Karen Gillan Agrees with You About Her “Ridiculous” Jumanji Costume
Karen Gillan is slowly but surely becoming one of the most reliable action stars around. The Scottis..
Karen Gillan is slowly but surely becoming one of the most reliable action stars around. The Scottish actress, who hurtled into the mainstream via Doctor Who in 2010, has had a busy year, reprising her role as the vicious Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and now taking the front seat in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. The big-budget reboot, in theaters on December 20, is decidedly more action-packed than the original Robin Williams movie from the 90s. This time, it thrusts its main characters right into the vibrant, violent world of a video game. And yes—it’s fun!
In the film, four teens are sucked into the bodies of gaming avatars. Gillan plays Ruby Roundhouse, the Lara Croft-esque avatar for a girl named Martha, a shy, smart high schooler who would rather keep to herself. Gillan chews up her screen time alongside co-stars Dwayne Johnson,Kevin Hart,Jack Black, and Nick Jonas, delivering the film’s most impressive and complex fight scenes. However, when first stills of the reboot were released, a small controversy was born when fans got a look at Gillan’s costume. As Roundhouse, she’s dressed in tiny shorts and a tight, low-cut shirt that exposes her midriff. It seemed like an insidious case of Hollywood being Hollywood by forcing a female action character to wear an unnecessarily revealing and impractical costume.
“I don’t know if I was fully expecting that much sort of controversy around it,” Gillan tells Vanity Fair with a laugh. “However, I have to say, I think everybody had a point. To look at the picture out of context, it is ridiculous, and that is exactly the point that we’re making with it.”
When the first trailer was released for the film, it became clear that Gillan’s character was also outraged by her costume, which is meant to poke fun at the ridiculous sexism of video games past. The Jumanji team wanted to mock this particular trope, Gillan says, turning the “male fantasy” on its head (though she still has to, you know, wear the costume for most of the film).
“That was the idea behind it, [but] to get a reaction like that—I don’t necessarily see that as a negative thing at all,” she continued. “If we can spark any debate in gender equality from something that we do, then I think that’s probably a good thing.”
Let it also be known, however, that Gillan literally had to suffer for that look. All her exposed skin turned into a feast for the mosquitos on the film’s tropical Hawaii set, and the actress ended up getting “covered” in bites. “I’m Scottish and have pale skin,” she says, joking that the mosquitos knew “fresh meat” was near. She also couldn’t “put bug spray on, because I had to have a full-body fake tan—so I couldn’t really mix the bug spray with it, without the tan running.”
“It was like a battle between fake tan versus bug spray versus sunscreen,” she adds.
Though much of the cast was too busy to properly enjoy their Hawaiian downtime, Gillan says she, Jonas, and Black would grab dinners every so often and bond over delicious food. Whenever the whole team was together, they would all have a go at mimicking Gillan’s distinct Scottish accent. For the record: Black was decent, Johnson was O.K., and Hart was terrible. “He sounds completely Cockney, like Dick Van Dyke,” the actress says. “I don’t know what’s going on there.”
While the original Jumanji holds a special place in the hearts of just about anyone who came of age in the 90s, Gillan says it’s one of her favorite movies ever. “It’s in my top three films of all time,” she says. The other two movies are—drumroll, please—2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange.
“You need one nostalgia one,” she explains. Jumanji certainly fits the bill.
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