the time.”
The X-Files star is promoting her film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which she stars in alongside Hacks star Hannah Einbinder. According to X-Files creator Chris Carter, Anderson may also make an appearance in the upcoming reboot from Oscar-winning filmmaker Ryan Coogler.
But before she starred in the long-running series for nine seasons, from 1993 to 2002, and won two Primetime Emmy Awards, Anderson’s high school classmates voted her “Most Likely to Be Arrested.”
“And then you made good on that,” O’Brien said, to which the actress replied, “I did.”
She did manage to talk herself out of more severe consequences for the prank. “I was in a really good mood,” due to the meth, she said, “and I managed to talk them out of breaking and entering and just into trespassing.”
Following the mischievous event, “My boyfriend, who was with me at the time, who was considerably older than I was, went back to his apartment and smoked some more dope and just kept drinking the night away while I was in prison,” she recalled.
Added O’Brien, “With a nail through your foot, whacked out on crystal meth.”
