Karen Gillan will move back to Scotland eventually

Karen Gillan plans to move back to Scotland eventually.

The ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ actress lives in California with husband Nick Kocher but will always consider Inverness her home, and will return there when her movie success is “over”.

She told the Times magazine: “I feel at home when I come back to the UK. I just really like seeing all the familiar faces on TV and feeling like I’m not out of the loop on the goings-on.

“This still feels like home even though so many people that I love are over there now [in the States]. But it’ll be over one day and then I’ll come back. All my best mates are still in Inverness, so I’ll get a little cottage up in the Highlands and just do that for the rest of my life.”

When she first relocated to the US, Karen missed her parents, so in 2017, she flew them out to join her and they now live nearby.

She said: “One of the hard things about living in the States was not being able to see them regularly, so we just thought, ‘Why does it need to be different now? We can just continue seeing each other on a Sunday.’

“It was the least I could do for them after all the monologues they had to sit through in the living room.”

The former ‘Doctor Who’ actress connected with comedian Nick by sending him a DM.

She recalled: “I was so single and not meeting anyone.

“I did not get on with the American dating scene. Then he was presented as a recommended friend. I looked him up on YouTube and he was funny, so eventually I just slid into his DMs. I’ve never done that before in my life.”

And while her opening message was “the most boring thing ever”, she felt the ‘Saturday Night Live’ writer had tried too hard with his response.

She said: “What I received back was a writer’s fully formed response. He’d got his writer friends to gather round and I could tell. Too well constructed. Trying too hard.”

But Nick persuaded Karen to meet up in real life and after dating throughout lockdown, they tied the knot in Scotland in 2022.

The ‘Jumanji’ actress loves the “cosy old pub” vibe of their cottage in Studio City but she’s struggling to find a home for her collection of replica dolls, which feature her in character as Amy Pond, Nebula and ruby Roundhouse.

She said: “I bought them all at one point from Amazon. Now, I don’t know what to do with them and it looks a bit narcissistic.”