When Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” hits theaters in August many audiences will be meeting the team of Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Groot and Rocket for the first time. But there is also a colorful world of villains in the farther reaches of Marvel outer space, like Nebula, that fans get to look forward to.
Ahead of the release, director James Gunn posted a fresh look at Karen Gillan‘s character, who he referred to as “our interplanetary Clint Eastwood,” with some insight about what went into designing the deadly space warrior.
“Truth is, I put her in the script largely because of her bald, cybernetic look,” Gunn explained on his Facebook page. “She probably wouldn’t have been a character without that.”
The remark came in response to a fan who asked if Gunn had considered an older Nebula design from the comics, which featured the character will a full head of black hair. “I find little enchanting about that look,” Gunn said. “Charlie Wen and I worked on this design for a long time, before we ever cast anyone. We knew exactly what we wanted.”
Gunn also took the time to note that Gillan’s look in the film was entirely practical, with no added CGI enhancements. “Those are mostly three dimensional applications not just drawn on lines,” he wrote. The whole process took somewhere between four and five hours.
The effect is honestly stunning. Gillan looks completely transformed, and the makeup here is a testament to the difference that practice effects can make, something that’s been forgotten when anything can be rendered on a computer.
Most other big-budget movies wouldn’t have bothered putting a beautiful actress like Gillan through this process and would have opted for just throwing some cybernetics onto one of her eyes and insist she not cut her hair. Instead, we’ve got a villain that people are already excited about, simply based on a photo.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” opens in theaters on August 1.
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