Karen Gillan on the Future of Nebula Post-‘Avengers: Endgame’ and James Gunn’s Return to ‘Guardians’
Karen Gillan is in a unique professional position.
After co-starring on the 2010-2013 run of Doctor Who, and then transitioning to the big screen (highlighted by 2013’s superb Mike Flanagan horror film Oculus), the 31-year-old Scottish actress made a splash as blue mecha-villain Nebula in James Gunn’s 2014 hit Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a breakthrough part that grew larger in Gunn’s 2017 sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. And it’s now taken an outright prominent position in the Marvel Cinematic Universe courtesy of last year’s Avengers: Infinity War and, more recently, the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame, whose action significantly pivots around Nebula’s continuing drift toward heroism and away from her population-halving father, Thanos (Josh Brolin). In a film that’s fast becoming the most gargantuan box-office hit in global cinema history (it’s currently at No. 2), Gillan stands front-and-center.
Too bad, then, that as the metallic, hairless, black-and-blue Nebula, she’s almost completely unrecognizable.