I guess these folks never heard of a little TV show called “The X-Files,” back in the day?
Gillian Anderson has confused the bloody hell out of Emmys 2021 viewers — by delivering her acceptance speech with her native American accent.
The actress — who won Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in “The Crown” — has spent the better part of two decades playing roles primarily with a British accent.
However, Anderson, 53, was actually born in Chicago and spent her childhood split between Puerto Rico and London before moving back to her Illinois homeland at 11. After her 11-season run as Agent Dana Scully on “The X-Files” opposite David Duchovny’s Agent Fox Mulder, she relocated full time to London and played a string of Brits in high-brow projects such as “Bleak House,” “The Fall” and “Sex Education.”
So, when the actress dedicated her Emmy to her agent of 20 years, Connie Freiberg, people couldn’t understand where her posh Queen’s English had disappeared to — and the Twitter reactions were fast and furious.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh my goodness,” she said after taking the podium, betraying her corny Midwestern roots.
“GILLIAN ANDERSON IS AMERICAN WTF?!?!,” raged one clueless fan. “I’m so mind blown [right now]. I thought she was British this whole time omg.”
“So you didn’t watch Xfiles,” an unimpressed commenter snarked back in response to her limited knowledge of the TV fine arts.
“What do you mean Gillian Anderson is American?” another confused fan asked.
“It’s very weird hearing Gillian Anderson with an American accent, I was very thrown,” another apparent dimwit chimed in.
Meanwhile, some fans tried to explain this consciousness-altering pop culture moment to the social media masses.
“She’s multi-bidialectal,” one fan explained using a possibly made up term. “Sometimes she has an American accent and sometimes English.”
Of course, Anderson — who previously won an Emmy in 1997 for “The X-Files” and scored her sixth career nom as Maggie T — has much more important issues on her mind of late. She recently announced she has abandoned brassieres.
“I don’t wear a bra anymore. I can’t wear a bra. I’m sorry,” Anderson explained in an Instagram Live video earlier this summer. “I don’t care if my breasts reach my belly button. I’m not wearing a bra, it’s just too f–king uncomfortable.”
Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time her accent has thrown awards season viewers for a loop. When the two-time BAFTA (that’s British for Oscars) nominee picked up her Golden Globe for her “The Crown” role in March, her American accent was equally shocking.
“Just had my mind blown discovering @GillianA doesn’t actually have an English accent in real life,” wrote one fan of the Chicago native, with another adding, “I feel so uncomfortable knowing Gillian Anderson is American and not British.”