Comic Con Cape Town 2024 brought actor Sean Gunn to South African shores. It also gave us the opportunity to sit down and chat to the Guardians of the Galaxy star about everything from his Gilmore Girls days, and long history of working with older filmmaker brother James, right through to life on the Superman set (where he’s playing scheming businessman Maxwell Lord), why we should be really, really excited for upcoming animated DC Comics series Creature Commandos, and his cats.
Thanks to the Comic Con organisers and PR team for setting up this interview.
Noelle (Pfangirl.com): First off, Marvel or DC?
Sean Gunn: [Pauses dramatically] Both. Always both.
More seriously, you’re one of the very few actors, possibly the only one, who has had notable roles in both cinematic universes. If we time travel back, 15 years or so, and we were to say that to you, what would your reaction be?
Sean Gunn: I think more than anything I’d be grateful to know that I’m still working! And that I’ve been able to maintain some good employment. I love doing all types of things, I never set out to point my career in any one direction or another, but you never can tell where it’s going to go, and so here I am now with the multiple roles in these large universes.
Actually, just going a little bit back in your filmography, there’s a ton of Gilmore Girls fans in South Africa. What would you say is the biggest difference between working on something like that and then something say like Guardians of the Galaxy? Is there one, from a performance side?
Sean Gunn: Well, not so much from a performance side. It’s like every job, like if you’re an architect, every house that you build is going to have different parameters and expectations, so there are things about them that are different but there are also the things that are the same. So, the way that I personally approach playing a character truthfully, where it comes from and how I try to get inside the mind of a character, that stays the same regardless of the project, but there’s a lot of technical things. Like with the movies with green screens and all these massive sets and I’m doing mo-cap sometimes.
Well that brings us to one of our other questions, in addition to Kraglin in Guardians of the Galaxy, you did the mo-cap for Rocket, since day one we’ve seen those pictures of you on set in your little green suit. What is it like playing two characters in the same film, essentially? And do you approach performance capture differently from when it’s yourself in front of the camera?
Sean Gunn: A little bit, and that’s the thing, Rocket was so unique, because it wasn’t traditional motion capture for the most part, it was motion reference. So when they’re watching what I’m doing and then using it to animate, rather than doing it digitally. Like, for with Weasel for example, for Suicide [Squad], that’s traditional motion capture where everything I do, the camera is getting and when you see Weasel do stuff that’s all me doing it. When you see Rocket do stuff, sometimes it’s me and sometimes they’re making it up in terms of the hand gestures.
The fun part of the process is really kind of, figuring it out as you go what works best for the scene and for telling the story and for Rocket usually that could change on any given day, how I would be best helping the other actors or the visual effects team or what have you.
I think every siblings want to know, what’s it like taking direction from your brother?
Sean Gunn: Fortunately he’s the older brother, so taking direction is a little less difficult. And also, fortunately, he’s very good as his job! If he weren’t quite so good I think it would be harder time. But the truth is there’s no one I like working with more than my brother. We have a very good creative relationship where we understand where the other is coming from and he’s the easiest person in the world to work with.
Another question about Guardians, now this is more on the technical side. We’ve seen or read quite a bit about Dave Bautista’s makeup transformation and the same for Karen Gillan. What as the process like for you? Especially in the later movies where you got Yondu’s headpiece?
Sean Gunn: It was not nearly what Dave and Karen had, but it was still a couple hours in makeup. I think we started, when we started doing the third movie about two and a half hours and got that down, maybe shaved 45 minutes from that by the end of the run. My battle would be not falling asleep in the makeup chair. They’d be doing things on my head and I’m just drooping down [mimes falling asleep]. But yeah it’s just something you do, I love doing it and once it’s there I forget it’s there. It snapped on at the end, it’s very cool it’s very light.
And what’s up for you next? We do know about the Superman stuff, but what else is on the cards?
Sean Gunn: I can’t talk too much about [Superman], obviously, but some fun DC stuff and Creature Commandos which is coming out later this year I believe. I can’t wait for an audience to see that, I think it’s really excellent material. It’s one thing I really admire about my brother James, he’ll do something like that which almost seems like a side project but you read it and it’s as dense as anything, as any material that I’ve read in the last several years. It’s such a beautiful piece of work so really excited about that.
Also, I’m doing some indie movies, I like going up and down the budget spectrum. I just finished a really cool indie called Anywhere that I shot in Oklahoma. And doing a couple more before the summer’s over.
And managing to still fit in a few little experiences like this?
Sean Gunn: Yeah all over the place. I wish I got to see my cats more.
[Planned questions instantly derailed] Tell us about your cats!
Sean Gunn: I have two cats, they’re both fourteen this summer. And they’re the best. Their names are Tommy and The Business. I miss my wife too when I’m gone but I get to see her a lot more. She comes with and we’re on the road together sometimes, plus she knows where I am when I’m gone; my cats I can’t say the same. It’s the worst part about being on the road.
[back on track] We can’t really talk about Superman, but obviously we’ve seen the promotional pictures off the set, and there seems like a really good attitude to just doing the best work and really delivering something that’s both new and honours the characters? Are we right in thinking that?
Sean Gunn: Well, since I can’t talk about any of the on-screen stuff, I can say as far as the off-screen stuff goes, it’s been really great and I know that my brother James is very skilled and his partner Peter Safran is very skilled at creating a good team, a great group of people that work together as a team, and I’ve noticed that every step of the way.
We have to wrap up but one quick question, you’re here at Comic Con Cape Town, you see loads of people dressed up in cosplay. If you could be any character for fun, who would be?
Sean Gunn: I think I’d be Woody Woodpecker. If you’ve seen any of the old cartoons he’s a maniac, it’s just pure chaos. That sounds pretty fun.
