Karen Gillan: new project, 'Doctor Who' screening and interviews, Alex Day video

• A Touch of Cloth

Karen Gillan has revealed that she has signed up to star in the Sky1 comedy A Touch of Cloth.

The actress made the announcement that she would be appearing in the spoof police show to Digital Spy at a Doctor Who screening,

However, Gillan did not give away any further information about her character, but added that she will begin filming for the programme soon.

The spoof police TV drama is written by Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier and stars John Hannah and Suranne Jones as detectives.

A two-part story has been shot and will air later this month, but two further episodes have already been commissioned by Sky1 and are expected to air in 2013.

Gillan is set to depart her role as Amy Pond in the BBC series Doctor Who this series.

Source: RTE Ten 

Also reported by Kasterborous and Unreality Primetime and many others!

• Karen Gillan turns down Hollywood for independent movie

Karen Gillan knocked back one of Hollywood’s biggest starmakers to keep a promise to make a low-budget film in Scotland.

The 24-year-old Doctor Who star was offered the lead in a TV series by the creator of three of America’s highest-rated shows.

But the actress – who is quitting the TARDIS after three years as the doctor’s companion Amy Pond – had already agreed to film Not Another Happy Ending.

And she loyally kept her commitment to the Glasgow-based romcom despite the chance of a glamorous job in Los Angeles.

LA mogul Shonda Rhimes – the woman behind medical drama series Grey’s Anatomy – said: “I’m very upset.

“When I heard Karen was leaving Doctor Who, I tried to hire her. I think she’s really, really talented. But apparently she’s doing a movie next, so we couldn’t get her.”

Rhimes – named by Time magazine as one of the 100 people who help shape the world – runs her own mini-studio scriptwriting and producing for stars such as Anne Hathaway, Britney Spears and Jada Pinkett-Smith. She is a huge name in TV with syndicated shows around the globe.

Rhimes said she wanted Karen for a new project but refused to divulge further details.

“That’s top secret,” she added.

The Scot’s agent, Troika’s Michael Duff, said yesterday: “It’s true that Shonda wanted to hire Karen. “I’m afraid I can’t comment in more detail though.”

Indie comedy Not Another Happy Ending stars Karen, Stanley Weber, Lost’s Henry Ian Cusick and Edinburgh-actress Freya Mavor from Skins.

It began shooting last month in the west end of Glasgow.

Karen, from Inverness plays Jane Lockhart, a chick-lit author who is struck down by writer’s block after her successful debut book.

The movie has been filming in locations around Glasgow, including the famous Necropolis cemetery.

Jane’s desperate publisher Tom Duval – played by Weber – needs another hit or his company goes bust and decides she is too happy to write.

But as he tries to make her unhappy, he realises he has fallen in love with her.

The movie is being made by Synchronicity Films and directed by John Mackay, who made the BBC Four film We’ll Take Manhattan with Karen playing supermodel Jean Shrimpton.

Although backed by Creative Scotland and BBC Films, the filmmakers have also been fundraising on Facebook.

Synchronicity declined to comment yesterday, but a source close to the production said: “A lot of young actresses would be tempted by such an offer to work in Hollywood.

“It reflects very well on Karen that she honoured her commitment. Opportunities like that don’t come along very often.”

Karen has already shot her spectacular exit from Doctor Who along with Arthur Darvill, who plays her screen husband Rory Williams.

Source: Daily Record 

Also reported by Scotsman 

• BBC America Announces 'Doctor Who' Season 7 Advance Screening

Fans in New York City will get a chance to see the season première later this month!

Earlier this week, the British Film Institute screened "Asylum of Daleks," the first episode from the upcoming seventh season of Doctor Who. But fans in America will have their chance soon enough.

BBC America has announced that the U.S. première screening of "Asylum of Daleks" will take place on Saturday, August 25 at 6pm in New York City. Series stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan will be on hand with Doctor Who producer Caroline Skinner for a Q&A session after the episode.

Tickets for the event will be 11 cents, as a symbolic nod to Smith's Eleventh Doctor. However, there will also be a one dollar surcharge.

"Doctor Who" season 7 is expected to debut on BBC America in September.

Read more at Crave Online 

Update from Doctor Who News:  

The demand for tickets for the upcoming New York preview of Asylum of the Daleks has been heavy enough to cause major problems for the ticketing site, where all 800 available tickets were sold in less than twenty minutes.

Read more at Doctor Who News

• Doctor Who series 7 interviews

From Holy Moly! -

"Awkhero"

by Tim Chipping

We didn't film this. The court order doesn't let us anywhere near these people. But since it's the London premiere of the first episode of series 7 of Doctor Who tonight (are you going? We're going. Are you not going?) we thought we'd share this funny  video that some Americans have made, where they interview the cast and crew about the show and all the new things that are going to happen, and everyone is very charming and amusing. And Karen Gillan sounds like she's about to burst every time she speaks.

Source: HolyMoly!

• Interview with Karen Gillan

It’s Karen Gillan’s last series as Amy Pond. Having travelled through space and time for three years, she is about to hang up her TARDIS key. Here she gives us a glimpse at what is to come in episodes 1 to 3, from Daleks to Dinosaurs, and some thoughts on her departure.

