“All you do is yell at each other. You’re not friends.”
“No. We’re family.”
–Nebula and Drax, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2”

May 5th, Star-Lord and his ragtag band of miscreants are once again tapped to save the galaxy in Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.”

As part of the premier events for the movie, the cast and creatives involved gathered at a press conference to talk about the making of the film. In attendance was Chris Pratt “Peter Quill/Star-Lord,” Kurt Russell “Ego,” Elizabeth Debicki “Ayesha,” Michael Rooker ‘Yondu,” James Gunn/Director, Zoe Saldana “Gamora,” Sylvester Stallone “member of Nova Corps,” Karen Gillan “Nebula,” Dave Bautista “Drax the Destroyer,” Pom Klementieff “Mantis,” Sean Gunn “Kraglin,“ and Kevin Feige/Producer.

[Photos and video courtesy of Disney.]

Chris Pratt on working with Kurt Russell: “You know, there’s this thing that happens…you promised yourself you’re not gonna do the thing where you geek out, but…it’s a little inauthentic if you don’t, because if you just go in there and you be like, oh what is it, Kurt? Hey, nice to meet you. Chris. And if I don’t acknowledge…how much I love him and what a fan I am, if you don’t get that out of the way, then it feels a little inauthentic. So I think I did that immediately, and…it doesn’t really take that long to tell someone that you really love them, you really respect their work, and for them to go, yeah thanks. And then, that’s it. At that point, you move forward and there’s this really cool thing that is probably the one thing I never would’ve imagined looking for when I first moved to Hollywood, but like the greatest, the greatest part of it, the biggest secret, is you become somebody’s friend and somebody’s peer rather than a fan. And that’s really nice, and I think Kurt and I have become friends. We connected on a lot of things outside of just the movie. And you know, I have his cell phone number and I’ll give it to each and every one of you–”
Kurt Russell: “Yeah. 310…”

Zoe Saldana on her favorite part of the filmmaking process: “I think that what I loved the most and it may sound selfish but definitely the relationship between Gamora and Nebula. I just, I’m one of three sisters. I have been itching and yearning to see more of a female presence in action films because I love action films. I’m not that deep…I love watching The Equalizer and I’ll watch that 50 times over any kind of dramatic piece. And so to have a film with three female characters that are adding such unique qualities to the film…they are very relevant and their relationships are explored deeply. I was appreciative and super excited and in a way anxious because I know that Gamora is a much more reserved character, so we couldn’t make it a soap opera like I would have wanted to. I wanted to be crying with nose goo and everything and James is like, “You’re like the Clint Eastwood of the movie,” and I was like, “Who’s that? What’s that?” But anyway, that was my favorite. And my least favorite was obviously the makeup process, so.”

Sean Gunn on playing the dual role of Kraglin and motion reference actor for Rocket: “I played two roles in the movie… you know… when you act there’s both the input and the output. The input is the work you put into it and what you do on set and then the output is what you see onscreen, so for me the input is very similar for both characters, but the output is, is totally different because it takes a whole team of people to make Rocket. So, you know, I’m just a member of that team. But yeah, it’s interesting in this movie because Rocket and Kraglin have a few scenes that they’re in together, so…juggling the two things was a very strange and challenging experience for me. But I love it.”

James Gunn on sequels: “…So many sequels are not good. The primary reason in studying them seemed to be that so many of them just kind of do the same thing the first movie did with different template, and so they say, oh people liked the dance-off in the first movie, so what’s our version of the dance-off? People liked “we are Groot” in the first movie, what’s our version of “we are Groot”? And instead of doing that, we really tried to let these characters grow and change. We want to watch them become new people and different people in every film that we come up with. And I think allowing them to be themselves and do their thing, I know that sounds strange because I’m writing what they say, but sometimes I’m just letting it happen inside my own imagination and letting the characters go where they want to go. I think the thing that I didn’t want to mess up was just trying to be a rehash of the first movie.”

