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Even with blue skin, red contact lenses, intimidating gold teeth and a metal mohawk, Michael Rooker is in out-of-this-world love with being in a cosmic-superhero movie.
Still, playing the alien Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy (in theaters Aug. 1) is an intense gig, and Rooker's hanging out in a golf cart and taking a break with a reporter on the Shepperton Studios lot. That means a prime time for needling from his friend, director James Gunn, as he races off to film a scene.
"Be careful. He might try to kiss you by the end of the interview," Gunn jokes.
The gravelly voiced Rooker, 59, responds with a hearty laugh. "Hey, we can snuggle if we want!"
Like many other characters in the Alabama-born actor's 30-year career, Yondu is more likely to punch a guy than hug him, but the role Gunn wrote specifically for Rooker is also a complicated one.
Yondu is connected to the charismatic outlaw at the heart of the movie, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt). Years before he would become Star-Lord, Peter was an Earth boy who endured a tragedy and then was taken off his home planet by Yondu, the kid's surrogate father figure.
"He's feeling lost, vulnerable, defeated, emotionally drained and hurt, and here is Yondu in this light coming down and brings him up into the spacecraft and takes him away," Rooker says. "It might have been pretty horrific, but also a bit cool."
Yondu raises Peter alongside the Ravagers, an outer-space biker gang of sorts usually up to no good, and as an adult, Peter schemes with Yondu to steal a mystical and powerful orb.
But Peter grabs it and goes off on his own, which leads to Yondu and the Ravagers chasing him and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy as the misfit heroes also try to keep the orb out of the mitts of space villain Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).
Yondu has "some interesting issues — not a good guy, not a bad guy. There's hope and there's a heart inside Yondu," Rooker says.
"It's not so black and white — I should say blue and white. And I enjoy roles that are like that, even if they're not in some galaxy somewhere other than ours."
Gunn saw Yondu as a way to give his pal a part that made the most of his liveliness and "that crazy Rooker laugh," he says. "He's very good at playing hard-asses you also feel something for."
In Marvel Comics lore, Yondu was one of the founding members of the Guardians of the Galaxy in 1969, yet this is definitely Gunn's take, Rooker says. Gone is the loincloth and large head fin of yore — this Yondu sports the smaller mohawk (a prosthetic added to Rooker's shaved head) but does borrow the character trait of using a whistle-controlled arrow from the comics.
Rooker also grew his nails out a little bit, mainly to help him nail Yondu's personality: "They're not so long and pointy that they're like demon things, and yet they're not so manicured like a regular human guy."
Even his "regular" dudes sometimes are a little off, such as the semi-psychotic Merle Dixon on AMC's The Walking Dead. Rooker became a fan favorite on the hit show, and when Gunn first approached him about being in Guardians, Rooker didn't know if he could do it.
Then Rooker got the call that Merle was getting killed off — twice, since he also turned into a zombie — in the show's third season.
Because it freed him up to do Guardians, Rooker says, he has never been happier to lose a steady gig. "The Walking Dead fans would not like to hear that, but you know what, it was going to happen eventually."
And Yondu might find his own gang of followers off-screen, too, if Guardians is a hit.
"The fandom that exists for Marvel Comics and their characters is astronomical. It's worldwide, just like The Walking Dead," Rooker says. "I'm really excited about that. I like comic geeks!"
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