New James Gunn Interview For Guardians Of The Galaxy

James Gunn is the brilliance behind the Guardians Of The Galaxy. While in LA, I got to interview and peek inside the head of James Gunn. We had to find out what makes him tick.  I have to admit, this was one of the most incredible interviews I’ve conducted. James Gunn truly opened up and shared so much with us. You tend to think that these Hollywood types are full of themselves, and I found the exact opposite.  I could easily be friends with James Gunn.  During some of what he told us, I just wanted to run up and hug him.  

If you have read any of the interviews James has done since Guardians of The Galaxy came out, you’ll know that this movie is exactly what he envisioned in his head when he started this project.  I would love to live in his head just for a day if this is what’s up there.

There is a lot of dancing in Guardians of the Galaxy, so we had to ask if he a love for dance?

Yeah, I do. When I say Kevin Bacon is a great national hero, I mean it. I love dancing and pop music. I love super heroes and space adventures. I love raccoons. I have all the things I love in one movie.

We did ask if Kevin Bacon knew that he was mentioned in this film.

He knows that I love him.  Kevin was in my last movie.  He doesn’t know it, so we’ve got to keep it quiet.  I don’t think he knows yet.  I’m excited for him to see it.

Kevin has seen Guardians of the Galaxy now and did response via tweet which I find hilarious.

Hey @JamesGunn Just out of #GuardiansOfTheGalaxy it’s nothing short of #Super IMHO

— Kevin Bacon (@kevinbacon) August 2, 2014

For those of you who don’t know, James Gunn is a director, producer, and an actor.  We had to ask if there was anything that he didn’t do.

Well, filmmaking-wise, I could never be a DP. I’m just not able to do it. Yeah, there’s a lot of things I could never do. I think really what I do best is picking other people, finding what other people are good at, and sort of arranging those in a way that makes a good movie. I think that’s really what a good director is able to do. Then I have a basic knowledge of most parts of filmmaking. I can have a conversation with those people which brings a film to the desired place.

When he told us what drew him to Guardians Of The Galaxy, the mom in me just wanted to hug him.  

I think the main thing that drew me to Guardians Of The Galaxy was the ability to create a whole new wing of the Marvel universe. I would find a very difficult time making a sequel to another Marvel movie or even making another earthbound Marvel movie that’s leading directly into The Avengers, because you’re working so much within the world that’s already been created. With Guardians Of The Galaxy, I was able to create, not just a new world, but new worlds, new characters, and new species. I found that to be just the most freeing thing ever. When I was a little boy, I had a box, and this box, I was sort of obsessed with. I was obsessed with the solar system and all the different planets. I would make drawings for each one of the different planets and of the species that lived on that planet — what their pets were, what their houses looked like, what their water systems were like. This box became filled over time with this universe inside of it that I created. That’s where my heart was, and that’s still where my heart is. That’s what this movie is.

His favorite Guardian may surprise you.

The one I feel the most connected to is Rocket, because I feel the outcast in Rocket. Although, I think that Rocket is the meanest Guardian. I think he’s the most selfish Guardian. I think he’s probably the Guardian that learns the least at the end of the movie. He is the saddest. Well, it’s very strange that I connected, because I started to get emotional.  I feel like he’s just this little mangled guy that is completely alone in this world. There’s nothing else like him; he’s been torn apart and put back together again.  He was originally an innocent little animal, and I love animals. I’ve come to love him.  I probably had the greatest time in creating Rocket over any of the other Guardians. Rocket and Groot both unlike Star-Lord.  Chris and I have to be on the same level and see that we see things in the same way. I write his dialogue, he says it. I pull this stuff out of him, he adds stuff. We’re creating a character together.  With Rocket, there’s a lot more people involved. It’s much more like conducting a symphony within one character. It tends to become more of a real character to me.

We also asked him how doing a PG-13 movie versus an R-rated one felt.

When started to make this movie, I didn’t set out to make a movie that was like the movies I loved as a kid like Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Star Wars.  I wanted to make a movie that would make kids and adults feel like I felt when I saw this movie. You know, something that would actively inspire imagination and something that could touch me.  I found it in the great opportunity to make a movie that was about family and about friendship.

It’s so important to be cool and hip and show how you don’t care. This movie is the exact opposite. It’s a movie about caring. It’s a movie that allows emotions into a spectacle film which is extremely rare — real characters, real people with flaws. 

As I learned on this trip, the film process takes a lot longer than you think.  

I wouldn’t be surprised if it was exactly two years from today, when it started.  I came in July of 2012 to meet with those guys. I was pretty much started working on it right after that in terms of storyboarding and writing the screenplay.  I moved to England in February I went to Singapore to finish the film a week ago Monday.  I finished the movie, the visual effects right before I got on a plane. I went from Disney to the airport.  Then I came back here and I finished the 3D just a few days ago.

