Guardians of the Galaxy's Austin Freeman Reveals How Loki Role Led Him to Vol. 3 (Exclusive)

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe is an ever-expansive world with a seemingly limitless talent pool, the multi-billion dollar franchise will occasionally have actors double up on roles. Gemma Chan famously played Minn-Erva in Captain Marvel before she fronted Eternals as Sersi. Michelle Yeoh had a brief cameo as Aleta Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ahead of her featured part in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as Ying Nan. Most recently, Linda Cardellini lent her voice to Lylla in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, her second MCU role, as fans know her as Laura Barton in various Hawkeye-related projects. Interestingly enough, Cardellini was not the only MCU talent to take on a second role within Vol. 3.

While fans know Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, various actors have done motion-capture work for the tree throughout his on-screen appearances. The latest actor to take on that task was Austin Freeman. Freeman had been no stranger to Marvel Studios when he was cast in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as he had appeared in one episode of Loki Season 1.

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Freeman revealed that his work on Loki essentially landed him the Groot motion-capture part in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

"My agent pitched one person, wasn't quite right, and then he pitched me and the casting director was like, 'Oh, that's perfect. He's just done Loki, so I think that'll be an easy transition. Let me reach out to some of the producers on that and see if they'll say something,'" Freeman recalled. "What I've been told is that the producers from Loki, I'm not sure which ones, but they spoke on my behalf and said that they loved working with me, that Tom [Hiddleston] loved working with me, which is always just so nice to hear that your work and your professionalism is noticed. Basically I got the role without auditioning for Groot. That was a direct kind of transition from Loki right to that, which was really cool."

Freeman played Randy in the second episode Loki Season 1. This brief role saw him as a Roxxcart employee who briefly gets possessed by Sylvie where he became a vessel for the Loki Variant to communicate with Tom Hiddleston's God of Mischief.

"When we worked together on the episode, the cool thing was I didn't really know what to expect, I'd never met him before, but he was so nice," Freeman recalled during him time sharing the screen with Hiddleston. "We sat in the chairs for 30 minutes before we were shooting our scenes and just kind of talked shop a little bit and talked character stuff for him, what Loki was for him, his backstory that he had created, and then just some things that he did that he loved and how this role had kind of changed his life. And then we just got to kind of play, which is cool. I got to go toe-to-toe with one of the best actors in the world and was like, that was super fun. And then that directly led to Guardians, which was really cool too. So it was exciting."

Freeman can be seen in both Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, in theaters now, as well as in Loki Season 1, currently streaming on Disney+.