Behind-The-Scenes Facts From 'Guardians of the Galaxy' That Demand A Rewatch

It's not uncommon for a director like James Gunn to go above and beyond to hire a particular star to portray one of his characters. After all, he wrote the Guardians of the Galaxy script, so he had strong opinions on who should play the characters in the movie. Similarly, Jon Favreau insisted on seeing Robert Downey Jr. play Tony Stark in Iron Man, so it's not unprecedented in the MCU.

Of course, things were a little bit different for both actors. Most producers saw working with RDJ as risky due to his past problems, while Pratt was overweight and not in "superhero shape" for the part. This made it difficult to picture the actor in the role, and casting him surprised a lot of fans who knew him from Parks and Recreation​​​​​​.

Initially, Gunn had no interest in hiring Pratt, but he completely changed his mind after meeting the actor. Gunn was adamant about hiring Pratt following a 30-second audition; he suggested giving the actor a CGI six-pack to overcome his weight. Fortunately, this wasn't necessary, as Pratt dropped all of his excess weight and packed on the muscle, toning his body for the role.

Rocket Raccoon is one of the funniest characters in Guardians of the Galaxy, and that has a lot to do with Bradley Cooper's vocal talents. Still, bringing the character to life required more than a voice actor and the artistic wizardry of the movie's VFX team. In order to place Rocket into scenes with other actors, James Gunn's brother Sean Gunn threw on a motion-capture suit and acted out all of his parts. This made it easier for the animators to have him interact with the other characters, and Gunn's work was spectacular, as he also provided Rocket's facial expressions.

Still, he's not the only actor who played the part. Gunn is comparatively much taller than Rocket, so he couldn't perform all of his scenes in mo-cap. Another actor named Arti Shah, a little person, played Rocket in scenes that weren't practical for Gunn. Shah wore an image of Rocket's face on her chest, which helped draw her co-stars' eyeline to Rocket. In addition to those three actors (and the VFX artists, of course), Rocket was modeled on a real raccoon named Oreo. The critter was brought to the set and provided the basis for the character. Gunn even brought Oreo to the movie premiere.

You might think Vin Diesel walked into a recording booth and simply said, "I am Groot," over and over again to get enough takes for each of his appearances as Groot in the MCU, but that's not at all what happened. James Gunn had a unique script made just for him, so he would know what Groot was saying. This helped him with the proper inflection and tone, which made the repeated phrase sound different each and every time.

Gunn mentioned the script in a Facebook post, saying, "This is the special Groot version of the script that only Vin Diesel and I have, where every Groot line is printed in English instead of Groot, so Vin will know what the various 'I am Groot's' mean. I love putting this thing together."

On top of knowing what each utterance of Groot's signature catchphrase meant, Diesel also recorded them in multiple languages. Instead of letting another actor dub the lines in their native languages, Diesel recorded "I am Groot" in multiple languages for each time the line is spoken in the movie. In addition to English, he recorded the line in German, French, Russian, Hindi, Kazakh, Hungarian, Spanish, Mandarin, and Portuguese. According to Marvel, this was done "to uniquely customize the moviegoing experience for international audiences."

After smashing into the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy as Star-Lord, Chris Pratt solidified himself as a future Avenger. Before that could happen, though, he stole his costume. Modern superhero costumes are incredibly expensive and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, so nabbing a costume is a pretty big deal. But the actor had a fantastic reason for taking it. 

Pratt explained his decision in an interview with Panzer TV:

I stole the jacket and some of the wardrobe so that, if this movie comes out and does what everyone hopes it can, I can follow the example of someone - say, like, a Russell Wilson - and go visit kids. If it was a big enough movie to where it would mean something to a kid who’s sick in the hospital for Peter Quill or Star-Lord to come visit them, I’ll do that. I think that’s awesome, man. That would give me real meaning for this movie, you know?

The Collector is one of the most fascinating characters in Guardians of the Galaxy, and he has a rich backstory in the comics. He was brought to life by Benicio del Toro, who played him perfectly, and while the Collector is undoubtedly interesting, he's hardly as fascinating as his collection. His home on Knowhere is also a museum and menagerie, which holds countless unique items, creatures, and sentient beings, and pretty much all of them are Easter eggs.

The Collector has Cosmo, a Terran dog from the Soviet Space program, a Dark Elf (the bad guys from Thor: The Dark World), a birth pod/cosmic cocoon, which is the incubating chamber of the Sovereign and was likely placed there as a nod to Adam Warlock. Of course, he's also got Howard the Duck in there, and he's got company in the form of a Frost Giant and a Chitauri. There's a case containing slugs, which directly references James Gunn's 2006 film Slither. Those are just a few items people have noticed from the movie, but there are far more Easter eggs in the Collector's collection. 

Arguably, Chris Pratt's Peter Quill/Star-Lord is the standout performance of the film. He brings a lot to the table, and the audience accepts him immediately. He's funny, charming, goofy, and roguish as the film's leading protagonist, and in a lot of ways, Quill is a lot like Pratt. The reason for this is simple: James Gunn filmed a lot of takes of the actor screwing around, changing up the dialogue, and carrying on... and then he just put it all in the movie.

The scene where Quill presents the orb to the Collector was all Pratt because he really did drop the ball on that one. He literally dropped the prop as he presented it, so he recovered and played out the scene. That wasn't in the script, and Pratt truly did drop the thing. Gunn liked it so much, he kept the take. He also improvised a ton of lines throughout the movie. When he flips the bird to the guards while saying, "I don't know how this machine works," that was ad-libbed. Another line of his was the comment about his ship looking like a Jackson Pollock painting under a blacklight.