The emotional final day of filming the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy

Rory Cashin

Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, writer/director James Gunn and more talk to JOE about the real tears that were shed on the final day of the new Guardians movie.

When the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie arrived in cinemas in July 2014, nobody really knew what to expect. Its headline star was a sit-com actor best known for being an adorable schlub in Parks & Recreation. The writer/director was fresh off a series of ultra-violent comedy horrors like Slither and Super.

Jump forward nearly a decade later, and pretty much everyone involved in the GOTG series is a household name, and the members of the Guardians have become some of the most beloved of the entire MCU. And by all accounts, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will be the final Guardians movie… as least we know them to be.

Writer/director James Gunn has been hired as the new co-CEO for DC Studios (and he’s already hard at work on a new Superman movie), while some of the cast have been quite vocal about this being their final outing as a Guardian. With all of that in mind, JOE recently traveled to Paris to chat to folks involved in making the movie, and the topic of final days came up when we talked to Zoe Saldana and Chris Pratt:

In terms of that final day, Zoe Saldana told us the following: “It was obviously bittersweet. Trying to fight back tears was a challenge. But there was so much gratitude. I kept remembering and reminding myself and staying in that zone of gratitude, so that I won’t jump off into anything else [emotionally].

“And I realised that this is the end, that this may very well be the end. That this will not come back again. So reminding myself that even though this is the end for the Guardians, it won’t be the end for me knowing and keeping up with the cast and the crew and the director and rooting for them. But, yeah, it was bittersweet.”

During the press conference in Paris, JOE also sat down with Karen Gillan (who plays Gamora’s sister, Nebula), and posed the actress the same question. Gillan told us:

“It was so emotional. It was draining and emotional because it was the end of an era and we were all kind of filming this sort of goodbye scene, and kind of looking at each other thinking ‘Oh, this is maybe the last time that we’re all going to be dressed as these characters, playing these characters, all in a room together’. And that felt really meaningful, so we were all just like pretty, pretty emotional. And there were some real tears that weren’t even acting there in the movie.”

Additionally, we sat down with James Gunn, and you can check out that full interview here:

On that final emotional day, Gunn told us: “There were a couple of scenes that were particularly emotional. And one of them was really the hallway fight scene. The day we shot that – well, we didn’t shoot that in one day, we shot that over five days – but on the last day we shot that, it was the last day that all five… Wait, lemme see.

“It was Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, and Sean Gunn, who plays Rocket on set. So they were all there, and that was the last time that we were going to shoot with all of them. That day was very emotional, but also really beautiful.

“And I felt so grateful, as I do now, to have had this group of people around me. Because, you probably see it from being on the circuit, people coming in who profess to be friends but actually aren’t. And I think everyone around here can see that we actually do love each other, and we have become a family throughout all of this.”

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 arrives in Irish cinemas on Wednesday 3 May. You can check out our review of the movie right here.