Uncategorized, Queer Arts & Entertainment

Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder Just Gave Lesbians the ‘Secretary’ Moment They’ve Been Waiting For

July 31, 2026
Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder attend the Film Independent Presents Live Read of "Secretary" event at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on July 28, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Film Independent
Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder attend the Film Independent Presents Live Read of “Secretary” event at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on July 28, 2026 in Beverly Hills, California. Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Film Independent

The clips are bringing lesbians everywhere to their knees.

If you ever watched the 2002 film Secretary and found yourself wishing it starred Gillian Anderson instead of James Spader, well, you’re in luck.

Anderson reunited with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma co-star Hannah Einbinder and writer/director Jane Schoenbrun to do a staged reading of the Secretary script in Los Angeles earlier this week.

The event was presented by Film Independent as part of an ongoing live screenplay reading series. For those unfamiliar with Secretary (penned by Erin Cressida Wilson and based on a short story by Mary Gaitskill), it follows the dysfunctional BDSM relationship between a lawyer (Spader in the film, Anderson in the reading) and his submissive new secretary (Maggie Gyllenhaal in the film, Einbinder in the reading). 

Although the logline sounds similar to 50 Shades of Gray on paper, Secretary is much more of a dark comedy—while still maintaining the eroticism suggested by the premise—with a different perspective on this type of relationship, making it a perfect fit for Anderson and Einbinder to take over.

And by all accounts, the reading was a screaming success. Fortunately for fans, clips were circulated online after the event, leading to endless amounts of FOMO and calls for a new adaptation with these two in the lead.

The Secretary live read came just one day before the LA premiere of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, which drew the attendance of faves like Kristen Stewart, Katie Gavin of MUNA, Kate Berlant, and Jean Smart.

Einbinder also noted that she studied the “psychosexual canon,” including Secretary, to prepare for her role in Camp Miasma, where she plays a director hired to revive a popular slasher franchise and strikes up a complicated relationship with the original film’s final girl, played by Anderson.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is set to hit theaters on August 7, 2026.

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