Karen Gillan: ‘I Worried Jean Shrimpton Wouldn’t Like Me Being Her’

While taking a break from chasing aliens all over the cosmos, Karen Gillan is playing the ’60s model and actress Jean Shrimpton in the forthcoming TV movie We’ll Take Manhattan, a which primarily concerns itself with Jean and David Bailey’s tempestuous working relationship. So naturally there was a worry that the very real Jean Shrimpton would have something to say, should the fictional account turn out to be substantially wrong, in her view.

Karen told TV Choice: “I guess there is more pressure because part of me thinks I should stay true to what this person actually was. And they’re still alive which is quite a significant thing as well, because they’re going to see how you portray them.

“But she has seen it and she’s really happy, which is really nice.”

Naturally, the best thing about filming the life of a jet-setting model is all the jet-setting, as Karen explained: “We were filming in New York and that was amazing fun. We were just running around Fifth Avenue and I was like ‘This is work!’”

In fact, the only down side was that she wasn’t allowed to take any of the wardrobe home with her: “The costumes were pretty good. But I’m not allowed to keep them. I don’t know what they do with them afterwards, but they replicated all the outfits from a Vogue photoshoot that David Bailey did with Jean Shrimpton, so they’re beautiful.”

There’s only one solution: hire a your own wardrobe department.