Nerdy Rotten Scoundrel: DOCTOR WHO INTERVIEW: Karen Gillan Talks Filming In NYC and Shares Her Final 'Who' Scene Memories

Thursday, September 27, 2012

DOCTOR WHO INTERVIEW: Karen Gillan Talks Filming In NYC and Shares Her Final 'Who' Scene Memories

Doctor Who fans are in the final stretch leading to this Saturday's much talked about fond farewell to the beloved Ponds, Amy and Rory, in the mid-season finale, The Angels Take Manhattan.

The fifth and final show that is set to air in 2012 was shot on location in New York City last April, and features the return of the popular villains, the Weeping Angels. Fret not, following the annual Who Christmas Special in December, the second wave of Seventh Season episodes are on-deck for 2013 featuring a new companion for the Doctor played by Jenna Louise-Coleman (who was unexpectedly introduced with questions aplenty in the season premiere, Asylum of the Daleks).

I had the opportunity to sit down with Karen Gillan for a roundtable interview last month shortly before the New York City premiere screening of Asylum at the Ziegfeld Theater. At that time I asked her about her impressions of shooting the Ponds' swan song episode of Doctor Who in the Big Apple, and what she recalled about her final moments on the set before the very last 'cut' was called.

After answering questions from some of the other journalist present, I welcomed Gillan back to the Big Apple (she and Matt Smith attended the 2010 screening of her Who debut episode at the Paley Center For Media, which introduced fans to Smith as the newly regenerated 11th Doctor), and asked her what her NYC filming experience was like. Fan and paparazzi pictures from Times Square and Central Park sets popped up online almost immediately.

"It was just the best experience, it really was. And it’s kind of interesting because when we did that Paley Center thing it was kind of at the beginning of introducing it to America for the first time, and then we were saying how much we’d love to shoot there. And actually, my final episode was shot in New York, which is kind of weird. But it was amazing," she recalled.

"We were in Central Park and we started shooting. Then all these people turned up and we didn’t expect it at all, at all. So we didn’t have any sort of security or anything like that, and then more and more turned up to the point where there was just hundreds upon hundreds of people lining Central Park and just screaming. And they were like, 'Sign my TARDIS!' It was just the most amazing thing."

"And then we ran to Time Square and quickly shot this scene and trying to draw as little interest as possible I guess. It was really funny seeing Matt running around Time Square in his bow tie. I was like, 'Am I imagining this? This is so weird!'" she said.

Before the interview wrapped, I asked her what she could share about shooting her final scene on the set of Doctor Who, which appropriately also featured Matt Smith and Arthur Darvill. Obviously they shoot out of sequence, so Gillan's actual final scene was (most likely) not Amy Pond's final scene in context of the show's continuity.

I was curious to hear her reminisce about the moments right before 'cut' was called for the very last time. Perhaps there was a conscious effort to do whatever it took to keep shooting. Did anyone purposely keep blowing their lines?

"Honestly it was the weirdest, most serene feeling on set all day," she recalled.

"And then it was our last scene walking into the TARDIS. And then we did about twenty takes of it though, which was really weird. Maybe the director was delaying it. It was lovely though because then Matt closed the door, and it was complete darkness and we all just hugged in the dark. It was like, 'It’s done!' It was just the most emotional feeling, it really was," she said.