UPDATE 18 March 2026: Gillian Anderson & Billy Crudup to star in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the West End’s @SohoPlace Theatre in London
In a wide-ranging interview with Interview Magazine, Gillian Anderson manifests a new theatre project – Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
It has been a busy few years for Gillian Anderson, with screen projects including Hannibal and The Fall, and coming up, a major new BBC TV adaptation of War & Peace, in which she plays Anna Pavlovna.
All that and The X-Files!
Gillian Anderson has also enjoyed some major London theatre acclaim, not least her 2014 performance in Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire at The Young Vic, playing Blanche DuBois.
During a recent chat with Interview Magazine, Anderson talked about the challenges of starring as Blanche in Streetcar, but also threw in that her dream would be to star as Martha in Edward Albee’s classic American drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Not only that, but to star in the play alongside the sadly departed Philip Seymour Hoffman as George.
She told Interview: “I always had a fantasy of doing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Philip Seymour Hoffman. That’s the play and the duo I’m interested in exploring at some point. I think that once you do something like Williams, and you work with that kind of text, it kind of ruins you for future projects. You can’t really backtrack after that. There’s a very narrow margin—there’s quite a lot of them, but it does focus your mind and you end up in the realm of classics and the rare occasion of a new play that is as powerful and momentous an experience as that.”
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is Edward Albee’s 1962 play centred on the complex marriage of a middle-aged couple, Martha and George. Late one evening after a university faculty party, they invite an unwitting younger couple, Nick and Honey, round as their guests, and draw them into their bitter and frustrated relationship.
The play won the Tony Award and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, and was famously turned into a movie directed by Mike Nichols, and starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal and Sandy Dennis.
On stage, London productions include the 1997 Aldwych Theatre production starring Diana Rigg and David Suchet.
Gillian Anderson giving us her Martha is something most West End producers would tear their right arm off to see on stage. And we are with them!
@sohoplace Theatre, London
Related News
West End top picks & new London shows in October 2026
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? reviews: critics hail Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup as “electric,” but some feel it is too long
First look production photos released of Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The toxic games begin: Gillian Anderson and Billy Crudup in rehearsals for Virginia Woolf
Latest News
Everything you need to know about The Traitors: Acts of Betrayal in London
Nina Raine’s sweeping new adaptation of Middlemarch arrives at the RSC: See brand-new images from the production
What to expect from Pride the Musical ahead of highly anticipated transfer to the Bridge Theatre
