It’s been said many times before and it will keep being said: Guardians of the Galaxy is Marvel’s riskiest movie to date. Judging by what we’ve seen so far, it’s not only going to be unlike any Marvel film, but also unlike many sci-fi space adventures in recent memory. This kind of bold, daring movie needs a bold, daring, and twisted (in a good way) director, and it has one in James Gunn.

While walking the red carpet for Thor: The Dark World, he was candid about the movie, which is unusual for most Marvel directors. However, because Guardians is so strange, Marvel may be trying to get audiences acclimated as soon as possible. After the jump, Gunn talks about how we’ll see a teaser of some kind fairly soon, working with Bradley Cooper to get the right voice for Rocket Raccoon, the practical sets, and more. He also dances around Vin Diesel‘s role in the film. Guardians of the Galaxy opens August 1, 2014. [Warning: Spoilers ahead]

First up, Gunn talked with MTV about trying to get just the right voice for Rocket Raccoon, which makes sense since Gunn has said that the character is the heart of the movie. He praised Cooper’s patience, and added that while they’re using cameras to photograph all of the actor’s reactions, they’ll only use them as an animation option rather than strict motion capture.

What’s more interesting is how he spoke about Vin Diesel’s role. Several months ago, Marvel confirmed that Diesel was in talks to voice the walking, taciturn tree alien, Groot. But when asked about videotaping Cooper and presumably Diesel, Gunn responded that they were doing it for Cooper “and whoever plays Groot.” Gunn also says in the interview that he recently spoke on the phone with Diesel, so it seems like the actor is in the movie. This all leads me to believe a theory that a friend of mine recently put forward: Diesel’s not voicing Groot; he’s voicing Thanos.

Here’s the interview with MTV [Warning: Spoiler for those who haven’t seen Thor: The Dark World; if you don’t want to hear it, skip 2:06 to 2:57]

Moving on to an interview with Crave Online, Gunn made it clear that while Guardians will have Thanos, the main bad guy is Thanos’ henchman, Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace). Gunn also talked about the practical sets and also dismissed this promo poster as fan art. [Warning: There’s another Thor: The Dark World spoiler in here, so skip to 0:56 if you don’t want to hear it]