Scottish actress Karen Gillan, who has already made an impression in her first year as co-star of the BBC’s popular science-fiction time-traveling adventure series Doctor Who, will be journeying through the centuries soon in the comedy Romeo And Brittney.
According to Deadline, Gillan will play a New Jersey high school student who “wakes up in mythical 13th century Verona with all the people she knows from her high school life playing characters in the play. And she wants to get out because she knows how the play ends.” Deadline also quotes first time director David Baddiel as describing the film as “Shakespeare In Love meets Clueless.” Producer Arvind Ethan David explains –
We both love literate teen comedies and we wanted to do our own version. After all, 10 Things I Hate About You was based on The Taming On the Shrew just as Clueless was based on Jane Austen’s Emma and Easy A is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. And what is Twilight if it’s not Romeo and Juliet with vampires and werewolves?
In recent years, the role of the companion on Doctor Who has evolved from being a simple plot contrivance to one that often carries much of the emotional weight of the show. And even by this newly revised standard, Gillan’s work this past year as spunky redhead Amy Pond has been pretty impressive. Still, I’m a wee bit anxious as to how she will play an American teenager. Production on the film starts in May.
