James Gunn’s Love for Dogs Nearly Sabotaged Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Recently appointed DC CEO James Gunn, is a big-time animal lover. His pets often make an appearance in his Instagram posts. His love for animals often translates into his work. But while filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, his convivial spirit rendered one of the key actors unable to focus on their job. The endearing incident was revealed by the Visual Effects Production Supervisor in an interview.
James Gunn’s Friend Prevented Him From Working
James Gunn is known for his headstrong approach and clear vision. And also his friendly spirit. He is always making friends with people on set and often recasts the actors he enjoyed working with. But this particular friendship not only distracted him from work but affected his friend as well. It is about the dog actor Slate who was on the set of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 as a stand-in for Cosmo the Space Dog.
Stephane Ceretti, who was in charge of VFX in the film revealed that James Gunn would play with Slate in between takes and would find it hard to concentrate on work later. His playing with Slate would also excite her which would make things chaotic on set.
“But every time Slate would come, James loves dogs. So James would start playing with Slate and then by the time we were rolling, Slate was like, ‘Oh, I’m gone. I don’t know. I want to play.'”
The filmmaker is an avid animal lover and has his “dog as friend and cat as his roommate”. He found it hard to concentrate on his job having an adorable fur ball around.
Slate’s Role in the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Ceretti elaborated on how having Slate’s work on set was mostly a stand-in reference. The Oscar-nominated actress Maria Bakalova was brought in to play Cosmo the Space Dog. She voiced Cosmo and was helpful with enacting the part to be later altered in the motion capture technology. Ceretti said:
“It was mostly a reference. Well, we scanned him, we scanned Slate, we use this fur and everything as a reference. We had him do some different things so that we could study the way that everything moves on camera with good-quality material. And what I was doing is every time we would have a scene with Slate, with Cosmo, we had Slate coming in, get in front of the camera, so we know exactly what he looks like in the light and all that stuff. Sometimes have him just do a few things, but Slate was really not a dog that we could have used for shooting, that was a beautiful dog.”
She further added,
“But it was great. It was actually fantastic to have that on set for us because we could match and add the reference. We could look at it all the time, and the vendors really liked that French store that was doing Slate and were very appreciative that we had gone through the effort of doing that for them.”
Slate‘s role in the film was clearly important. But her presence on set brought in a lot of joy. Bakalova called Slate the film’s “very friendly on-set mascot”. Fans were glad about this loving side of the filmmaker and that Slate’s enamoring presence helped bring joy to the set.
Source: Comicbook
