Avengers: Endgame star Karen Gillan reveals embarrassing dressing room howler

Publish date: 2024-06-13

She made it big in Hollywood by baldly going where few women have gone before - but now Karen Gillan is getting to keep her hair AND have her intergalactic adventures.

It’s perhaps a sign of her new standing in Hollywood that the Scots actress, 31, no longer has to shave her head to play her cyborg character Nebula in Marvel’s cinematic universe, with CGI trickery doing the job for her.

It was five years ago that the actress, from Inverness, first endured her transformation from long-haired red-head Doctor Who assistant to bald, bolted together Guardian of the Galaxy. The role has been just as transformative for the star off screen.

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After two Guardians blockbusters, two call-ups to the Avengers franchise and a starring role in the Jumanji movies, Karen has made it to the big time in Tinseltown.

Next week, she’ll be back in what could be the biggest film of the year as assassin Nebula in Avengers: Endgame.

Speaking after a press conference in Los Angeles, Karen said: “I don’t have to shave my head.

“I negotiated more hair, which was a relief, although it’s actually very liberating being bald.

“The only downside is that being bald and this tall led to a lot of people mistaking me for a man.”

While not having to go bald was a relief, playing Nebula was still difficult – and somewhat disgusting.

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“The prosthetics are tough,” Karen said. “Especially when there’s action that needs to be done. The worst part is that your sweat has nowhere to go under all that make-up and the costume, so sometimes, when they take it off, the sweat literally squirts out on people.

“I guess that makes it worse for them than it is for me but it’s pretty embarrassing.”

Endgame wraps up this phase of the Avengers which began in 2012 with Assemble and continued with 2015’s Age of Ultron and last year’s Infinity War.

The fourth Avengers movie sees Captain America, Iron Man, Black Widow and the rest of Earth’s surviving heroes coming to terms with the events of Infinity War and the “snap” by baddie Thanos that wiped out half of all life in the Universe.

Nebula, meanwhile, is struggling with the loss of her sister Gamora and the fact her father is the very alien who has caused her and the universe such misery.

It’s an incredible journey for the Scot, who was a little daunted when she first arrived in Hollywood after starring in Doctor Who.

Karen said: “When I first got to play Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, it was intimidating. I was like, ‘This is a big Hollywood movie and I work on British television. What the hell is happening?’ Then I realised that it was just another, bigger, spaceship and I’ve got this.”

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She auditioned for Nebula in 2014 with a Scots accent. Karen added: “I did a screen test in a Scottish accent and got the role. She was going to be Scottish. We were going to have an Invernessian alien in Guardians of the Galaxy. We were so close. And then right before I started filming, the director (James Gunn) was like, ‘Make her American’.”

And not just any American but a goddess of the silver screen.

Karen said: “A lot of the character is informed by the voice I do which actually stemmed from me being asked if I could do an impression of Marilyn Monroe.

“Everything came from that one piece of direction very early on.”

Before scenes, Karen listens to Led Zeppelin as she prepares to get into the nasty, hating-the-world character Nebula.

She said: “I feel like that’s what she would be into if she came to Earth and listened to some human music.”

There’s not much of Karen in the character.

“Given that she’s a robot and a sadist,” she laughed, “I can safely say Nebula is the character who is most unlike me compared with any other I have played.”

But she added: “The most interesting aspect of Nebula, I think, is the fact she is bitter about being an overlooked sibling. As an only child, I can only imagine what it must be like to be overlooked by your parents and in an unhealthy relationship with a sibling.”

Quite how our heroes will win the day or even if they will win is a closely guarded secret, one that Karen is not only contracted to keep but also wasn’t privy to even while working on the record-breaking film.

She added: “I didn’t even get a full script so I’m as much looking forward to finding out what happens as everyone else.

“I have no idea what the hell is going on, how my scenes fit into the movie or if they’re in there at all.”

Fans were shocked at the ending of Infinity War when big characters including Black Panther, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord turned to dust. Now only the likes of Chris Evans’s Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man are left to save the day.

“I was just as shocked and devastated as everyone else when I saw it,” added Karen.

“I loved the whole Thanos/Gamora storyline in Infinity War. I thought that was really emotional and then that ending happened. I was just floored.”

At the start of the month, there were claims that Karen had given away some of the plot by hinting that Nebula and her sadistic father Thanos get to fight.

Today, she is more careful. Karen said: “I can say that Nebula is not in the best place emotionally. She lost Gamora at a time when she was finally starting to form a relationship with her. Gamora was her only real family and her loss has changed her.

“Nebula is lost and alone but she survived the big Thanos snap so at least she’s still here.”

Karen played Amy, companion to Matt Smith’s Doctor Who, from 2010 to 2013. She would love to see what Amy would make of the latest Doctor Jodie Whittaker.

She said: “I think she would get on well with her and that she would be confused and then tickled by the fact that her Doctor is now a woman.”

Karen made her directorial feature debut last year with The Party’s Just Beginning, which she wrote. It was nominated for a Bafta Scotland award.

She said: “It’s a serious film, even though it’s described as a comedy. I’m really proud of it.

“Directing feels like the most natural thing in the world to me and I hope to do more.”

● Avengers: Endgame is in cinemas on Thursday.

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