There are a lot of tools an actor has when creating a performance. Some of them are verbal, but a great many are physical. And knowing which ones to draw upon often comes from a careful reading of the script. Picking up nuances in the dialogue, and knowing exactly which word, which syllable, to stress.

For Vin Diesel, who plays anthropomorphic tree, Groot, in Guardians of the Galaxy, most of those tools, and many of those cues were stripped away.

“I was worried” Vin Diesel explains, “about how arduous and how tricky it would be to bring life to such an enigmatic character, who although saying many things, all you can hear are these three monosyllabic words”.

And yet, for Diesel, “Groot felt right”. As he explains, in our interview below:

Guardians of the Galaxy is released today in the UK, you can see our 4* review here and all our coverage of the movie here including Premiere interviews, more junket interviews and the press conference in full.