THE INDEPENDENT: Dr Who? Gillan says goodbye to the Time Lord
The latest series of the popular BBC show will be Karen Gillan's last. She tells Craig McLean about saying goodbye to Amy Pond, and what's up next...
by Craig Mclean
Sunday 23 September 2012
It was one of those unavoidable kinks in the space-time continuum, and no amount of tinkering with a screwdriver, sonic or otherwise, could fix it. Karen Gillan had suddenly beamed on to planet Earth (well, Carnaby Street, in central London) from a distant galaxy (OK, Inverness in the Highlands). There was talk of an imminent and long-term self-imposed exile to an inhospitable alien landscape where human life forms have been known to take on strange new shapes (that is, she's relocating to Los Angeles).
Thus, she was immediately available for interview – just at the point where the school holidays had gone all Tardis-like and seemed much bigger from the inside.
To wit: I had a childcare crunch, and had no option but to make like a Time Lord and call on the help of a redoubtable and willing female assistant. In other words, I turned my 10-year-old into a redoubtable female assistant and brought her along to meet the actress who, next weekend, makes her swansong as Doctor Who's estimable companion...
... As of a week tomorrow, two days after she exits, stage-left, the Doctor Who universe, Karen Gillan will be in Alabama. She's making a supernatural thriller called Oculus, about a mirror with strange powers. She plays an auctioneer ("I thought it'd be interesting how she talks and stuff") investigating, alongside her brother, the mysterious death of their parents.
Immediately after that, she's LA-bound. Is she planning on basing herself there because she's in hot pursuit of Hollywood opportunities? "Good-quality movies would be the goal for me," she demurs, "things that I feel passionate about. I don't believe in working for the sake of working. I'd rather not work than do bad stuff."
But before all that, there's the matter of her other leave-taking. Karen Gillan's Doctor Who finale was largely shot in New York. She can't say much about the specifics of her departure, other than that there were crowds of screaming fans swarming the Central Park set.
"We weren't prepared for it – there was no security or anything – and it was like being in some sort of band!" she marvels. "Running to the car and people chasing us. I filmed some of it on my phone. I'm sort of aware that I'll never experience something on that level again, where people are that passionate. So I just really enjoyed it."
Was filming the climactic scenes emotional?
"Yeah," she nods soberly. "I didn't hold it together for the full two weeks that we were shooting that episode – I was crying at anything – anything! – not even sad things. So when it came to shoot the final scenes, everything that's on the screen is real!" Real tears and real snot? "Yeah!" honks Gillan, "it's not very glamorous..."
Doctor Who airs Saturday at 9/8C on BBC America (in the US).
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