Gillian Anderson: It's great to be back in The Fall - and get ready for a shocker

Gillian Anderson has admitted she was “slightly shocked” at the direction of the new series of acclaimed thriller The Fall - but said she would “definitely” return to play the super-cool detective Stella Gibson.

Speaking at a special preview of the second season in London, the former X Files star said: “The series as a whole has been just kind of miraculous from the very beginning for me.”

The Fall, which was the most popular new drama on BBC Two for 20 years when it premiered last year, saw Anderson’s detective – dressed in modest yet sexy blouses - hunt a serial killer, Paul Spector, played by Jamie Dornan. The second series sees the search continue.

“I just think she is a very interesting character on television and not just because she is an island and enigmatic,” she said.

Anderson, 46, who has just finished an acclaimed run in the play A Streetcar Named Desire, said part of the appeal of the character created by writer-director Allan Cubitt was her attitudes on important issues.

“She makes it very clear on a semi-regular basis about how she feels about violence and about violence against women. She really is a supporter of women and women being treated respectfully. She doesn’t mince words when she speaks about it. It feels like it’s in her bones. I like that about her.”

She said the second series script was “one of the best things I had ever read” and she was “impressed” if “slightly shocked” by the direction of the second series and “how unpredictable some of the avenues are”.

And she would “definitely” be interested in playing the character again, possibly in an off-shoot series.

Dornan, 32, said playing a serial killer had definitely had an impact on him. “You can’t fail but be left slightly scarred by inhabiting somebody like that. I carry elements of him with me in a worrying way,” he said.

But it had also proved a game-changer. He was virtually unknown when cast, but won the leading role in the film version of 50 Shades of Grey after the first series.

“I feel this job [The Fall] has totally transformed my professional horizons. It totally changed my life,” he said. But Hollywood has not claimed him for good. “If Allan wants to keep writing Spector, I’m in.”

Cubitt revealed the “growing obsession” between his two creations develops in the new series but denied the series glamorised violence against women.

“It is in a sense a dissection of a certain kind of male view, an exploration of misogyny. If you explore a difficult and complex subject like that you always run the risk of being held up as an example of that rather than a critique of it.”

The new series will be broadcast this year but the date has not yet been confirmed.