TV's Gillian Anderson 'content' at being single

Gillian Anderson says she is "content" and does not "sit on bar stools, pining" over being single.

The actress, who has three children and has been married twice, said she had not been in a relationship for a "couple of years".

In an interview with The Observer Magazine, she said: "I'm not anxious about it, nor am I interested in starting to see someone who doesn't fit. People go: 'Oh, he's so cute.' The trouble is, I'm not interested in looks at all."

Anderson, 47, explained: "I am content. I don't feel anything is lacking in my life. I certainly don't sit on bar stools, pining. But the fact is I just haven't met anyone, and I don't know where people do meet people.

"The thing is that there are needs and there are wants. I have a list of needs and I will not compromise about those."

The actress, who stars in the BBC's new series War And Peace as socialite Anna Pavlovna Scherer, has a 25-year-old daughter, Piper Maru, with her first husband, Clyde Klotz, and nine-year-old Oscar and seven-year-old Felix with her ex-boyfriend Mark Griffiths.

She said: "I don't meet anybody! It's not like I meet people, and they ask me out, and I say no. It's not even like I meet people and I don't give them enough attention. I just don't meet them at all. I'm either on a plane, or on set, or with my children.

"There have been people in my life who've tried to set me up, and if a friend said: 'I know someone amazing', I would show up. But here's the thing: I've got three children. It's a big ask."

Some critics have slammed her crime drama series, The Fall, accusing it of glamorising violence against women - but Anderson, who plays DSI Stella Gibson, dismisses the idea.

She said: "It's unfounded. It's not gratuitous in any way. Rather, it points to the fact that there is still so much violence against women in the world.

"There are so many other series that are drastically more violent and gratuitous than ours, but they get less attention for it because it's in the context of, say, vampirism.

"Ours is so real, and its characters so recognisable, that it gets under the skin."

:: War And Peace starts tonight at 9pm on BBC One. The X-Files returns to Channel 5 soon.