Guardians of the Galaxy’s Austin Freeman Details Collaborative Process With Sean Gunn (Exclusive)

It takes a village to bring a Marvel Studios production to life, but the same can be said for just one individual character. Guardians of the Galaxy is made up of two completely computer-generated heroes in the forms of Rocket Raccoon and Groot. Unlike their MCU CGI counterparts like Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk and Josh Brolin’s Thanos, the actors tasked with voicing these characters are not the same actors that are providing motion-capture on set. Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel lend their chords to Rocket and Groot, but it is Sean Gunn and Austin Freeman that provide the physical embodiments of the fan-favorite pairing.

Sean had being doing on-set motion-capture for Rocket since the character was introduced in 2014 while Austin’s first experience as  Groot came in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special ahead of his reprisal in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Austin detailed his collaborative process with Sean.

“I got to work with Sean a lot. We shot Guardians 3 over about seven months. I think it was late October, early November when they started some of the blue screen stuff with Rocket and Lylla and Tefs and Floor. So they had some of that stuff going before very, very early November when principal photography started,” Austin said. “I worked with Sean basically the whole time, and I got to ask him just some tips. ‘Okay, you’ve been doing this since the beginning. What are some things that you do?’ 

“He was really open and was able to talk with me about just how the movement is captured into the performance. And he was there, he was doing all of the stuff for Rocket. There were some stand-in things that happened when he was playing Kraglin, but he was there doing everything.”

Beyond the Rocket motion-capture, Sean fulfills the live-action role of Kraglin in the Guardians franchise. The latest film had him triple dip, as he also provided the voice of Young Rocket in flashback scenes.

“He has a great kind of, it’s his voice, but it’s almost like a blend of his voice and almost like an imitation of Bradley Cooper that he does too that’s like Rocket’s voice,” Austin said of Sean’s vocal work. “It was almost like we had Bradley on set too, which was kind of interesting. He was really cool. It was great to talk with the two when we were working together.”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is currently in theaters.