The Big Picture

Gillan was drawn to her role in
Sleeping Dogs
because of the well-done script and the opportunity to portray a complex character.
Working on
Sleeping Dogs
, Gillan found the theme of memory in the film to be interesting and relevant to real life experiences.

Sleeping Dogs,
which also stars Russell Crowe, is in theaters now.

The past few years have been quite busy for Karen Gillan. Last year, saw a whirlwind of press for the final installment of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, where she starred as Nebula, in addition to the festival run for the dark comedy Late Bloomers. On top of that, she has been booked and busy on projects like Mike Flangan’s highly anticipated adaptation of The Life of Chuck, the mini-series Douglas Is Cancelled, and the historical comedy Fools, which is still in pre-production. However, it was for her recent release, Sleeping Dogs, that I had the pleasure of chatting with her last week.

After gushing about how excited I was to see that Late Bloomers was finally acquired by Vertical at the beginning of the month, we dove straight into discussing Sleeping Dogs and what drew Gillan to the project. The crime thriller stars Russell Crowe as a retired homicide detective who is pulled back into unraveling a mystery around one of his old cases, while he is undergoing experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s. Laura Baines (Gillan) is pulled into the case due to her association with the victim and the motives that might make her a suspect too. When asked what drew her to the project, Gillan made it quite clear that “there’s a few things” that drew her into writer-director Adam Cooper’s web.

“I think when I was first reading the script, I thought, “Oh, this is a well-done version of a classic thriller, whodunit type of thing.” Then, I think the main thing, though, was the character.
As I was reading it, I started reading the lines out loud just for fun to myself. I was like, “Oh, that’s quite a good sign that I’m enjoying this character in some way if I just want to say it out loud for fun.”
And I just liked the aspects of her, the performative nature of her, showing her through different perspectives and different lenses, and getting to transform a little bit. I really enjoy that side of acting.”

One of the reasons that Laura Baines is positioned as a potential suspect in the murder is because her mentor took credit for her extensive research and work, which is a point of contention within her plotline. With that in mind, I questioned Gillan about whether or not she had ever experienced someone taking credit for her work. As she thought back to her time in school, she provided a rather amusing answer. “Have I experienced that? Oh god, I don’t know. I remember being so shy in school that I would whisper the right answers to my confident friend, and she would save my life. So yes, but I was willingly letting it happen and actively making it happen. I guess I wanted to say the answer, but was too scared to do it.” With a shared laugh, I pointed out that she was answering questions now quite well. To which she added, “I’m speaking. I’m saying answers.”

23:18 Related There’s One Big Difference Between ‘Sleeping Dogs’ and the Book It’s Based On Star Karen Gillan and writer-director Adam Cooper discuss making their new crime thriller during a Collider Screening Series Q&A.

How One of ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Themes Resonated With Karen Gillan

One of the major subplots of Sleeping Dogs is the experimental treatment that Roy Freeman (Crowe) undergoes and how it allows him to remember long-forgotten aspects of the case—for better and for worse. When I asked Gillan about what she took away from working on the project, she noted that the film’s focus on memories resonated with her in an interesting way. She explained:

“One of the themes in the film is really interesting of, like, memory and how unreliable that is, and how actually our whole experience of life is filtered through our memory.
It’s like we can get triggered by something in a situation, and the reason that we’re being triggered is because of something that happened in our past that’s a memory of something.
That’s something that we really explored in the film, and that’s weirdly something that’s quite useful to remember in life because then it helps you step out of situations for a second and be like, “Oh, hold on. Am I reacting to the present moment or am I reacting to a memory?”

What Was the Most Challenging Aspect of Her ‘Sleeping Dogs’ Role?

While Crowe’s character is very much the lead of Sleeping Dogs, Gillan’s performance is one of the highlights of the film because of the depth she gives the character in a very limited amount of screen time. Laura Baines is a very particular type of person. It’s a bit like looking in a shattered mirror, where each fragment of your reflection might look different from the rest. Despite delivering such a nuanced performance, Gillan revealed that nailing that element of duplicity was actually the most difficult aspect of the film for her.

“I think the most challenging part of the character was that I made the decision that she would be slightly performative in her nature. So, we see different versions of her in different situations. She’s different with different people, depending on what she wants and all of this stuff. So, because I committed to her being slightly performative, it was quite a challenge to figure out where to pitch that because that could look a bit naff,” she laughed. “You know what I mean?” She went on to say:

“People might be like, “Why is she acting like that? Doesn’t seem truthful.” Normally we’re just trying to be as truthful as possible, but with this one I was deliberately trying to be inauthentic. And I was like, “I don’t know where to pitch this.”
So I kept doing it into my phone to check what it looked like, because also the thing about acting is you can’t
see
what you’re doing most of the time until, like, a year later.
And then you learn, “Oh, don’t do that next time.” You see it with the rest of the world. So I did it on my phone a few times. If I look back on those videos — I still have them — they’re awful. They’re
awful
. I fell flat on my face so many times trying to figure out how to pitch the character. That was a challenge.”

Sleeping Dogs is currently in theaters in the United States. Be sure to watch my full interview with Gillan in the player above, including where we discuss her upcoming historical comedy Fools, which will see her don the role of Bloody Mary.

Sleeping Dogs An ex-homicide detective (Russell Crowe) with memory loss is forced to solve a brutal murder, only to uncover chilling secrets from his forgotten past.Release Date April 25, 2024 Director Adam Cooper Runtime 110 Minutes Writers Adam Cooper , Bill Collage , E.O. Chirovici

Find Tickets Now