Sean Gunn is done playing Rocket Raccoon. The actor, who provided the on set motion capture performance for the Guardians of the Galaxy character across three films, says his body has called it quits on the role, and he made it plain there is no coming back.
“My knees are fine, but since I turned 50 a couple of years ago, I am retired from Rocket,” Gunn said on The Brandon Davis Show. “Not that [Marvel has] called, but if they did, I don’t think I could do the motion reference for Rocket anymore. I’m too old.” Deadline published the comments Wednesday, and they spread fast among Marvel fans still holding out hope for more Guardians.
The physical toll explains the exit. Gunn spent years crouching, pivoting and scrunching his 6 foot frame into raccoon proportions on green screen stages, wearing the skintight leotard the process demands. Asked whether it hurts after a while, he did not hesitate. “Yes! Everyone thinks it’s my knees, but it’s really my feet and my ankles,” he explained. “I’m in a catcher’s crouch, and I’m pivoting a lot on my points of contact with the ground. And over the years, I think it had a little bit of an effect.”
The split in duties is what made his job so brutal. Bradley Cooper voiced Rocket from a recording booth, while Gunn did the body work on camera, giving animators the reference for every snarl, scamper and slump. He also played Kraglin in the same films, the Ravager crew member audiences actually saw with his own face.
Retiring from Rocket does not mean retiring from cape movies. Gunn already jumped to the DC Universe, playing villain Maxwell Lord in Superman last year and returning for the Peacemaker Season 2 premiere. His brother James Gunn runs DC Studios as co-CEO alongside Peter Safran, and The A.V. Club notes rumors point to him appearing in the HBO Max series The People V. Gorilla Grodd. There is presumably still room for him in his brother’s DC plans.
Marvel has not announced any new Guardians project since Vol. 3 closed the trilogy in 2023, so the retirement may never be tested on a casting sheet. The larger franchise keeps moving regardless. The Avengers: Doomsday trailer confirmed Thor’s return to the MCU, and the studio’s slate stretches years out from there. Rocket could return someday with a new body behind the markers.
Either way, the actor who bent himself into a raccoon for a decade of blockbusters has earned the straightening out. His ankles made the decision for him. Fifty will do that.
