The next time we see Karen Gillan’s Nebula in the MCU will be in director Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder. When we do see her, it seems like things are going to get a little weird and crazy with the character. During a recent interview with Collider, the actress talked about her experience playing the character in the different Marvel films and when it came to Thor: Love and Thunder, she said:
“And then Taika really brought out the bonkers side. I think everyone is just really, really funny and bonkers and wild.”
Nebula has always kind of been more of a dark and serious character, so it’s going to be interesting to see this different “bonkers” side of her. I guess this should be expected from Waititi. When clarifying what “bonkers” means with Nebula, she explained:
“I don’t know if it’s personal [levity]. Like I don’t think she’s finding herself funny or being funny, but in her seriousness I think we will find her funny, and just the pure aggression that we’ve tapped into.”
That’ll be a fun aspect of the character to play with moving forward. Over the years, Gillan has worked with three different directors to develop the character. When discussing her work with James Gunn, she said:
“I think a lot of the reason that Nebula is the way she is is because of James Gunn. He’s the sort of creator of her and I think he really connected with the character personally. I remember when we would do scenes between me and Gamora, he’d be like crying in the rehearsals and stuff. He’s so invested. So it’s largely down to him, I would say.”
When it comes to Joe and Anthony Russo, the actress described her time with them as follows:
“I think we all, in the Guardians cast, were like, ‘Ah! Oh my gosh, we’re going off and we’re gonna do this character without James. How are we gonna cope? Are we gonna still know how to do this?’ But the Russos were amazing, and they kind of just really allowed us to bring our knowledge of the characters to it. They were so receptive to it. I would sort of be able to say to the Russos, ‘I feel like [if] Thanos is in the scene, Nebula would be feeling very emotional right now if her father is there.’ And they’re like, ‘Yup. Yup,’ and then they completely used that, and it’s completely in the movie, which was really nice.”
She went on to reveal that director Joe Russo was also her screen partner. He played Thanos when she was doing scenes with the villainous character and she thought that was a really cool experience.
Thor: Love and Thunder also features Chris Pratt returning to the role of Star-Lord, and it was announced that Christian Bale is playing Gore The God Butcher. On top of that Russell Crowe is playing Zeus, Natalie Portman is back in the role of Jane Foster, and Tessa Thompson is reprising her role as Valkyrie.
Thor: Love and Thunder is currently set to arrive in theaters on May 6th, 2022.