Being cancelled? People should get a second chance

Roles in Doctor Who and the iconic Marvel and Jumanji films made Karen Gillan a star — she is now leading a new primetime drama. She talks to Nick Curtis about elitism, redemption and meeting her husband on Instagram

- Nick Curtis

KAREN GILLAN is sitting opposite me at the Soho Hotel, jet-lagged, makeup-free, her long red hair wet before a styling session, talking about cancel culture. Specifically about Douglas is Cancelled, a four-part ITV satirical drama in which the 34-year-old Scot plays Madeline Crow, the co-host of a 6pm TV news show alongside older housewives’ favourite Douglas Bellowes (Hugh Bonneville), whose reputation nosedives when rumours of a sexist gaffe start to snowball online.

Gillan says the ice-cool, complex Madeline is “far removed from me as a frantic, nervy person”. She’s also miles away from Gillan’s most recognisable roles, as feisty companion Amy Pond alongside Matt Smith in Doctor Who; the bald, blue cyborg Nebula in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers movies; and Ruby Roundhouse in the Jumanji films.

But the ITV show reunites her with her Doctor Who writer/showrunner Steven Moffat, and co-star Alex Kingston, who plays Douglas’s tabloid-editor wife. “Steven wrote this as a play years ago, before The Morning Show or that film Bombshell,” she says, referring to the prominent dramas exploring the #MeToo backlash against sexism and abuse in TV. “I asked if I could read it, thought ‘this needs to be seen’, and went on a long campaign to get Steven to make it into a film, just badgering him.”

When Moffat finally told her it was being made for TV and asked her to fly back from LA, where she’s lived since 2013, to play Madeline she was scared — the idea genuinely seems not to have occurred to her — but she said yes immediately. “Because it’s only become more relevant.”