Karen Gillan has added her name to the growing number of Marvel actors who are ready to jump ship to the DC Universe. James Gunn’s DCU, to be exact.
Most known for playing Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Gillan expressed complete and total interest in following Gunn to the ends of the Earth where she’d love the opportunity to play one of the most iconic Batman villains of all time. If she had her druthers, it would be Dr. Pamela Isley, otherwise known as Poison Ivy.
“I always thought that Poison Ivy was really fun. So maybe something like that would be cool,” she said in an interview with Total Film magazine.
Indeed, Gillan’s natural red hair leaves little to the imagination in terms of how she’d look as the scarlet-haired half-woman, half-plant. The character has seen several live-action iterations from actresses Claire Foley, Maggie Geha, and Peyton List in Fox’s Gotham series. However, arguably the most iconic iteration was Uma Thurman’s in the 1997 Batman & Robin.
Poison Ivy or not, Gillan has said she’ll go anywhere Gunn will have her. “Honestly, if James asked me to play an alien that sits in the background of a shot and doesn’t talk, I would say yes,” she said. “Because working with him has been one of the great joys of my career so far.”
Gillan will bid the MCU and Guardians of the Galaxy farewell when the third and final volume of the franchise premieres in theaters next Friday. Although the film is marketed as the last, Gillan did allude to a future with the MCU if Kevin Feige ever found a place for Nebula. “I just genuinely love this character so much, and I feel like there’s just an endless amount of things that could be done with her,” she said. “So, yeah, I would obviously love to explore more, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I’m waiting to see just as much as everyone else.”
Now that Gunn has shifted his focus away from Marvel and over to the DCU, he and co-CEO Peter Safran have locked in a full 8- to 10-year plan for the superhero franchise. As of this writing, only the Creatures Commandos cast has been locked in, meaning there’s still plenty of casting yet to be had. Considering several members of the Guardians cast have said they’ll either consider following Gunn to the DCU or have already done so (Chris Pratt, Sean Gunn, Maria Bakalova, Dave Bautista, and now Karen Gillan), it’s hard not to imagine Gunn will give them first pickings at a character of their choosing.
Of course, it’s all a bit more complicated than that. Nevertheless, Gillan’s interest in playing Poison Ivy piques our interest, to say the least, especially since the villain could reasonably make an appearance in The Brave and the Bold Batman film set to premiere in the coming years as part of Gunn’s new DCU.
In the meantime, you can catch Gillan’s Nebula (possibly) one last time in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 when it premieres in theaters on May 5.
