As Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 barrels the Marvel Studios’ franchise toward its conclusion, Karen Gillan, stopping in Deadline’s SXSW studio provided a glimpse as to how life is shaping up for Thanos’ adopted daughter and Gamora’s adopted sister, Nebula, in the threequel.
“Now we’re seeing Nebula post the death of the source of her trauma, Thanos. He’s been eliminated from the story, and now we’re seeing her character become a little bit of the person that she should have been had that not happened to her,” Gillan told Deadline.
Cranky and combative Nebula’s idea of bliss now is “her new family with the new Guardians and letting love in for the first time, rather than the defense mechanism always triggering. Allowing her to be loved and to love,” said the actress who was at SXSW for the world premiere of her movie Late Bloomers from director Lisa Steen and screenwriter Anna Greenfield.
In the third movie from filmmaker James Gunn, Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill is still reeling from the loss of Zoe Saldana’s Gamora. He must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them. Gunn has also expressed in interviews how important it was for him to wrap Rocket Raccoon’s story. An enemy in part 3 is the High Evolutionary played by Chukwudi Iwuji. At San Diego Comic-Con, the actor, appearing in full costume, exclaimed to Hall H, “Thank you for inspiring me for how vomitous you all are…I can’t wait to dissect all of you and see what I can learn.”
In Late Bloomers, Gillan plays 28-year-old-Louise, a depressed musician, recently single, who breaks her hip and winds up in physical therapy with people twice her age. There she meets cranky Polish lady Antonia (Malgorzata Zajaczkowska), who speaks no English. Louise winds up caring for her. Neither loves the arrangement. The character is some ways is a soul sister to the alcoholic that Gillan played in her feature directorial debut, The Party’s Just Beginning. Deadline film reviewer Damon Wise beamed about Late Bloomers that it’s “a defiantly female-fronted indie, showcasing an engaging and refreshingly vanity-free performance from Karen Gillan.”
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 blasts off the summer on May 5.