James Gunn

“I have a very strong imagination and have since I was a little kid. That is where a lot of my world comes from. It's like I'm off somewhere else. And I can have a problem in life because of that, because I'm always off in some other world thinking about something else. It's constant.”

“One of the things that we've tried to do with the 'Guardians' films is to allow the women to be full characters.”

“By isolating the issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, climate change, environment, governance, economics, catastrophe and whatever other problems the present embodies or the future may bring, science fiction can do what Dickens and Sinclair did: make real the consequences of social injustice or human folly.”

“I love the attention and I hate the attention, you know? It's not always good for your soul.”

“I've come to trust that what I like is what works.”

“Science fiction literature's focus is on ideas, the concept of change, and the impact on humanity. Those concepts are hard to capture on film. They work better in the mind.”

“When I write a screenplay - and I think it's one of the reasons why it was frustrating for me just to be a screenwriter - I'm not thinking of it in terms of words on a page; I'm thinking in terms of visual images - basically, a comic book. I'm thinking of it in a series of shots.”

“The majority of my life is 'Guardians,' but being able to clean my brain a little bit by doing something totally different like 'Belko' was incredibly helpful to the creative process.”

“I feel like I've kinda danced around telling the truest story I can for many years of my life. I've been a little distracted by trying to be shocking or edgy or cool or whatever, and by letting go of that and telling the truest story I can - even if it's about aliens and talking raccoons - it works.”

“I like the Nova Corps; I just don't like Nova that much! He's okay, you know? I just don't like that helmet!”

“I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I got to direct a movie involving three of my favorite things in the world: space operas, Marvel superheroes and raccoons.”

“I can't be told life is beautiful through a normal positive thinking book or a Hallmark movie; that language doesn't work for me.”

“When you're on an independent film, you have a lot of great people there who are telling really true and authentic stories. But you also have a lot of con artists and people who think they can do something that they can't.”

“When I was a kid, I was obsessed with different planets in the solar system, and I used to create, for every single planet, a different alien race with a certain kind of pet, a certain kind of house, a certain kind of water system, and everything. I would draw these pictures. I had hundreds of these pictures in a box.”

“I've always believed in the power of rational thinking and behavior as the savior of the world, and science fiction as a powerful medium to encourage that, which explains my signature line, 'Let's save the world through science fiction.'”

“I have to say, I feel a weird sort of calling in filmmaking that I didn't feel with other things. I feel like there are things in life you want to do, and then things you are called to do, and hopefully you can allow yourself to want to do whatever you're called to do.”

“I don't think through anything I do. I just do it, and it's oftentimes landed me in huge amounts of trouble.”

“I like to be able to feel as many parts of myself while watching a movie at one time. I think that's what 'Super' is - it's funny, but it's also sad. It's very touching in certain ways, and it's also got a very dark sense of humor. So it's allowed to go anywhere.”

“I know, people have had different things to say about Marvel, about how creatively free they are or not free they are, but for me, the rule has always just been stay as good as I can possibly be, and stay one step ahead of the curve, and stay unique, and stay myself. And they seem to like that.”

“There will be a 'Guardians 3,' that's for sure. We're trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. Really, that's all it is.”