Jumanji star Karen Gillan on shy teens, nerd culture and why Chris Hemsworth should be a Guardian
After surviving Marvel mania, Karen Gillan is back as Ruby Roundhouse in the next phase in the Jumanji franchise. This is how the Scottish actor went from “really awkward teenage girl” to queen of a massive nerd fanbase.
Entertainment
Don't miss out on the headlines from Entertainment. Followed categories will be added to My News.
In the 2017 action-comedy hit Jumanji: Welcome To the Jungle, Karen Gillan’s character got to be all the things she couldn’t be in real life when she was sucked into a video game with a difference.
The hugely successful sequel to the much-loved 1995 Robin Williams movie starred Gillan, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black and made more than a billion dollars at the box office thanks to its high-octane action sequences and hilarious body swap premise, with four teenagers coming to terms with the digital versions of themselves that were nothing like their real-life personas.
Bookish nerdy intellectual Martha, played by Morgan Turner, became Gillan’s scantily clad, kick-ass, dance-fighting Ruby Roundhouse in Jumanji-world.
It’s a transformation that Gillan felt deeply: as “a really awkward teenage girl” growing up in Scotland, she knew what it was like to be the uncomfortable outsider.
“I was so shy and socially awkward and so tall so my limbs didn’t know what to do with themselves and that was just a weird physicality,” Gillan says with a laugh.
But Gillan, who also plays Nebula in Marvel’s Guardians Of the Galaxy and Avengers movies, didn’t find her superpowers through a wonky video game or supernatural event. The stage is where she found she transformed into the best version of herself.
“That was the place where I had licence to be all the things I wanted to be,” she says. “In the same way that people might have some Dutch courage, for me acting had the same effect.
“I would be able to do all the things I couldn’t do normally — I could maintain eye contact for a long time and be really commanding and all the things I wished I was at the time.”
Gillan was born and raised in Inverness, a remote city in the Scottish Highlands with a population of a little over 60,000.
She moved to Edinburgh aged 16 to study acting, and after that to London, where she was scouted by a modelling agency, but even as a child with the distinct lack of opportunities in her home town, she had a strange confidence she could make it in the acting world that belied her natural shyness.
As an 11-year-old, she was making her own horror movies at home, co-opting whichever of her family members happened to be around and daubing them liberally with tomato sauce blood as required.
“It was definitely a long shot for sure being in big movies,” she admits. “But for some reason — and I don’t know why — I just felt like it was possible. I can’t really explain it because there were no examples of people doing that where I came from or anywhere near.
“The theatre was probably more plausible, which I love doing as well. To be in these big action films is something that feels really crazy, but at the same time I had the belief as a child that it was possible.”
Gillan’s big break came in 2009 when she was cast in the long running cult sci-fi series Doctor Who as Amy Pond, companion to the 11th Doctor, played by Matt Smith. Not only did it raise her profile exponentially, it also opened her eyes to the crazy world of superfans.
Whereas once she was mostly recognised as Amy, since Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film of all time earlier this year, it’s her blue-skinned antihero Nebula who resonates most strongly.
But with Jumanji: The Next Level already a huge hit in cinemas — it made more than $1.2 billion dollars in its theatrical run and is expected to be huge when release for streaming and on home entertainment this week — that might all change again. Either way, it’s pretty clear she has a nerd fan base for life.
“It was Amy for a while, but Nebula is starting to take over — a lot of people have Nebula pictures that they want signed,” she says.
“But we will see what happens after this movie comes out. It goes in waves, it’s basically whatever is out at the moment that’s in people’s consciousness.”
She adds with a laugh: “I think I could live on the convention circuit now. They are different but the sci-fi fans in particular are the most passionate I would say.”
Gillan says she also went to the next level for the sequel’s even more extreme action sequences and ended up covered in bruises from fight scenes — some of which were self-inflicted.
With Ruby Roundhouse well in command of her “inner badass” after returning to the game as leader of the group, she busts out some nunchucks, which it turns out is no mean feat.
“The nunchucks are really hard actually,” Gillan says. “I have done my fair share of different types of fighting now but the nunchucks are really hard to control because they have a life of their own and they fly around all over the place. I had to practice non-stop — I had about four pairs of nunchucks in my trailer and I would take them home and practice.”
After a protracted kerfuffle that saw Guardians Of the Galaxy director James Gunn fired and then rehired by Disney, not to mention the current coronavirus shutdowns, audiences are likely to have to wait at least a couple of years for the third chapter in the MCU franchise. But with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor last seen boarding the Guardians’ ship at the end of Endgame, Gillan is definitely down to see more of that team-up and proclaims herself to be a huge fan of the Aussie heart-throb.
“I think that would be amazing,” she enthuses. “I love the fat, drunk version of Thor though. He’s really wonderful — a well-mannered, quite brilliant man. I really enjoyed working with him and he’s such a good actor and he’s way funnier than I think anyone realises.”
Anything more that comes her way in the MCU is a bonus for Gillan, especially given that Nebula was only ever supposed to be bit player in the original film.
“In the first Guardians Of the Galaxy I was supposed to work for eight days and then die but then James Gunn resurrected my character,” she says.
“So, to then go on and play her more and more times and be a fairly significant role in what became the biggest film of all time is mind-boggling.”
She still says there’s plenty to explore for Nebula though, especially with her abusive adopted father Thanos being reduced to ash in Endgame.
“I think she was very much defined by her relationship with her father and he’s the source of all her abuse,” says Gillan. “So now that he’s out of the picture she’s like ‘OK, so who is she going to be now that is all put to bed?’
“I think it will be interesting to psychologically explore someone after the source of their abuse has been eliminated from their life and how they can begin to heal. So that’s what I am hoping to play around with next.”
Jumanji: The Next Level is out now on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, streaming and in the Foxtel store.