She will leave behind the Tardis, her ‘raggedy man’ Time Lord, and
probably the only part she will ever play that involves her interacting
with Adolf Hitler and Vincent van Gogh, being scared to blink lest she’s
ravaged by sinister statues and discovering she has given birth to a
corkscrew-haired time traveller old enough to be her mother.
Though her adventures with the Doctor have taken up the lion’s share
of her time since she first stepped foot in the Tardis, ex-model Gillan
has also found time to impress rebel Cockney photographer David Bailey,
both with her gazelle-like legs and her acting.
Playing Bailey’s muse-mistress Jean Shrimpton, she was stunningly
’60s in BBC Four’s We’ll Take Manhattan. It gave a taste of the bright
future for the 24-year-old once she says goodbye to Amy Pond.
I first meet her in Almeria, Spain, on the set of last weekend’s Wild
West Doctor Who adventure. Karen is sitting at the piano of a saloon
bar, regaling an empty room with showtunes. After following up her turn
on the keys with a knees-up around the stage, she says that she’s always
ready to bang out a tune, though she doesn’t guarantee that it’ll get
the party started.
“I think I was playing a song from Fame,” she laughs. “I’m usually
like the weirdo at a party who plays really depressing music. I really
like Chopin. Dark stuff like that. My party piece? I have my own
composition, which is an easy one to remember, so I always whip that one
out, but everyone is like, ‘Mood killer!’”
Five months later and The Big Issue catches up with Karen again. She
has completed her final Tardis scenes and is about to jet off to New
York for a fancy screening in front of the increasingly obsessive US
fans who will, she assures us “scream and cry”.
Her final moments on set have been teary too. “It was just so sad.
The last scene we filmed was me, Matt Smith and Arthur Darvill just
walking into the Tardis together,” she says. “It is insignificant in
terms of the episode, but was so huge for us. It was dark inside and we
just hugged. It was lovely. Then I milked it for all it was worth and
cried.”
Fans will also be bereft, but Karen at least leaves Doctor Who on a
high, and on her own terms. The new series has ditched the complex story
arcs in favour of individual, self-contained weekly adventures, each
with its own movie-style poster and redesigned logo (for the first the
title was styled like a Dalek, for the second it was a dinosaur and so
on) – and both viewers and critics are responding favourably. After a
final run-in with the Weeping Angels in Manhattan, Karen’s character
will never return.
“It will be a real shock to the system when I realise I am not in it
any more,” she says. “But I knew what I was getting into when I took the
job. This is a show in which the cast changes regularly and that is why
it is so long-lasting. I am going to feel sad, but I have had a pretty
good run in the companion role, which makes me happy. It is a weird
thing to be leaving, but you never really leave the Doctor Who family.”
Having experienced as much variety as any TV role offers, she is now
looking to the future, starting with an indie rom-com, a cop show spoof
and a US horror film…
So how on earth do you follow Amy Pond – adventurer, time traveller, ass-kicker, memorably worth “at least two men”? Well,
I feel like I’m prepared for all the possible genres after playing Amy.
And I certainly want variety, that’s for sure. What I enjoy most about
acting is being versatile. I like actors like Robin Williams, who can do
crazy, absurd characters. I would love to be an actor like that. The
one I am really getting into recently is Olivia Colman. She does Peep
Show and is brilliant at comedy, but I just watched Tyrannosaur – oh my
god! I was on a train going through the Highlands of Scotland crying my
eyes out. I want to play character roles, generally. That is my main
ambition.
Have you talked about your plans with your on-screen hubby, Arthur Darvill and with ‘Doctor’ Matt Smith?
Yeah, we talk about all that stuff. We are very close. It is like
having two brothers with Matt and Arthur – the two brothers I never had,
because I’m an only child. So it is kinda nice for me.
So you were in Glasgow recently filming Not Another Happy
Ending with Life on Mars director John McKay. A low-budget Scottish
indie comedy – it is not the most obvious next step… I was just
passionate about the script and the role. It all came from playing Jean
Shrimpton in We’ll Take Manhattan last year with John. He said I’d be
perfect for this role in his film Not Another Happy Ending – because I
kept dropping stuff and falling over. It wasn’t a grand plan; it was in
the pipeline for a long time and we shot it as soon as I was available. I
didn’t know Glasgow that well, although my mum is from there, but I’ve
fallen in love with it and want to settle down there. I just love the
people – I laughed so much.
You’re playing a novelist – has it made you want to write a book?
I don’t think I have a book in me, but I reckon I have a screenplay. No
ideas yet, I just like the idea of writing a screenplay. Hopefully I
will do that in the future.
You want to settle in Glasgow, then, but where is home for you right now? Cardiff? London? Inverness?
I don’t have a house at the moment and I don’t really have a home city.
All my possessions are in a storage unit in London. I have a suitcase
with a few pieces of clothing, so I’m completely free and home is
wherever I end up working, really, and at the moment that is the best
feeling in the world. I don’t feel like I need any material possessions.
I’m free. I love it so much and I’ve realised that it is quite
liberating living without all your material possessions. I’m working in
Alabama for the rest of the year, which will be cool, and we will have
to see after that. I just go with the flow.
Alabama? Sounds intriguing… Yes! I’m so excited
about Oculus. It’s a horror film about a brother and a sister, filming
in Alabama. It’s all so varied, which is great, but I’m doing things
that I really care about. I’m getting to do so many things I wanted to
do, so I’m really happy.
Does this mean Hollywood is on the agenda? If there
is good stuff over there for me to do, then yes, of course I would. But I
don’t want to do something for the sake of working, if I’m not that
into it. When I was about to start on Oculus, I got the script for
Charlie Brooker’s A Touch of Cloth. We were able to move the dates
forward so I could do that as well. It is really clever at the same time
as being ridiculous. It is right up my street, comedy-wise, as we are
playing it completely straight and intensely, even though what we are
saying is utter nonsense. All those detective dramas we know so well, we
will never be able to watch them quite the same again after this.
When you catch your breath, what do you think will you miss most about Doctor Who?
Working with my best friends every day has been amazing. I am certainly
going to miss getting to do all the Doctor Who acting. It is all quite
high-octane... creatures to be running away from – I don’t know how
often I’m going to be able to do that in my future jobs. Tennis balls on
a stick pretending to be monsters, before the CGI, I won’t be doing
much of that in the future. I remember in my first episode someone had
written ‘the scrotum’ on the tennis ball, which was a little
off-putting. That was a nice welcome!
How would you like Amy Pond to be remembered? I love
this girl. I would be too scared to act like her, but I get
this artistic licence playing her. I love her dry sarcasm, wit and
grumpiness. I’m not a grumpy person. I want to see her go out in flames
of glory, where we see her at her absolute best. I just want people to
look back over the Pond era fondly. I have had the best years of my life
on this show, hand on my heart…
Your last episodes have been described by writer Steven Moffat as his love letters to the Ponds – this sounds pretty terminal…
That doesn’t necessarily mean death, but it will be very final. So,
yeah, you are going to cry. I hope so, anyway. I like making you cry.
That makes me happy…
(4/5)
