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Peter Howell talks to Michael Rooker, E4
They made Michael Rooker a whole new set of nasty teeth for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, as if having blue skin and a red Mohawk weren’t strange enough.
“They wanted to make the teeth more prominent,” says Rooker, who plays the wild blue Yondu, an intergalactic bandit leader who whistles up arrows and trouble in the Guardians series. He was in Toronto this week, doing the press rounds for the new movie.
“They added real gold teeth so it’s more shiny. They wanted to bling up my teeth a little more because everyone thought the teeth were so disgusting the first time around they wanted to add to it. I had to relearn how to do the whistling because I had the prosthetic teeth, and they really made a big difference in the sound.”
He laughs heartily, his eyes merry behind round shades. Other actors might have balked at being made uglier for a sequel, but Rooker positively revels in it. (If you recall how his redneck character Merle — previously Rooker’s biggest role — transforms in TV’s The Walking Dead, Yondu got off lightly.)
At 62, the Alabama-born actor is finally getting the kind of attention accorded to top-billed stars, a big jump up from the ensemble roles he’s played for most of a career that has traversed three decades.
Like his co-star Chris Pratt, who previously had supporting-cast status in the TV series Parks & Recreation before becoming paparazzibait with Guardians of the Galaxy, Rooker seems ready to take the next step up the star ladder, thanks to Yondu.
He’s arguably the beating heart of Vol. 2, as his character develops from the nasty and grudge-carrying leader of the space-raiding Ravagers into more of the surrogate father figure he became by accident for Pratt’s character Peter Quill. Rooker was surprised when he read the script to see how much screen time he’d have in Vol. 2.
“This was great. I mean, I’m reading it, and I’m going, ‘Dude, this role is a big deal in this movie!’ And I think that’s what people are going to respond to and they’re going to love. They wanted more Yondu and they’re going to get more Yondu . . . James Gunn really outdid himself and I’m really pleased that he had such faith in me.”
It pays to have friends in high places. Rooker and Gunn have teamed up multiple times previously, with Gunn working as writer and/or director and/or producer. Their collaborations include the zombie horror Slither, superhero comedy Super, horror thriller The Belko Experiment and quite possibly the upcoming blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War, for which Gunn takes a production credit and the Guardians are rumoured to show up. “Omigod, he knows so much and it’s really cool, too, because he’s such a really good writer,” Rooker says of Gunn.
“Having him as a friend means he’s heard many of my stories from the past, growing up and all this kind of stuff.
“We talked a lot on Guardians Vol. 1 about back story and all that, so it’s really cool to see him implement a lot of those conversations that we had back then into Vol. 2.”
It’s not out of the question that Yondu could be spun off into an adventure series of his own. If Liam Neeson can be an action star in his 60s with the Taken franchise, why can’t Rooker?
“Very possible, it’s a very interesting character, and you know, who knows?” he says.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a great role to do spinoffs. You can do all kinds of stuff with this, and even with the Ravagers as a whole. And they’re doing ( Guardians) Vol. 3, so you never know what’s going to happen there. We’re not ruling out anything!”
But despite his close ties to Gunn, there’s no disputing Rooker has earned his time in the spotlight. It’s been a long time coming and it’s great to see.
After beginning his career in 1986, with the critically acclaimed title role in the docudrama Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Rooker settled in for the steady but largely marquee-free work of a character actor in TV and film projects, most of the dramatic and/or horrific and thrilling kind.
He usually plays a badass of one sort or another, and as such has previously appeared opposite his Guardians Vol. 2 co-stars Kurt Russell (in the 1993 western Tombstone) and Sylvester Stallone (in the 1993 action thriller Cliffhanger).
Gunn, a true film geek, loved Rooker in Cliffhanger. So much so, you can read the confrontation between Yondu and Stallone’s Vol. 2 character Stakar Ogord — in a brief scene that hints at future episodes — as a sly in-joke about their ’90s movie encounter.
“When you think about it, it’s a reversal of Cliffhanger,” Rooker says. “I was berating (Stallone) in Cliffhanger, and now he’s berating me. He’s ripping me a new one, and Cliffhanger, I was ripping him a new one!”
Things are going so well for Rooker, he doesn’t even mind the three hours of makeup it takes to transform him into the blue grandeur of Yondu.
Hell, he’s been around so long, he can remember much longer stints in the makeup chair.
“I have a wonderful team, who make it ridiculously pleasant for a three-hour makeup job,” he says. “Slither was 7 1⁄ hours in makeup.
2 That was a lot. This has been a good run, and I’m enjoying it.” Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.