Michael Rooker gets a good laugh at me.
I’ve just asked the actor whether his character from Guardians of the Galaxy, Yondu, may possibly resurface again given that in the Marvel cinematic universe characters sometimes return unexpectedly.
“I'm sorry. What did you say? Oh… it must be we have a bad connection,” Rooker says.
I actually try to adjust the volume on my phone.
“Oh I see what you did there,” I realize, acknowledging, I haven’t had my coffee yet.
He’s not about to give away the fate of a character in a series which parent company Disney is famously secretive about.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 comes out later this year. Rooker won’t say whether he’ll play Yondu again — the blue, flying arrow-steering ravager who becomes a father figure to Star-Lord (played by Chris Pratt).
But he will say that he’s happy to be back mingling with fans after two years of COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, including his appearance this weekend at Fan Expo Canada.
“It's been a drag and a total drag, Rooker says. “I mean I ended up having it back in July in the very first year and it was rough man.”
He says back then people knew very little about the virus and catching it meant lengthy isolation.
“My doctor was telling me ‘Don't even go out until you test negative,’” Rooker recalls.
So he ended up getting an old airstream trailer he parked in his driveway and living there for two months, which is how long it took him to test negative.
“I ended up being okay. So, yeah, I was very fortunate. You know, others were not and it was terrible. It was a terrible time,” Rooker says.
He says he’s glad to be getting on with life and is “super happy that our conventions are coming back and in the really cool format.”
Rooker says he loves interacting with fans, but also enjoys roaming the convention floor, particularly Artist Alley.
“They end up bringing in probably the premier artists of our time you know, these are great, amazing, amazing people.”
While he enjoys mingling with fans in person, he’s become more selective about how he does so virtually. He left Twitter in 2018, saying the conversation there was getting worse. He says if someone has something ugly or nice to say, he’d rather hear it face to face.
“I'm not into this anonymity or you know, you never know who you're talking to,” Rooker says. “People feel free to say anything they want. I don't think people should say anything they want. I mean, you have the right to do that. But whether you should, that’s a different deal, isn't it?”
Rooker is far less intimidating to talk to than some of the bad guys he’s famous for playing.
Even though those characters are often rough — Yondu from Guardians or Merle from Walking Dead— they are often fan favourites.
“I like playing roles that are on this tightrope, you know?” Rooker explains. “You don't know if they're bad or good yet. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes it's bad. It’s just like it's challenging.“
He says he “digs” those roles.
It helps that he’s become famous for them as well. The role of Yondu, Rooker says, was written for him by director and friend James Gunn, who he’s worked with often.
MORE: You can see more photos here.
While playing these parts might come easily to Rooker, it’s obvious that these are characters he has spent time thinking about too.
Yondu may feel like he deserves credit for not letting the other Ravagers eat Star-Lord when they first meet, but Rooker points out, he does end up teaching him what he needs to know to survive.
“He decided not to give Star-Lord to Ego. He has an attraction for this kid himself. And he, he wants to raise him as what he thinks that a human would raise a child.
“And does a good job, right? Star-Lord can defend himself and against any of these alien beings that are on his ship, you know, and so he made him that way. He taught him to be tough, tough as nails and to be able to take care of himself in space, okay. So that connection is vital.”
Similarly, Merle on walking dead may be an unsavoury character for many reasons, but he loves his brother.
“They've become some of the most lovable characters on that show. But without Merle in the beginning Daryl wouldn't seem so great either. Because you gotta have that opposite, there's got to be that yin and yang.״
He points out that pairing opposites is a long-standing technique in lots of great writing.
If Rooker has some good instincts about writing, they seem to have served him well. The actor has been working consistently in Hollywood for the better part of four decades, no small feat in an industry which is famously fickle.
So what’s his secret?
“Doing it my way,” Rooker says flatly. “I'm not a yes man, alright. Never have been, never will be. But that being said, your way better well be better than their way or your way has got to make them forget about their way. And they go, ‘Oh, no, no, let him do it,’ you know.
“I've been very fortunate that most directors that hire me, they hire me for who I am and my abilities and what I bring to the floor and they love, usually they love what I do.“
If they don’t love it, he says, he has the ability to take input from a director just enough so that he’s making them happy but is still doing what he does.
“I can take their way and have it influence me enough to be able to still do it, okay, and that's the trick.”
He adds that acting “has been fun for me. I think that’s a big key.”
Rooker doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. Next up you’ll be able to catch him in a sprawling and star-studded 1800s epic Horizon written and directed by his friend and colleague Kevin Costner.
“I play a really cool character by the name of Thomas Reardon. Sergeant Major Thomas Reardon at your service, sir. Okay, so we're gonna have a blast. We start really super soon. And there's just so many actors in this epic. It's just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful piece. And it's in four parts. No. It's amazing. Every time I read it, I told him (Costner) the other day, every time I read it I see something new and exciting. It excites me in a whole different way. And also, the writing is fantastic. And my character’s gonna be awesome and fantastic. And I'm going to have a blast doing it and it’s been a long time since I've gotten to be on horseback.”
