Karen Gillan got the "best gift ever" when she discovered she didn't have to to shave all her hair off for 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2'.

Karen Gillan

Karen Gillan

The 29-year-old actress had to shear all of her long, flame-coloured locks off to play Nebula in the first Marvel Studios superhero film released in 2014, something she was prepared to do for the role of the blue-skinned alien.

Karen was ready to take the clippers to her hair once again for the sequel but when director James Gunn and the crew told her she was going to get to keep some strands she was delighted.

In an interview with website The Wrap, she said: "I shaved half of my head this time, but they took away the butt - like, the underneath-half of my hair, and then left the top part. That was the best gift ever."

Karen has also teased that film fans are going to get to learn a lot more about Nebula's complicated relationship with her sister Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and her adoptive supervillain father, mutant eternal Thanos.

The former 'Doctor Who' star says cinema goers may even feel a pang of "sympathy" for her sadistic and cold alter ego.

Karen spilled: "What I love about the second movie for Nebula in particular is that we get ... We know that she's a pretty angry woman with some daddy issues. But in the second movie, we're going to start to see how much pain her father actually caused her, and we're going to delve right into the relationship with her sister Gamora. I think we might even feel a tinge of sympathy towards Nebula this time, because we really start to see the emotional crack in her character. I was just allowed to completely explore that and take it to a completely different dimension with her. I was really happy about that."

Karen is reunited with Chris Pratt as Star Lord, Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer, Vin Diesel as Groot and Bradley Cooper as Rocket for 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2', while Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone are part of the sequel which will be released on May 5, 2017.

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