Karen Gillan: Shaved head scared people

Karen Gillan liked "intimidating" people when she shaved her hair off.

The Scottish actress takes on the role of feisty villain Nebula in her latest movie Guardians of the Galaxy, which required her to swap her gorgeous red locks in favour of a bald head. She also spent four to five hours in prosthetics to get her evil blue appearance perfect, and enjoyed the reaction it got from people.

"It was really weird, oh my God! What did I do?!" she laughed during an appearance on British talk show Lorraine while looking at a photo of herself with no hair. "It was a really weird experience, but it was also weirdly liberating. And fun and interesting as a social experiment just to see how differently people treated me. I think people were pretty intimidated by me, and I kind of liked it while I was playing the role. It's never happened to me before!"

Karen was so dedicated to the part of the Marvel Comics baddie that she made the dramatic change even before she landed the job. Now she's been brave enough to do it, the 26-year-old star urges others to try it out.

"It was really fun. I'd never played a bad character who'd gone to the dark side so it was a really fun thing for me to explore," she added.

"So I had to formally agree to shave my head before I could even audition for the role. But that was something I was really up for doing because I just think it's amazing! I think everybody should do it once in their life."

The film also stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana and Bradley Cooper, who lends his vocals to an animated character. Although Karen didn't get to work alongside the handsome actor she was thrilled to meet him during promoting the feature.

"He's a voice that they put on after everything was shot so no, I didn't really get to work with him, which is a shame. I met him at the premiere in LA, and that was exciting," she smiled.