The following will contain extremely mild spoilers for the new film Gunpowder Milkshake, so stop reading now if you prefer to go into the movie as cold as possible.
One need only watch the trailer for the upcoming Gunpowder Milkshake to know that it offers audience members wall-to-wall action of the John Wick kind. Guardians of the Galaxy standout Karen Gillan leaves her Marvel roots behind to play a contract killer who can’t walk away from one job because a young girl has been left in the wake of a crime. But once Gillan’s character, Eva, breaks the rules of her firm, it invites every thug in her hyper-stylized city to take a crack at cleaning her clock.
That, alone, would appeal to the majority of modern actors, but Karen Gillan told CinemaBlend during a recent press day for Gunpowder Milkshake that there was a very specific fight sequence in the film that -- once she read it in the script -- she immediately knew that she had to play Eva in this wild ride. Watch the video above to get Gillan’s answer.
I’m not a fan of comparing every new action film that features a fair amount of violence and killing to John Wick. That’s a lazy default, though it’s clear that Gunpowder Milkshake director Navot Papushado owes a severe debt of gratitude to the Keanu Reeves franchise, as well as the early works of Quentin Tarantino. (It’s no surprise that Tarantino asked Netflix for a 35mm print of this movie so he can show it at his New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles later this month).
That being said, Papushado and his cast come up with widely original ways to present the bloodshed in Gunpowder Milkshake, and in one unforgettable scene, Eva (Karen Gillan) has to fight her way through a hallway filled with goons even though one of her arms has been temporarily paralyzed.
You get a snippet of that sequence near the end of this harrowing Gunpowder Milkshake trailer:
As for how it felt preparing to shoot that sequence, Karen Gillan opened up to CinemaBlend about the unique physical challenges, telling us:
I think when I was first reading the script, when I got to that point, I called my agent and was like, ‘I want to do this.’ Because I’ve just never seen a fight sequence where somebody doesn’t have the use of their arms. And it really makes for an interesting, weird, bonkers sequence. And it was hard. It’s hard to stop using your arms, and not control them. That was a real challenge for me.
You will be able to see this wild sequence for yourself once Karen Gillan’s explosive Gunpowder Milkshake makes its way to Netflix beginning on July 14.
