Karen Gillan has fought aliens as Nebula. She’s run down corridors in Doctor Who. But according to her, nothing was harder than Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Yes, really. The movie where she wears a crop top and punches people in the jungle was her most physically demanding role. She said she’d never trained more for anything. Not even Marvel.
Gillan played Ruby Roundhouse, the video game avatar who looks like a badass but is actually inhabited by a terrified teenage girl. It’s a great bit. She gets to kick people in the face while also being terrified of everything. The dance-fight sequence required so much rehearsal that she had to do it in one take. She credited her stunt double for helping her get through it. Karen Gillan doesn’t do things halfway.
The character is also a quiet subversion of the “obligatory female role” in action movies. She looks like a femme fatale. She acts like a nervous wreck. That contrast is what makes Ruby Roundhouse work. Karen Gillan has talked about how much she loved playing against the expectation. The costume is ridiculous. The character is ridiculous. But the performance is genuinely funny and weirdly sweet.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle came out in 2017 and made a ridiculous amount of money. It shouldn’t have worked. A sequel to a beloved Robin Williams movie, decades later, with The Rock and Kevin Hart? It should have been a disaster. Instead, it was a hit. A big part of that is Karen Gillan committing to the bit. She trained harder than she did for any Marvel movie. She did the dance-fight in one take. She made Ruby Roundhouse memorable.
She also had nothing but nice things to say about working with Dwayne Johnson, who she called the hardest-working person she’s ever met. That’s a compliment from someone who has been in the Marvel machine. Karen Gillan knows what a grind looks like. She said Jumanji was tougher. That’s saying something.
The film also has a legacy that’s worth acknowledging. It spawned a sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level, which was fine. But the first one has a specific energy that’s hard to replicate. It’s goofy, it’s self-aware, and it doesn’t take itself seriously. Karen Gillan understood that. She played Ruby like a character in a video game, because that’s what she was. The result is a performance that’s funnier than it has any right to be. She made a movie about a magical board game into something genuinely charming.
If you haven’t watched Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle since 2017, maybe it’s time for a rewatch. Not because it’s a masterpiece. It’s not. But because Karen Gillan is genuinely great in it, and she did more work for that role than she did for any of the movies where she’s blue and angry. Respect the hustle.
Here’s the takeaway: if you think Marvel movies are hard, talk to Karen Gillan. She’ll tell you about the jungle. She’ll tell you about the dance-fight. She’ll tell you about the training. And then she’ll probably laugh, because she knows how absurd it all is. That’s the thing about Karen Gillan. She takes the work seriously, but never takes herself too seriously. Ruby Roundhouse wouldn’t have it any other way.
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