It was AMAZING! We have totally made them scary again. I expect everyone to be watching from behind their sofas, I know I will... Karen is talking excitedly about the return of the Doctor’s most fearsome and famous enemy the Daleks. The opener to series 7, Asylum Of The Daleks, will feature the most Daleks ever to be seen on screen and from the different decades, including a special appearance form Russell T Davies’ Dalek, I am so pleased that he now owns an official Dalek, it was a real honour to act opposite him and I think he is going to go far! she says rather cheekily.

I think my favourite is the 1960s Dalek with the white and blue armour, she continues, there is something more menacing about them as they are smaller and they just look so original. If I was going to own one, it would be one of those, Karen concludes, I would keep it in my kitchen.

This series has been done in really interesting way with five stand alone epic episodes, like a movie a week, all building to the departure of the Ponds!

We actually kick-off the series with Amy and Rory’s relationship in a sticky situation; it is less than marital bliss.

Those scenes were really interesting to do, she explains, because they created such a different on-screen atmosphere between Amy and Rory, something that the viewers wouldn’t have seen before. That is the good thing about Doctor Who, it gives you the chance to shift the character, and you never know what is going to happen from episode to episode.

But it isn’t all upset for the Ponds, as the adventures continue in episode two with Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, written by Chris Chibnall. That was a crazy filming adventure, exclaims Karen, with all the adventures that I have been on through-out the show that was perhaps the most surreal! There was a lot of running from things we couldn’t see, which is always fun, BUT a couple of the cast got to ride a dinosaur.

And Mark Williams comes along for the ride as Rory’s dad Brian Williams, He was so fantastic, naturally funny and such great casting, you could totally imagine Rory having a dad like that. This series has some great guest stars, characters and of course monsters, she teases.

Guest stars making their Doctor Who debut are James Bond baddy, Steven Berkoff, Jemma Redgrave and Ben Browder. Alex Kingston as River Song makes her return in episode 5, just in time to say goodbye to Amy.

While the majority of the filming was done in the home of Doctor Who, Cardiff, the cast and crew found themselves in the perfect spaghetti western location of Almeria, Spain, giving Toby Whithouse’s episode 3, A Town Called Mercy, a truly authentic western feel.

So much fun, claims Karen, using a location that had actually been the set for other westerns made everything feel so much, well, realer. In the episode Amy Pond gets her hand on a gun, something Karen agrees that she really shouldn’t be let anywhere near. Definitely, Amy Pond should be nowhere near a gun, exclaims Karen. I remember for a previous episode I had to fire a gun with blanks, followed quickly by Rory shouting ARGHHH as though I had hit him. I completely forgot this when action was called, so when I fired and he shouted I really thought I had shot him! It was awful! In this episode when she gets hold of a gun you can see the fear on the faces of the other characters, but they weren’t acting, I genuinely think all of the actors including Matt and Arthur were in fear for their lives!

Featuring an alien with a score to settle A Town Called Mercy also reveals a different side to the Doctor as Amy claims, So this is what happens when you travel alone. In the series we see a slight shift in the Ponds’ relationship with the Doctor, Just as any relationship changes when it matures, explains Karen. We get to see a glimpse of what Amy and Rory do when the Doctor isn’t around and how the adventures and time away from home has affected their own relationships with friends and family. I think the Doctor also begins to realise how he has changed Amy and what happens when he isn’t there, and at first he doesn’t really understand it. There is a really sweet moment in episode 5 when the Doctor notices Amy is wearing glasses, she hints.

Following the Western the series takes us to Amy and Rory’s house and a deadly outbreak, before heading to the final episode of the Ponds, shot in New York and with the return of the Weeping Angels.

The neverending pranks and my two best friends, Karen is talking about what she is going to miss as she takes her bow from the show, Matt used to hide in the cupboard of my trailer and jump out of me and I used to go flying back against the wall in absolute shook! He must have done it like a hundred times and I fell for it every single time! But honestly even with the bruises, it really was the biggest and most exciting time of my life. I wouldn’t change it for the world!

I always knew that Steven had an ending for Amy Pond and when I met with him a year or so ago it was kind of like, so what are the plans for the character and we both said that she should go at this point. It was such a fantastic mutual decision and completely the right time for Amy to leave. I will miss her, but I can’t wait for fans to see what happens.
Source: BBC Media Centre

• Brand new Alex Day video She Walks Right Through Me features Karen Gillan look-alike

Magical musical mogul Alex Day is back with a new video for his latest single She Walks Right Through Me and after years of appreciation and repeatedly phoning Doctor Who star Karen Gillan's agent, he's even managed to get her to cameo.

OK, so it might not actually be Karen, but she does look very like her, see?

For anyone who's ever watched any of Alex's hilarious Youtube video blogs, you've probably noticed that he seems to have a mild obsession with Doctor Who and so naturally decided it would be a good idea to call up her agent to see if he could hire her for the video.

Despite apparently managing to get through to Karen's agency and asking how much they wanted for him to hire her out, it didn't work out quite how he hoped. Strangely enough they stopped returning his calls and so he ended up getting a very spooky lookalike instead.

Nice one. Check it.

Read more at Sugarscape