Gillian Anderson once had an 'intimate' encounter with Bill Clinton


Gillian Anderson Arnold Jerocki/WireImage

Years before she played the wife of a president, Gillian Anderson had an "intimate" encounter with a future one.

Anderson, who stars as Eleanor Roosevelt in the new Showtime series The First Lady, chatted with Jimmy Kimmel about once meeting former President Bill Clinton while he was running for office. The X-Files actress says she attended a lunch for Clinton "at somebody's fancy house" in the Hollywood Hills, and she briefly met him as he shook hands with guests after delivering a speech.

"He did the most miraculous thing in the world, that thing that he does where he shakes your hand and then he grabs your elbow at the same time," she said. "He holds your arm further up, slightly intimate little thing, makes eye contact, then he moves on to the next person, then he looks back at you."

Kimmel joked that when he met Clinton, he experienced the same thing with the exception of "the look back — I did not experience the look back." Anderson also revealed that after the encounter, she expected Clinton would call her.

"I went home, I thought — this was in the days of answering machines — I literally thought that I was going to go home to a message from him," she said. "I did. It was that real."

Anderson told Kimmel she ended up voting for Clinton after this "even though he didn't call" — though Kimmel quipped, "He's probably going to call now."

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