Letting go has not been the easiest part of it.  Your brain gets used to doing one thing for two years, and this has been my life.  I was talking about Rocket earlier and the weirdest things started happening over the few days before I had to leave for Singapore.  I didn’t want to leave those characters behind. I’m going to miss that.  Those characters have become my friends over the past two years.  I don’t think it was the most difficult, but that’s been very difficult.

I think the most difficult part is simply the length of time; the fact that it’s a marathon.  Also, the lack of sleep that has occurred off and on during those two years.

With the Marvel cinematic universe expanding exponentially, we asked James if there were any characters he’d like to see together in a story or movie.  I’m hoping to see these films shortly:

I would love to tell the Rocket and Groot story for sure. Yeah, I love them. At the same time, I’d love to do the Drax movie. I’d love to do the Gamora film. I think they’re all interesting enough to me. I want to do the Nebula film. It’s something I actually think about a lot. I think that all those characters, I have a deep enough connection to that they could go off on their own direction.

In the Guardians comics, there is a lot of interplay with the Avengers. We had to ask if there were any conversations that he had with Joss Whedon, on what he has done or is doing with the Avengers.

I would talk to Joss, because I didn’t want to do anything that was going to contradict future plans. The one piece of connective tissue is Thanos. He’s the guy who’s at the end of The Avengers. He’s the guy whose the character in our movie, and he will likely show up in future Marvel movies. That was something that all along, I would have conversations with Joss about.

Of course, we asked what was the most difficult thing to bring to the big screen.

Well, definitely the most difficult were the CGI characters, because we had to make them as real and believable and loveable as the rest of the characters in the movie. I am beyond a perfectionist when it comes to visual effects. I’m very very hard on visual effects people to try to get the most out of them. My eyes are really difficult and harsh on that stuff.

Now, you know they always have fun on set.  We did ask if there were any hilarious antics that took place while filming.  (SPOILER ALERT. SKIP THIS ANSWER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM YET BECAUSE IT MAY GIVE SOMETHING AWAY.)

Well,one of our great moments was in the dance off. We didn’t tell Dave Bautista. I went up Lee Pace, Chris and Zoe and I said, “When Chris challenges you to a dance-off, you know, take him up on it.”

Chris started dancing, and then Ronan goes, “You got it, pal, you’re on!” and he throws down his hammer and he’s doing this ridiculous dance that his six foot five frame in this gigantic metal object could do. He’s dancing, and then Gamora starts dancing. Then they turn it over to Dave and Dave is like, “Oh, no.” He did it, and he just started dancing. Then, we had about 200 extras on set or something, and all of them started dancing. My brother who plays Rocket on set started dancing. I have it all on film; it’s one of my favorite things. Yeah, yeah, yeah – it’ll be on the DVD, for sure.

I was shocked with how well Rocket’s voice was done.  We did ask how it was working with Bradley Cooper doing  his voice-over.

I think Bradley had the hardest job of anyone on this movie, because I had such a specific idea of who Rocket was. By the time we recorded him, we had already shot the whole movie. My brother played Rocket on the set, and he was an integral part of the team on set. Sean is what creates the dynamic between those five characters on set, so Bradley had a lot of expectations or hopes of mine that he had to fulfill. The first time he came in was probably the most relieving day I’ve had on the entire film. I always knew the movie would
work if Rocket worked. Thank god, Bradley is a pretty egoless guy which is strange for someone who is as handsome and talented as he is. He was like, “Listen, if you have a line reading you want to give me, if you want me to say a line like your brother said it, just let me know” and I didn’t always take him up on that. Occasionally, I would. There is a lot of things Bradley did a thousand times. We recorded whole scenes that we did with his voice, and we went and put him in the scene. I would be like I think we gotta go do it again because Bradley sounds like a little bit different than he did on the other day or Bradley is a little too angry or he’s not angry enough. Then we’d go back and rerecord it. That’s one of the difficulties when you’re doing a voice actor; you can keep doing it again and again and again and again.

Lastly, we asked him why he went with Yondu.

It’s simply, because I love Yondu’s super power. I thought Yondu’s superpowers is about the coolest thing ever. It’s so different from any super power we’ve ever seen in any movie, that I’m like, I think this is something that could really be cinematic. That’s the main thing that attracted me to Yondu. Also, Michael Rooker is my friend (he plays Yondu). He’s unfortunately my friend, I’m stuck with him, but I thought that I really wanted the chance to write a character for Michael. He’s always playing these tough guys, these hard guys, these sort of humorless guys. I wanted to get that part of Michael that is that big laughing, like sort of the insane maniac that he is and have that be a part of a character. I felt like with Yondu I was able to do that.

My interview with James Gunn was amazing. He really let us into his heart and his soul, and now, hopefully, we have all seen his baby Guardians Of The Galaxy.

Is there anything you learned? Anything we should have asked? Have you seen Guardians Of The Galaxy yet?