Gamora and Drax the Destroyer pay Singapore a visit to promote their latest adventure, on the big screen soon

To promote the latest Marvel superhero movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, stars Zoe Saldana and Dave Bautista and director James Gunn came to Singapore.

Here are some of their responses to questions on Guardians of the Galaxy.

DAVE BAUTISTA: DRAX THE DESTROYER

Did the long hours preparing your make-up have any effect on your attitude towards the film?

Not at all. Drax is the only role I wanted to do like this. I don’t have any plans to play superheroes in other films.

Drax is like a dream role for me but I do want to do other stuff as well – roles where I’m not always in make-up.

Were there any interesting or funny incidents during filming?

If I had to choose one moment, it was that one day they decided to have a dance-off on the set. James (Gunn) was also involved in that.

He had a few hundreds of crew members and extras dancing; it was kind of ridiculous.

There are rumours that when you heard you got the role, you shed a tear. Is this true?

I literally broke down; it wasn’t just a few tears. I was on the way to the gym when my manager called and put my agent on the phone. He said, “Congratulations, Mr Drax.”

I turned the car around and went home; I was just such a mess when I heard the news. It was big news for me and I could never explain how big this was for me. It was life changing.

It was hard for me to leave wrestling to pursue acting, and this to me was the role of a lifetime.

ZOE SALDANA: GAMORA

You’ve done several sci-fi roles such as in Star Trek and Avatar. What is it about these films that attract you?

It’s good stories. They usually come with good directors. There is something very fascinating about working with people that are able to imagine the unimaginable.

Also, as a woman and as a woman of colour, the roles ‘on Earth’ are a little too typical for me. I’m either someone’s wife or girlfriend. I do love those roles as well, every now and then, but not all the time.

Is it true that during one of the fight sequences, you almost broke Chris Pratt’s wrist?

I did? I think I did.

I hit him really hard one time and he said it was okay but then I saw him kind of limp away.

JAMES GUNN: DIRECTOR

How difficult was it to find the perfect Star Lord?

We had a shortlist of five people we thought were pretty good for the role but none of them was quite right.

When it came to Chris, we knew it within 20 seconds of the audition. Chris Pratt is the biggest movie star in the world; people just don’t know it yet.

Not only do I think Chris is one of the biggest movie stars in the world today, I think he is in the line with [sic] the Gary Coopers and the Clint Eastwoods. That is the kind of rare talent that he is.

What can we expect from this film that is different from other Marvel movies?

I think the biggest difference is me, and the cast of weirdoes we have working on this set – the actors, the designers – we really wanted to create something completely new. We wanted to make something relevant to the older films but something that no one has ever seen before.

We didn’t feel restrained by Marvel; we were creating this movie not in relation to Marvel movies but in relation to all movies in general. That was probably the biggest difference.

Be sure to catch Guardians of the Galaxy when it opens in cinemas on Jul 31.