Gillian Anderson at Comic Con in Dubai

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Dubai and the fourth annual Middle East Film and Comic Con made a positive impression on Gillian Anderson. “I’ve never been here, and I’m so fascinated by this place. You have got everything,” said the American actress, who played FBI special agent Dana Scully on The X-Files television series.

Anderson said she was excited to reprise her role. The actress said she was still coming to terms with playing Scully again. “The fact that we’re doing more episodes was never on the cards, and I think I’m in denial,” she said. “I am reprising the role of Dana Scully,” she says. “We’re going to do six episodes this year in Vancouver, starting in June. We’re gonna have to be pushed around in wheelchairs – I’m 46 now. It’s Crazy. Really crazy. The fact we were even doing any more episodes was never on the cards, so I think I’m still in denial.”

And why does the show remain so enduringly popular? “It was basically David [Duchovny] and I being the most brilliant characters in the history of television,” she says with a smile.

Her 2014 film Sold tells the story of a 13-year-old Nepalese girl who is trafficked to India to work in a brothel. “It’s a serious, serious, serious issue that is not properly being dealt with or recognised in the world today. Lisa has risked her life many times over to bear witness. So Jeffrey based this character in the story on her and added some scenes and asked if I would still be on board, and it fitted into my schedule, so I got on board and I got the pleasure of going to Kolkata and completely loved it there.

“It’s still showing at festivals, I think, and there’s a specific campaign around it about human- and sex-trafficking. It’s definitely raising awareness and I would ask everyone to look it up and support it.”