One of the more fun spin offs from Disney recently is the extremely lighthearted I Am Groot series based on the ultra popular Guardians of the Galaxy franchise. The director of that show, Kirsten Lepore, recently shared that she made Bradley Cooper scream for an hour on the show.
The second season of the animated shorts recently came out and Lepore sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss just what it was like making one of the world’s most popular and talented actors get hoarse for a role.
Bradley famously reprised his role as Rocket Racoon for the show, something she calls season one’s “magnum opus.” He appeared in the season one finale, and she recalled the intense recording process.
“Yeah, it was an amazing record session. It was incredible. It only took him two seconds to find it, and then there was also a lot of shouting in that episode, so I felt bad. We had to go from zero to sixty into shouting, and so he was just shouting for an hour. (Laughs.) He was such a good sport about it, but at the end, we mailed him some tea. I was like, ‘I feel so bad. I feel like I killed your voice. I just made you shout for an hour, Bradley Cooper.'”
She also touched on what it was like to have the responsibility of shepherding the character in a new vehicle, and how much input she got from James Gunn about it.
She said they has a meeting and pretty much just talked about how to handle the character “one on one.”
“He said that I have to remember that Groot is a bad baby and that Groot is kind of like an emoji guy, which really resonates with me as someone working in animation. His face is so expressive, and it’s like an emoji.”
The key to Groot, she said, was that he’ll strike a pose and “you know exactly what he’s thinking about” and “what he’s talking about.” What about Vin Diesel’s recording process?
Apparently, the star didn’t need any notes. He just “runs through them” and “watches and does all the ‘I am Groots’ in one go.” If he doesn’t nail it, she said, there’s usually another take they can use. “He really hits it on the head every time,” she said.
The second season of I Am Groot is currently streaming on Disney Plus.