Gunn on belonging: “I never feel like I belong. I feel like Rocket, you know. So I think that…for me it’s a very personal film. I have always felt like I didn’t belong. And fortunately I have some people around me who maybe helped me feel like I’m not completely alone in the world, and just as importantly, I think I grew up with some art, some movies, you know, by people…everybody from David Cronenberg to Steven Spielberg, movies where an outcast didn’t feel so alone or music by Alice Cooper, The Clash, for outcasts. Or maybe I was this little kid in Manchester, Missouri who felt like he was completely alienated from all his peers, and by listening and, you know, hearing music and watching movies, I felt a little bit less alone, and I hope that that’s what the Guardians does for people. It’s a movie about outcasts for outcasts. And there’s people all over the world that it touches, and that’s the most rewarding thing by far about making these movies.”

Kurt Russell on becoming young: “Dennis Liddiard’s been my makeup man for 28 movies, and before we went in there…we assumed that it was gonna be all CGI. And he said to James and the cinematographer, hey, I can young this guy down. I got some tricks in my bag. Would that be helpful? And they said, yeah, as much as you can. That would be great. And I was speaking to the gal last night who does the CGI. She said, what did you think of what we did? And I said, I thought it was great. But I understand you didn’t do a whole lot. She said, no we didn’t…we touched it up here and there. He did a fantastic job. He does have a lot of tricks, not just makeup. Cosmetics I should say. But there’s a lot that goes into that actually. It’s not just what you think. Without giving away things, because I hate giving away tricks, you have to create an impression, not an image. And there’s stuff that goes into that. And you want them to look certain places and not look other places…then when you’ve got the help of modern day abilities with technology, I think it’s a much more natural look…”

Sylvester Stallone on becoming part of the Guardians Universe: “…Early on in my career I just always became fascinated with mythology and Joseph Campbell and you know, Man of a Thousand Faces and so on and so forth. So when I started doing Rambo, whatever…there was an evolution that takes place and each generation has to define itself and find its own heroes and find its own mythology and this is the new…generation, and maybe even the next generation’s mythology…When Kevin invited me on board I said, ‘This is interesting because I haven’t gone here”…I mean, I’m kind of earthbound, I’m terrestrial. You know what I mean? This is something that takes place in a whole other sphere where James and the Marvel people have created their own world, their own reality. So I said, yeah, let me visit. Let me drop in here and see what’s up, where the future’s going, you know, and it was great. And it got me out of the house from my three daughters, which is really…Thank you. That’s why I gave you my salary back. My pleasure, my pleasure.”

Kevin Feige on whether Stakar is assembling the original Guardians of the Galaxy from the 1969 comics at the end: “Yeah, they’re definitely the original Guardians. That was the fun of it, and when James had the idea to do more with the Yondu character who was also an original Guardians, the notion that he had a team once like Peter does now…it’d be fun to see them. And he’s (Ving Rhames) definitely Charlie 27. Where we see them in the future, time will tell.”

Feige on Stan Lee’s cameo: “Stan Lee clearly exists, you know, above and apart from the reality of all the films. So the notion that he could be sitting there on a cosmic pit stop during the jump gate sequence in Guardians was something very fun and James had that idea and we shot that, shot that cameo and loved it so much…you see it a couple of times in the movie and it wasn’t in for a long time and we put it back in towards the end of the process where he references that time he was a Federal Express agent and we thought it would be fun to put that and keep that in there because that really says, so wait a minute, he’s this same character who’s popped up in all these films.”

Dave Bautista on what is “family:”: “It just doesn’t have to be one definition to family. I think just the people you love in your lives, like these people up here are…we’re a family, you know. I think that’s what it is and I think that’s the message of our film, that you know, even though families may be dysfunctional, it’s still at the end of the day, do you love this person? Do you care for this person? Would you do anything for this person? And if that answer is yes, then they are your family..”

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” opens May 5, 2017.

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