Karen Gillan

Karen Sheila Gillan is a twenty-eight-year-old model and actress. She was born on 28 November 1987 in Inverness (Scotland) and was brought up there up until she turned sixteen and chose a career as an actor. After that, to study acting, she first moved to Edinburgh and attended Telford College, and graduated from the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts Drama School. Modeling and acting knocked at her door while she was getting her bachelor’s degree. Her first assignment as a model was to walk the ramp at the launch party of Nicola Roberts’ makeup range called ‘Dainty Doll’. On the other hand, as an actor, her first appearance was in an episode of ‘Rebus’, ITV Network’s detective drama. Karen’s acting has been very well acknowledged in the form of nominations and awards for her work.

She is most popularly known for her portrayal of Amy Pond on BBC’s sci-fi tele series titled ‘Doctor Who’. Interestingly, she played a soothsayer in an episode of the fourth season before she returned to the show in its fifth season as the Eleventh Doctor's first companion. She has won herself the Best Actress award at the Cosmopolitan "Woman of the Year" Awards in 2010, the SFX Awards in 2011 and the TV Choice Awards in 2011 as well. Along with this, in 2012, she was awarded at the National Television Awards at the same show. The year 2015 brought her two awards- Best Actress at the IFS Film Festival for ‘Bound for Greatness’ (a short film directed by James Gadd, revolving around the love life of a man down with Asperger’s syndrome), and Best Female Newcomer at the Empire Awards.

The Empire Award was bestowed upon her for two films-‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, an adaptation of the Marvel Comics having the same title; and ‘ Oculus Click to look into! >> Read More... ’, Mike Flanagan’s super hit horror film with Karen as the protagonist. In the short film titled ‘Coward,’ she has debuted as a writer and director as well. This venture in a field, other than acting, was successful as it was awarded the Best Independent Short Film award at the IFS Film Festival in 2015. Karen currently lives in California. Even though she belongs to a Catholic family, she is not religious. She is a trained pianist and loves to shop vintage. She has also been involved in spreading awareness about breast cancer. She cannot swim and is known to have had a fear of driving. She is five feet and ten inches tall and has been quoted talking about being teased at in school for her height.