Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Star Karen Gillan Talks Rebooting Nebula’s Relationship With Gamora (Exclusive)

For the vast majority of their existence within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nebula (Karen Gillan) has been much more standoffish when compared to her sister Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a character who has been willing to claim herself as a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now that the present-day version of the character was murdered during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the one sent to the future from the past has caused the roles to flip. As Gillan tells us, she and Saldana were hyper-aware while filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 that their characters effectively switched roles from when the first appeared in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

“It’s kind of like we switched places in a weird way because Nebula is the more evolved, compassionate one out of the two of them,” Gillan divulges. “I actually love this version of Gamora. She’s so badass, doesn’t take any prisoners and is aggressive and fun. We just played around with that dynamic and developed a fun way of greeting each other, which you’ll see when you see the film.”

While Gamora died in Infinity War, she was nearly the one that died at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, sacrificing herself to save Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill.

“So things always change and you never know. But Gamora almost died in Vol. 2,” Gunn told ComicBook.com earlier this month. “I knew from the beginning Zoe only wanted to play the character for so many years, and she’s been very honest saying that she’s done [after this]. And so I was going to have her die. I thought she was the one that was going to sacrifice herself, and Quill was going to learn about himself as opposed to in the second movie, and I thought different of it. I was kind of talked out of it by Kevin [Feige] and Lou [D’Esposito], and then it just didn’t work that well. It didn’t feel right, it felt much more right to go where we go in that movie. That seemed what was correct for the story. I think at the time I was afraid of killing Michael Rooker because he’s my friend.”

What is Guardians of the Galaxy 3 going to be about?

Marvel’s synopsis for the sequel can be found below.

“In Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 our beloved band of misfits are settling into life on Knowhere. But it isn’t long before their lives are upended by the echoes of Rocket’s turbulent past,” the synopsis reads. “Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him on a dangerous mission to save Rocket’s life-a mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them.”

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and the rest of the Guardians franchise, is now available exclusively on Disney+ while Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits theaters on May 5th.

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