Who Is Karen Gillan’s Husband? All About Nick Kocher (2024)

Karen Gillan and her husband, Nick Kocher, are enjoying their marriage away from cameras.

The Guardians of the Galaxy star has kept her relationship relatively private over the years, but she has shared snippets of her bond with the comedic writer in interviews and on social media.

Gillan is best known for her roles as Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Amy Pond in Doctor Who. The Scottish actress and writer have also appeared in several works penned by Kocher, including a short film called Eureka!.

Throughout their romance, the pair have gone on rare outings together, including at the premiere of Hulu's dark comedy series Catch-22 in 2019, the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 in 2023 and a Golden Globes afterparty in 2024.

So who is Karen Gillan’s husband? Here’s everything to know about Nick Kocher and his relationship with the fellow actress.

He was born and raised in the South

Gillan hails from Inverness, Scotland, but Kocher grew up in Atlanta, Georgia.

He attended The Paideia School, a private pre-K to 12 school in Druid Hills. In 2022, Kocher shared a video on Instagram of a speech he gave when he was a senior, and he showed off his comedic chops.

“I thought it’d be fun to post my high school graduation speech that appears to have been filmed with a GameBoy Camera©,” he captioned it. “Come for my old southern accent, stay for the topical 2004 Michael Moore joke that even I have forgotten the context of.”

He started out in a comedy sketch duo

While studying drama at New York University in the early 2000s, he teamed up with his friend Brian McElhaney, whom he originally met at a summer camp when they were kids, according to their website.

After graduating, Kocher and McElhaney formed the group BriTANicK, a comedic duo that has written for Saturday Night Live and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

They also share their own comedy sketches on Patreon, and host live shows across the United States.

In the acting realm, Kocher and McElhaney appeared in How I Met Your Mother, on which they played the roles of Justin and Kyle, two young men Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) encounters just before his wedding to Robin (Cobie Smulders).

Kocher and McElhaney were also cast in the movies Balls Out and Searching for Sonny.

He’s a writer

Gillan and Kocher are both in the entertainment industry, and they’ve worked together several times.

In 2019, she starred as chronic procrastinator Chloe in the short film Eureka!, written by Kocher, and the comedic sci-fi short was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Two years later, Gillan collaborated with BriTANicK to create a Netflix talk show to promote her films Gunpowder Milkshake (2021) and The Bubble (2022). The two episodes of Chillin with Gillan!, which Gillan said was made in her garage, featured special guests Lena Headey and Judd Apatow.

The couple have also acted in the same films, such as The Bubble and Late Bloomers (2023).

In addition to writing comedy sketches, Kocher has penned personal essays. In July 2013, The New York Times published “Trouble on Wheels,” which chronicled his experience pranking people after getting his driver’s license.

That same year, he also wrote about hiking Mount Kilimanjaro with his dad and brother. “The Tallest Men on Earth: A Father and Two Sons Take on Mt. Kilimanjaro—and Try Not to Die” was published by The New York Observer in December 2013.

He connected with Gillan on social media

The pair met online when Gillan came across Kocher’s Instagram account and messaged him.

"Oh gosh. I slid into his DMs on Instagram!" Gillan told Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos on Live with Kelly and Mark in 2023. "He popped up on my recommended friends list on Instagram."

She continued, "The algorithm is tearing the country apart but it brought me together with my guy."

Despite her bold move to initiate a conversation with the comedian, he didn't write back. In a twist, the actress doubled down and figured out a different way to reach him — by finding him on X (formerly Twitter).

“I DMed him on Twitter saying, ‘Hi, your tweets are really funny. I’m Karen, by the way,’” she recalled to Ripa and Consuelos. “It wasn’t very interesting. I hadn’t really read his tweets.”

He and Gillan secretly married in 2022

Gillan and Kocher married in May 2022 at Castle Toward in Scotland.

After secretly tying the knot, the Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star announced the news on Instagram nearly a year later.

Gillan revealed that she and Kocher were wife and husband through an Instagram post captioned, “Last May..."

The accompanying photos featured Gillan in a white strapless Oscar de la Renta gown, her bridesmaids and a bagpipe player.

They went viral after Gillan shared a picture from their couple’s therapy session

In May 2023, Gillan attended a couple’s therapy session while in her Guardians of the Galaxy makeup.

“In honour of Guardians of the Galaxy in theaters this Friday - here’s a screenshot of the time I forgot I had scheduled a COUPLES THERAPY session on a day we were shooting,” Gillan captioned her Instagram post.