After nabbing the lead role in horror film Oculus, Gillan has stepped up as the villain Nebula in Marvel movie Guardians of the Galaxy.
To celebrate the release, we present ten fast facts about Karen Gillan.
1. Karen Sheila Gillan, born in 1987, is the only child of Marie and John Gillan. Hailing from Inverness, the actress has certainly managed to retain all of her Scottish charm as this video of her recounting several Scottish colloquialisms proves. I can't say I ever thought I'd hear Karen Gillan saying: "Your bum's out the windae."
2. Karen's father said that as a child she would point at the television and announce her intention to be on it. She left school at 16 to pursue acting, and eventually ended up at the prestigious Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. She worked in a pub (The Pilgrim, in Kennington) in order to make her way, and dabbled in modelling. One of her first jobs was for Dainty Doll, the pale-skin make-up range of former Girls Aloud star Nicola Roberts. Gillan even popped up in ITV2's The Passions of Girls Aloud documentary series.
3. In May 2009, she was cast as Amy Pond, the new companion to Doctor Who. The audition process was so secretive that she couldn't even tell the BBC reception where she was going when she turned up. She had to use the code name 'Panic Moon', which is an anagram of 'companion'.
4. While she'll be remembered as the Doctor's sidekick, that wasn't her first role on Doctor Who. She played a Soothsayer in the episode 'The Fires of Pompeii' back in 2008. Incidentally, Peter Capaldi, the new Doctor, also appeared in the same episode as a different character.
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5. Doctor Who writers were once forced to cut a scene that involved flooding the TARDIS when it was made apparent that Gillan can't swim.
6. Although people constantly obsessed as to whether she and co-star Matt Smith were an item, when asked if she was in love with any actor as a child, she responded:
"The plant in Little Shop of Horrors x"
didn't actually enjoy her kiss with Smith all that much.
8. The Scottish actress, Smith and Darvill formed a band called Karen and the Babes. It's doubtful that they'll hit the charts anytime soon, but here they are performing their own take on 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.
9. During a Reddit AMA, Gillan was asked which dinosaur she would like to be. She replied: "Pterodactyl. They get to fly and be a dinosaur." A pedantic Redditor with the username PterosaurNotDinosaur replied: "Pterodactyls are a pterosaur, not a dinosaur."
Gillan sharply responded with: "Talk to Spielberg." But later admitted on Twitter that she was wrong.
For Parker, from @KarenGillan2! pic.twitter.com/XRRTeSnbWy
— Blumhouse (@blumhouse) March 25, 2014
10. It's well known that Gillan shaved her head for her role as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy. But her hair wasn't simply thrown away. Instead, it was turned into a wig and donated to Star Wars 7.
