Karen Gillan has revealed for the first time how a monster mistake almost scuppered her acting career when she was only seven.
The former Doctor Who actress had convinced her dad Ray and mum Marie that she was destined to become an actress.
But when Hollywood casting agents arrived in her hometown of Inverness looking for a seven-year-old redhead to feature in the 1996 film Loch Ness – featuring Cheers star Ted Danson – she bottled out of the auditions.
The part of Isabel went to Glaswegian Kirsty Graham instead.
Now Karen – a high-earning Hollywood star – has told how the disappointment spurred her on and convinced her never to pass up an opportunity.
Karen, 30, said: “There was this movie, Loch Ness, starring Ted Danson, about the Loch Ness monster and they started to do auditions when I was seven in Inverness looking for this little seven-year-old red-headed Scottish girl and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m that girl’. But I was too scared to audition so I didn’t go.
“It could have been me.
“That’s the one and only time in my life where I’ve chickened out of something I’m scared of.
“I think I’ve learned a valuable lesson from that.
“I hated the way it made me feel afterwards. I felt disappointed in myself because I was like, ‘Why didn’t you face that?’.
“You have to face your fears and I’ve made a point of doing that ever since. It was a big role. I passed it up. I still feel scared all the time and I now believe you just have to power through.”
By then she was already preparing for acting roles in her bedroom.
“I was an only child so I would just shut myself in my room and do a lot of stuff on my own,” she said. “I had this karaoke machine and you could record on to cassette tapes.
“I would record myself talking in different accents and singing.
“There were so many tapes. I was talking and pretending to be in different situations, acting I guess, and I did it all day every day. It was insane.
“I was definitely destined to do something creative.
“This was before I had a video camera – so when I got a video camera, I graduated towards visuals as well.”
She says her early attempts in front of the camera took some getting used to.
She added: “I think everybody has that experience when they hear their voice on an answerphone or something and they think, ‘Do I really sound like that?’ I had that with my face.”
Having moved to Edinburgh at 16, Karen completed an HNC in acting and performance at Telford College before heading to London to study at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.
In 2010, she became a household name after landing the role of Amelia “Amy” Pond in Doctor Who, opposite Matt Smith as the 11th doctor.
In the past year alone, Gillan starred in three of the biggest grossing films of all time, Avengers: Infinity War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle.
They have generated almost four billion dollars in worldwide box office revenue, helping to make her one of Hollywood’s most sought-after stars.
And the actress, who now splits her time between Los Angeles and New York, admits the fees demanded in Hollywood are far greater than the ones she enjoyed as Amy.
She said: “The money in the UK is nowhere near what you’re used to in this country.
“I was 21, so I thought I was rich.”
This year, she went behind the camera to make her directorial debut with a feature film called The Party’s Just Beginning.
It premiered the Glasgow Film Festival.
Again, her earliest efforts at directing were home movies.
She said: “I made this horror movie where I murdered my father
“A therapist would have a field day with this, but we had a very healthy relationship. He was just the person I wanted to cast. I fully killed him with a knife.
“I wore a blonde wig and I would go out at night and murder people. Everything that I tried to create was really dark and disturbing and nobody has ever brought it up.’
In Primary School, aged 10, she wrote a play called Scream: The Musical.
“It was just an obsession with [the film] Scream and the opportunity to perform somewhere,” Karen said. “I wrote the songs. That’s where it all began.”
