Yondu was a lot of fun to meet! As a huge fan of some of his previous work, I was really excited to get the chance to chat with Michael Rooker while visiting the set of Guardains of the Galaxy 2. During our interview, I learned a few fun facts.
6 Things You Didn’t Know About Michael Rooker’s character, Yondu
He had to learn to talk with Yondu’s teeth in place:
I had to learn how to talk with these in my mouth. My voice is already a little bit throaty. I just keep it back here to help.
It took about 2 hours for all of Yondu’s makeup to apply.
Half of this is makeup and half of this is just me. I’m like a blue man from Kentucky. You know they have real blue people in Kentucky
The new fin he wears isn’t as heavy as it looks:
A lot of people like this fin. It’s awesome. The fin’s not heavy. It’s hollow. They were going to put practical lights and different things in it, but they decided not to. They just decided to keep it natural. If they’re going to do that kind of stuff, they’ll do it in post, so in post-production they’ll do that.
Did he really team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy?
Well, they’ve teamed up with me. Please. I’m the one that can whistle and take out a whole army, okay?
Expect to see a different side of Yondu:
There’s some differences from the first one. We didn’t get too in-depth with the first movie. We get to learn a bit more about Yondu and his relationship with Quill. I won’t tell you specifics because I don’t want you to know.
There’s a chance Yondu’s crew rebelled against him:
Well, my crew is a very violent and aggressive. They’re always looking, I’ll just put it this, they always look for a weakness. They’re always trying to challenge me in the background and stuff and trying to figure out ways to be me or be the leader and all that kind of stuff.
There’s loyalty going on, but there’s also a lot of rivalry. Almost in everything and that’s kind of what, what the dynamics, that’s what is going on. There’s this rivalry and for me, yeah, for, it goes on all the time because of Yondu is. He’s the leader of this whole ravaging group, so.
So much fun!! There was a lot of personal back and forth with Michael that wasn’t necessarily relevant to the script that I didn’t want to include. But just know he is a lot of fun and really personable and open to chat! Always appreciate that from an actor.
*Disney invited me to the set to interview the cast. All opinions are my own.