“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” Press Conference Highlights

Now in theaters, the hit finale to James Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 brings his tale of this band of misfits to a close.

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, each one of the group is forced to deal with issues of the past and make plans for the future, all the while struggling in an action-filled blowout attempt to rescue Rocket from the horrors of his own origin. To talk about the making of this no-holds-barred tragicomedy, director/writer James Gunn, Chris Pratt  “Peter Quill / Starlord,” Pom Klementieff “Mantis,” Karen Gillan “Nebula,” Sean Gunn “Kraglin,” Will Poulter “Adam Warlock,” Chukwudi Iwuji “The High Evolutionary,” Maria Bakalova “Cosmo,” and Executive Producer Kevin Feige met up with moderator Nathan Fillion “Master Orgosentry Karja“ for a virtual press conference.

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Press Conference highlights:

On the status of Peter Quill:

Pratt: “…There’s a wonderful monologue that Batista gives, that comes from Mantis, that Quill is a guy who needs to learn how to swim.  He’s been hopping from lily pad to lily pad, woman to woman, and relationship to relationship.  I think that’s a pretty human condition.  I think, oftentimes, we find ourselves in our relationships or in the affiliations we have with a team or a family or whatever…So, yeah, in the beginning, he was running away from the death of his mother, but he got to pretend to be this character based on these pop culture icons of his childhood of the late-80s.  And so, he was dancing around, but all of that was really…he had found himself there, but it was kinda B.S., you know?  And then he found himself with the Guardians of the Galaxy.  And then he thought he could find himself with who his father was.  So, he’s a guy who’s constantly been searching for who he is and then he found it again in his relationship with Gamora.

“And so, when that’s stripped away from him, he’s a guy who’s realizing that all of these various people that he’s found that are Quill, none of them have been the real him.  And so, he’s lost.  And that probably does mean that he’s sad.”

 

On finishing up the trilogy:

Feige: “You know, we’ve had trilogies before.  We’ve had a number of them, actually, and I was thinking, why does this feel so different and so much of a passage of some sort?  And it’s because Guardians really was the first movie that was completely outside of the realm.  It tied in with Thanos and Infinity Stones, but The Avengers were not in it and we weren’t setting up Tony Stark’s next adventure, or Captain America’s.  And it was really our attempt of saying, we don’t wanna just do superhero movies.  We don’t want to just do Iron Man movies or Avengers movies.  We wanted to do, as James said earlier, a big space movie and it worked in a crazy way.  It worked entirely because of James Gunn.  So, it just feels like this trilogy, and James writing and directing all three of them, it represents something unique within the pantheon of the MCU, that I’m very proud of.”

On the evolution of Mantis:

Klementieff : “I love playing this character and I’m so grateful for James to have given me this opportunity…And I think each character, they complete each other, too, you know?  I remember James telling me that Mantis was kind of like the glue that kept the Guardians together in some ways.  I think it’s beautiful and I think the world lacks a lot of empathy, too, so it’s a beautiful message, too.

“And it’s fun because…Mantis’ journey, you know, she evolves so much throughout the movies and she gains so much confidence.  At the beginning, I was more bug-like, doing little hand gestures, like Mr. Burns or like a fly…And then I was like, okay, she spent more time with the Guardians, so she’s more used to being around other people, so, she’s less doing weird stuff and she’s more walking and fighting all these things, you know?  So, that was cool to do.”

Gunn:  “Yeah, I think it’s also cool to have somebody who…their superpower is empathy.  It is feelings.  Emotions are so important to Mantis.  And we’re so used to this very sort of, you know, male hardcore, macho, like, shooting rays out of, you know, their arms and lifting cars and throwing automobiles and shooting people.  And she comes in with emotions and is equally, if not more, powerful.  She was the one that almost took down Thanos, you know?”

On playing the on-set Rocket:

Sean Gunn: “…It takes a team of people to create Rocket.  I’m kind of a member of that team.  I think of the creation of Rocket almost like a relay race where James takes the baton of the character that he’s created and passes it to me.  I work with the cast, you know, on set and do the first part, and then we hand it to the visual effects team and they start to put the whole thing together.  Then you give it to the anchor, and Bradley makes the whole thing work.

“And the thing I take away from that…is it’s really a reminder to me of what is so important about collaboration to the creative process and that the whole experience of acting is about giving and not about yourself.  You know, you don’t become an actor because you think that you’re special.  You become an actor because you think other people are special.  So, the idea of trying to give what I have to the creative process–I’ve never felt that more fully as I have trying to be a part of that process, collaboratively with all these other minds over the course of these three movies.  So, just being able to really try to do that is a reminder to always try to do that.  That’s what makes it great.  That’s what makes it work, is when we can all kind of work together towards the same goal.”

On guilty pleasures:

Fillian:  “We’re going to go back to music.  Music is a big part of this film trilogy.  Guilty pleasures.  What’s on your Zune device for guilty pleasure listening?”

Klementieff:  “Pony.  Ginuwine.  I love Magic Mike”

Gillan:  “Britney Spears.”

Sean Gunn:  “I love everything Barry Gibb ever wrote for female vocalists in the ‘70s.  I don’t feel guilty either.”

Bakalova:  “I don’t even want to call it a guilty pleasure but I’m listening to Estonian Trap from an artist called Tommy Cash.”

Poulter:  “Yeah. I don’t like to believe in guilty pleasures either. I kind of own it. But S Club 7.”

Iwuji:  “Moulin Rouge.  Voulez-vous Coucher.”

James Gunn:  “I also don’t feel guilty loving Mm-Bop by Hanson. Thank you.”

Feige:  “I do believe in guilty pleasures.  ‘Cause some of my favorite things to listen to is the incidental music from The Price is Right circa 1970.”

Gillan:  “…What?”

Klementieff:  “What is that?”

Sean Gunn:  “Like, in your car?”

Gillan:  “There’s so much to unpack here.”

Feige:  “I felt guilty that everybody thought there’s no guilty pleasure music.”

 

In case you missed it, here’s the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3:

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, in theaters now.