Anyone to spend nine years on television surely knows life is not going to be the same after the ride ends. "X-Files" star Gillian Anderson talked recently about finishing filming the final episode of the series with Cinescape magazine.

"I started out as a kid. I started out as a 24-year-old, pretending I was 29, and then becoming 29, getting into my 30s and having to grow up myself," Anderson said. "And the character shifted gradually over time alongside my own maturing process. Anytime I got even close to a hint of emotion around it I had to push it away. It's so huge. It's such an extraordinary transition to have to weather, I'm trying to push it off for as long as I possibly can."

How is she dealing with the end?

"I think on the whole I'm in denial," Anderson said. "There was a point last week when I was driving home from work at about 1 o'clock in the morning and I tried to imagine myself making that trip, imagine it was the last night."

The two-hour series finale airs May 19 on Fox.