Gillian Anderson found it 'surreal' when she was voted the sexiest woman in the world

Gillian Anderson thought it was "surreal" when she was voted the sexiest woman in the world.

The 56-year-old actress topped FHM's reader poll almost 30 years ago when she was in her late twenties but admitted it was very strange to have attained the title in the first place. She told The Guardian's Saturday magazine: "I had a surreal experience in 1996 when I was voted world’s sexiest woman by readers of FHM magazine … a type of worship not far off some of the descriptions in these fantasies. I’m not sure I got the sense that it was inhibiting anybody."

The 'X Files' star has now written a book titled 'Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous' that is a collection of anonymous women's sexual fantasies and admitted that she tried to be "nonjudgmental" in the letters she received for the project by default, but ended up "not being shocked" by anything she read.

She said: "I think we all felt that if people did feel they were writing to me, knowing how open I am – I’m pretty understanding and nonjudgmental, and I try to be as inclusive as humanly possible – people might feel safer, somehow. That they could put anything down and I wouldn’t be shocked."

But the Hollywood star is still convinced that, as a society, people in general are "not as open" as they possibly should be when it comes to intimate relations.

Asked if the world is "straighter" than some may think, she replied: "Yes, precisely. Which is why I don’t think we can say, ‘Get out more.’ It’s a bigger conversation for people more adept at it than I: to talk about the degree to which things, as a culture, are not as open and accepting and free as we might imagine they should be in 2024."