Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 – The Junket

Kurt Russell. Chris Pratt. Sylvester Stallone. 

There was a fabulous line up of starts at the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 junket. But these three own my heart. 

I’m not giving anything away here by telling you that Kurt Russell plays Ego in the new Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Ego just happens to be Peter Quill’s dad. I’ll review the film in a couple of days, and share loads about it and the new soundtrack (!) but today, let me tell you what happens when these three Hollywood icons are together in a room full of fan-girly journalists. 

So what was it like for Chris Pratt to meet the legendary Kurt Russell who would be playing his dad in this sequel to the popular Guardians of the Galaxy? 

Chris Pratt: “You know, there’s this thing that happens.  You promised yourself you’re not gonna do this thing that happens every time you meet someone who’s an icon, someone that you’ve known way longer than they’ve ever known you. You’ve seen all their stuff and you have this opportunity from time to time, if you’re lucky, to work with someone like Kurt Russell.

And you promised yourself you’re not gonna do the thing where you geek out, but it’s a little inauthentic if you don’t. If you just go in there and you be like, ‘Oh what? Is it, Kurt? Hey, nice to meet you. Chris.’

And if I don’t acknowledge the fact that I love him so much and what a fan I am, if you don’t get that out of the way, then it feels a little inauthentic.

So I did that immediately. And then it doesn’t really take that long to tell someone that you really love them, you really respect their work, and for them to go, yeah thanks. And then, that’s it.

At that point, you move forward and there’s this really cool thing that is probably the one thing I never would’ve imagined looking for when I first moved to Hollywood, but like the greatest, the greatest part of it, the biggest secret is you become somebody’s friend and somebody’s peer rather than a fan.

And that’s really nice, and I think Kurt and I have become friends. We connected on a lot of things outside of just the movie. And you know, I have his cell phone number and I’ll give it to each and every one of you.”

*hilarity ensues*

And, of course, Kurt Russell has been part of the Disney family like forever. *she time travels back to when The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes* What was it like for him to come back and work for the company again?

Kurt Russell: “I feel like I do have a special relationship with Disney, but the truth of the matter is, every time you go to work, you got to make the team. Doesn’t make any difference what movie, what television show, whatever it is. You have to go in there and hopefully make them feel good about the decision they made to hire you. That’s just the way it is.

You can’t walk in there and go, ‘Hey. Done a bunch of stuff, you’ve all seen it, haven’t you? So we’re good, right?’

It’s like, so what? You’re only as good as your last at-bat. So I just wanted to make the team. I wanted to be helpful, wanted to be good, and I was very, very fortunate I ran into a team that had a terrific manager. He really knows his world. He also knows how to execute. He has cast these people perfectly. Perfectly. And it was gonna be hard for me to measure up to that, I knew that. And asked him a lot of questions, drove him a little bit nuts.”

And then… Sylvester Stallone. (He plays a member of Nova Corps.) He had never worked on this kind of action-adventure film before and he was excited to be a part of the team. But when they were asked: How do you feel when you to to a sci-fi convention and you see people dressed up as your characters? 

Sylvester Stallone: I really want to punch them out. *uproarious laughter* I mean, seriously. I mean, probably. *side-splitting laughter* It’s copyright infringement, right? *and the crowd goes wild* 

Question: Is there still something out there that you want to to do? 

Sylvester Stallone: “The only thing I haven’t done is really perform brain surgery on myself. *a roar of laughter* 

I’ve been very, very lucky and you know, I’ve spared Shakespeare undue stress by not doing that, *laughter with tears rolling down faces* because I doubt, you know, ‘You all, how you doing?  To be or not to be.’ *can’t breathe from laughing* Yeah, I don’t think it works. 

You’ve got to know your strengths and your weaknesses, so this is definitely venturing into a new area which, and it takes a lot of skill to work in these films.  It’s one thing to do kind of action movies I do, but this thing it’s… there’s a lot to it and I was very, very impressed by the patience and the professionalism and just the overall skill set that these people possess.  I’m jealous.”

Sylvester Stallone wins the day. 

The rest of the cast that was present included the beautiful and talented Zoe Saldana (Gamora), the formidable Dave Bautista (Drax), amazing Karen Gillan (Nebula), Sean Gunn (Kraglin), Pom Klementieff (Mantis), Michael Rooker (Yondu), Elizabeth Debicki (Ayesha), and of course, director James Gunn and Producer Kevin Feige (Ruler of the Marvel Universe). 

But to have this amazing cast and these three working on a project like this together… well played, Disney. Well played. 

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, May 5th, 2017