Karen Gillan names her five favourite movies of all time
The Scottish actor Karen Gillan gained notoriety for portraying Amy Pond in Doctor Who from 2010 to 2013. Gillian also performed in a number of British films around that same time, including 2010’s Outcast and 2013’s Not Another Happy Ending, whilst winning several awards for work on the famed BBC science-fiction programme.
Shortly after, Gillan made the transition from Britain to Hollywood, starring in the horror movie Oculus and the ABC sitcom Selfie. From there, Gillan has played a number of successful roles, most notably as Nebula in several films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Endgame. A few years back, Gillan named some of her favourite movies in a feature with Rotten Tomatoes.
First up for Gillan is Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 horror novel classic The Shining. Gillan admits to being a “huge horror fan”, and discussing her love for Kubrick’s film, she added: “It was just incredible. I just love that movie so much, and it’s my favourite on-screen performance of all time, from Jack Nicholson. I think that he’s absolutely incredible. I’m ready to play a role like that.”
The Kubrick love-in does not stop there, though, and Gillan claims that the legendary filmmaker is her favourite director of all time. It’s understandable then that she would include his 1971 picture, A Clockwork Orange. Again, like many of Kubrick’s works, it’s another novel adaptation, this time from Anthony Burgess’ 1962 classic work.
Of her admiration for one of Kubrick’s masterpieces, Gillan said: “I just think it’s just visually an absolute masterpiece. Again, the central performance is incredible. I just love these performances that you get with these lead actors that are so on the brink of madness. They’re violent, they’re unpredictable and scary, and I just love that sequence where it’s operatic in A Clockwork Orange, when they’re beating each other up, and it’s the classical music.”
Having named two horrific, intense films in her top five, Gillan thankfully slows the pace down to include 1995’s Jumanji, which she admits is “so cheesy”. She added: “That was always one of my favourite films of all time. It’s just pure nostalgia. I think I’m right in that age bracket where it’s like a classic to anyone who’s around my age, and anyone who’s outside of that, it doesn’t seem like it’s so much of a classic to them.”
But that brief respite from disturbing cinema was short-lived, as next Gillan names Michael Haneke’s The Piano Teacher as her fourth pick, which tells of an unmarried piano teacher who enters a sadomasochistic relationship with one of her students. “I just think it’s a really, really interesting character study; again, disturbing,” Gillan noted. “And her last frame of acting in that movie — not actually the last frame; the last frame is her [Isabella Hupert] walking, but the one before that is the best piece of acting I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
Karen Gillan’s five favourite movies:
- The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
- A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
- Jumanji (Joe Johnston, 1995)
- The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001)
- Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 2007)
Finally, Gillan selects another Haneke movie to round off her selections; evidently, she finds the works of certain directors very compelling indeed. Of 2007’s Funny Games, Gillan said: “There’s a moment that’s genius, that I love, which is when he turns to the audience, and suddenly turns the whole movie into this kind of study, where we are accountable as an audience. Because we like the violence that’s happening in the movie, and he’s doing it for us, so suddenly, we’re culpable. And I think that’s a really cool moment in film that I haven’t really seen other than that. Yeah, I thought that was really clever.”
