James Gunn is right—Rocket is the secret protagonist of the Guardians of the Galaxy saga. While each member of the Guardians has grown leaps and bounds since the series began in 2014, no character better embodies the heart of this franchise than the broken, spiteful bounty hunter who becomes a true hero who believes all life is precious, once he accepts that he, too, is deserving of love.
But who exactly plays Rocket in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise? The answer isn’t as simple as you may expect—especially in this final chapter.
While some want to heap credit purely on Bradley Cooper, the voice actor behind the genetically-manipulated raccoon, the character of Rocket is brought to life by number of people.
Chief among them may be Sean Gunn, who also plays Kraglin in the Marvel film series, and does the motion capture for Rocket on set. Yep, Bradley Cooper only comes in at a later stage, and Sean Gunn not only physically acts the entirety of Rocket’s part, but voices him too, only to be replaced later (for the most part).
But more people are responsible for the performance than just those two, James Gunn tells us.
“Rocket is a mixture of a lot of different people”
“Well, it’s complicated, because it isn’t even really only those two actors. It’s Sean, it’s Bradley. It’s the animators, Framestore and Weta Workshop–they are actors who helped to create it. And it’s me,” says Gunn.
Yep, you read that right, even James Gunn himself contributes to the performance. How so? He gives an example from the latest film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, in cinemas May 4 across the Middle East and May 5 across the world.
“For instance, when Rocket first hears from the High Evolutionary that he wants to study his brain, and they’re not going to the new world, I wanted a specific thing out of his eyes,” says Gunn.
“So I filmed myself doing the thing with his eyes, and then that’s what’s in the movie.”
The group performance, in Gunn’s eyes, has made the character come alive in a different way.
“I think it’s one of the reasons why the character feels so real to me, because it isn’t just like how Chris is Star Lord, you know? It’s a complicated thing.”
How Bradley Cooper and Sean Gunn work together to make Rocket
But how do Bradley Cooper and Sean Gunn work together, we wonder. Does Bradley watch how Sean does it and do his own interpretation, or does he lock himself away from Sean’s version to come up with his own?
“Bradley does hear Sean’s readings, and sometimes they influence them. Sometimes they don’t. Bradley definitely brings his own thing to it. The way that Bradley and I record the scenes is not Bradley acting out what’s on TV because we’re on monitors. Instead, I reread the other characters’ lines, and act everything out with Bradley, so he’s got somebody else real to bounce off of. It’s a complicated thing, but, but it’s gotten more and more refined with every movie,” says Gunn.
Rocket is voiced by three people in Guardians 3
For the first time, however, Bradley’s voice will not be the only voice of Rocket. In fact, there are three voice actors for Rocket in this film, including Noah Raskin, the film’s editor’s daughter, Cooper, and Sean Gunn himself, who voices young Rocket.
That was not the plan, Gunn reveals. It ended up happening organically.
“My plan was, even though Sean had voiced everything we recorded, was to use a child. The very first little Rocket we meet, who says ‘it hurts’, that’s Noah Raskin, our editor’s daughter, who is a little baby. She says it hurts,” says Gunn.
“Then the young Rocket is all Sean. We recorded many, many children doing those lines, and it never sounded right. It just didn’t work. And we even did a test screening with it and went with the best kids, and it just did terribly. Then Bradley tried many, many times to get the voice right, but his voice is just too—he’s just too much of a strapping barrel-chested man. The deepness of his voice was apparent. He was able to do the ‘tween’ Rocket, but not baby Rocket. It just sounded ridiculous,” says Gunn.
“So we just went back to the one that had worked, which was Sean’s voice, and that’s the one that we have in the movie,” says Gunn.
Chris Pratt: Sean Gunn is the unsung hero of our series
While this may be a group effort, Chris Pratt, for one, wishes that Sean Gunn got more credit for his performance as Rocket.
“If you look at the dedication that Sean has to playing Rocket, he’s an incredibly unsung hero of our series. He gets very little credit, his face isn’t on the work, his voice isn’t in the work. And yet every single f***ing day he shows up, and he puts real passion. When he’s crying tears, they’re real tears. He’s down on his hands and knees playing this character in a way that [he and James] would do for free. They happen to do it for a lot of money because they’re worth it, but they would literally do it for no money because it’s what they’ve been meant to do since they were kids,” says Pratt.
Enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, everyone. Read more from Gunn here. More from Pratt here. And if you’re in the Middle East, get your tickets here.