Kurt Russell — legendary star of The Thing, Big Trouble In Little China, Stargate and Escape From New York — spoke with Empire for their new cover story on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, which reveals a few new details about Russell’s character, Ego the Living Planet.
Russell accepted the role after watching the first Guardians of the Galaxy. “ Fifteen minutes in, I said, ‘I think I see why they’re coming to me,’” Russell told Empire. “The baggage I bring from some of the movies I’ve done is the right kind of baggage to bring into this one.”
We’ve already seen Ego in his human form (while Ego is a planet, he can reshape himself at the atomic level or bud off avatars) in the second Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 trailer. Unsurprisingly, he looks like Kurt Russell. But did we also see Ego in his planetary form in the trailer? Another detail from the Empire story suggests we may have already seen the Guardians of the Galaxy cast standing upon Kurt Russell’s Ego.
Guardians of the Galaxy director Sean Gunn described being inspired by artist Hal Tenny in his interpretation of Ego. Tenny made complicated fractal art:
Bringing that aesthetic to screen involved what Gunn described as “the biggest visual effect of all time.”
“We have over a trillion polygons on Ego’s planet,” Gunn said. While we didn’t have the context for it before, Slashfilm noticed how this new description of Ego squares with some of the stuff seen in the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer.
Could this be Ego?
It looks a little fractal-like, particularly with the gold structures budding off the planet. And those same fractal designs can also be spotted in this shot of the Guardians of the Galaxy assembling.
It seems the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cast won’t just be talking to Kurt Russell face-to-face, they’ll be standing on him.
