Interview: Karen Gillan Travels the Universe with Doctor Who
Kat Angus
April 12, 2010
As Amy Pond, the latest companion on Doctor Who, Scottish actress Karen Gillan argues she's just as important as the time-travelling Doctor.
Photo by: BBC
When the new series of Doctor Who premieres April 17 (9 p.m. ET on Space), it will be a rebirth of sorts for the revered British sci-fi series. The show is under new management, as longtime staff writer Steven Moffat replaces Russell T. Davies as Doctor Who’s showrunner; as well, 26-year-old Matt Smith will step into some very large shoes as the eleventh Doctor. It’s a high-pressure situation, as Doctor Who fans are among the most critical viewers in television.
But just as Moffat and Smith face pressure to live up to their predecessors, Karen Gillan, too, is in the hot seat. Playing Amy Pond, the Doctor’s latest young companion, the Scottish actress must prove to viewers that she’s worthy of travelling the universe with the universe’s most notorious time traveler. Luckily for the 22-year-old, she’s opted to trade her nervousness for out-and-out and excitement.
“Of course, I’m feeling quite nervous about how people are going to react, but do you know what? I’m kind of really excited about it now,” Gillan says. “I think that, as a team, we’re all confident in the work we’ve done. I just hope that people like it.”
And, Gillan posits, Moffat is the perfect person to introduce her to Who fans. The scribe of massive popular episodes such as “The Girl in the Fireplace” and “Blink,” Moffat knows how to combine light-hearted whimsy with white-knuckle suspense.
“He’s kind of given it a bit more of a fairy-tale feel, especially in the first episode,” she says. “A lot of people who have seen the first episode have said it’s one of the scariest, and that is not half as scary as what’s to come in the series.”
This is exactly how he brings Amy Pond into the Doctor Who universe – she first meets the Doctor as a wide-eyed young girl, only to meet up with him years later under less-than-ideal circumstances. But don’t let the term “fairy tale” fool you – Gillan is adamant that Amy is anything but a damsel in distress.
“She is brilliant! Well, as a character – hopefully my performance lives up to how she’s written,” she says, laughing nervously. “She’s kind of this free spirit, which causes some turbulence in the relationship between the Doctor and Amy because she won’t listen to him all the time. She’s funny and she’s really passionate and, also, I think she’s a little bit lost underneath all of that. She’s really up there in importance with the Doctor and I think she’s quite pivotal to the whole series.”
Quickly, she adds: “I’m not saying that she’s completely equal to the Doctor, because I think they’re kind of worlds apart in terms of character, but she’s definitely up there in importance.”
But many Who fans would argue that the most important aspect of the new series is how Matt Smith measures up as the Doctor, considering that David Tennant’s tenth Doctor was one of the most popular incarnations the show has ever seen. As far as Gillan is concerned, viewers have nothing to worry about; Smith, she says, is bizarre and manic and fun in all the right ways.
“He does have big shoes to fill, and I think he definitely fills them,” Gillan says, clearly gearing up to gush about her costar. “He’s kind of perfect for the Doctor, because he’s this fairly young guy who has this ancientness to him. Sometimes the things he says just sound like an old man! He’s quite eccentric, so that kind of works in his favour; you can really sort of buy into the fact that he’s from another world, which is a really big part of the Doctor. Matt plays that aspect of it really well. He’s got the mischief of a young boy and the wisdom of an old man and he’s just so exciting to watch.”
All in all, Doctor Who’s new season may face myriad challenges when it comes to impressing fans, but Gillan has never been one to back down.
“With each episode, we go to life-threatening extremes every time, and that is a challenge in itself, just to portray these things and go to that level every week,” she says. “I think the hardest things about this job are the most rewarding things, because when you’ve been challenged to up your game and you do it, it’s one of the best bits. “
Doctor Who premieres Saturday, April 17 at 9 p.m. ET on Space.
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