Despite being an important character in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and maybe an even more important character in the overall MCU, Benicio Del Toro has said that he is unsure whether his character Taneleer Tivan – better known as The Collector – will appear in Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

During an interview with IGN to promote his latest movie Escobar: Paradise Lost, Del Toro said he would like to return “but it’s not up to me.”

“I would like to keep working on that character, though…It was kind of like a cameo. I would like to keep developing the character based on what’s written in the comic books. I’d like to see some different sides. I had a blast working with James Gunn and the cast.”

Del Toro also spoke about trying to understand the character and his motives, “One of the most interesting things that I learned about him is the reasons that he’s collecting. He sees himself as putting together Noah’s Ark. He sees himself as having that responsibility. He’s collecting things, because eventually there’s going to be an apocalypse in the universe and he wants to get things to safety. That’s a really interesting aspect of the character.”

We first met Benicio Del Toro’s The Collector in the post credits scene at the end of Thor: The Dark World. Lady Sif and Volstagg give The Collector one of the five Infinity Stones for safe keeping but it becomes apparent when the Asgardians leave that The Collector’s intentions are not good. In Guardians of the Galaxy the Collector is responsible for unveiling his Infinity Stone to Gamora and the rest of the crew, eventually resulting in his archive museum being blown up.

It’s highly likely that the Collector will show up in at least one part of Avengers: Infinity War although that hasn’t been officially confirmed and I really can’t see him not having some sort of role in the Guardians sequel, so I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of him yet.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is set for release on April 28th 2017 in the UK and on May 5th in the States. Confirmed as returning to the cast are Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Dave Bautista (Drax), Bradley Cooper (Rocket), Vin Diesel (Groot), Karen Gillan (Nebula), Michael Rooker (Yondu) and Sean Gunn (Kraglin).