In addition to Chris Pratt (Peter Quill), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Michael Rooker (Yondu), and Dave Bautista (Drax), we also had the pleasure of sitting down with Karen Gillan as Nebula. Just like the others, Karen was in full Nebula makeup and costume. So, she looks like a total bad a$$ in character and yet is just the nicest thing. And, she has a great Scottish accent. We could have talked to her for hours! 
As we talked, you really could sense her genuine excitement of being back for this movie and having a larger role in the film this time than in the 1st. She originally had no idea if Nebula would even be coming back for sure when shooting the first film. So, she’s quite excited to be back. She shared with us her feelings when she got the script and found out she’d be coming back.
“I emailed James [Gunn] and wrote ‘Oh My God, I can’t believe I get to do all this stuff.’ When I went in to the first film, it was originally an eight day shoot. I felt that that was the end of my character as well. So when I found out I was coming back for the next film up I was like ‘what?!’ It was really cool because in the first film they just kept on rewriting my ending. I was like okay, which one is going to be used? – I don’t really know because we shot a few of them. Then when I found out I was coming back for the next one, it was amazing. He’s given her [Nebula] all this back story and we understand why she is so bad. She has motivations and it’s really fleshed out which makes me really happy.”
Given this, it makes sense that she said we’d be to find out A LOT more backstory on her & Gamora, who she said both have BIG daddy issues (which is bound to happen when Thanos is your dad). Karen also had this to day about Nebula:
I think we’re going to understand her more. We’re going to have a bit of empathy towards her. As to whether that makes her soft, I don’t know, because she’s still classic, pissed-off Nebula. But we’re going to understand why she does the things she does and understand her relationship with Gamora in much more detail. And maybe understand that Gamora wasn’t as nice as she makes out towards Nebula in their childhood.”
We also asked Karen why she wanted the role and how she channels “classic, pissed-off” Nebula and gets into character for this part (because again, Karen could NOT have been any sweeter). She really seems NOTHING like Nebula.
“When you audition for a Marvel film, you don’t really know that much about it. All I knew is that it was a female villain – and that was enough to attract me to it because with these big films quite often a girl is the girlfriend or some sort of glamorous role. But this was totally different. My dad always told me to aim to be a Bond villain rather than a Bond girl. So that was kind of like a cool moment for me. I auditioned it felt like it was going to be a fleshed out interesting character with places to go. And she was just creepy, which is fun.”
Aim to be a Bond villain rather than a Bond girl <—I LOVE this!!!
As for getting into the character, Karen said the makeup really helps with that! Which makes sense because it is some SERIOUS make-up! The process of literally getting into the character is quite intense!
I have been able to keep half of my hair for this film, which is very exciting. So that added an hour of just wrapping all the hair up in a bald cap. Then it takes about 2 1/2 hours to put the makeup on, which is actually quicker than the last film. The last film was around five hours for the full process. Then to get into this [the suit] is about 20 minutes. So it’s quite a long process, but it’s so worth it. Sort of does half of the job for you as an actor because you look like this.”
Crazy!!!
She also shared that to get ready for the role initially, she read the Infinity Gauntlet comic (hmmm….might we see some Guardians then in Avengers the Infinity Wars?!?!?! 😉 ). So, there is all kinds of different theories and speculations about how all that will go down within the MARVEL Universe! Can’t wait to see what happens! But first…you can go see Karen and the rest of the Guardians crew when Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5th!!!! 
