With The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, writer-director-producer James Gunn has continued a career casting record. Gunn is known for working with some of the same actors over and over, including Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Steve Agee, and his brother Sean Gunn. For Marvel’s The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, the filmmaker again brought back Rooker and Sean Gunn, as well as Kevin Bacon, who previously played the villain in James Gunn’s Super. But one returning collaborator in the Disney+ special marked another notch in his record streak with Gunn.
Stephen Blackehart, who plays the character Steemie in the cast of The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, goes way back with James Gunn. The two first met during the production of the Shakespeare-inspired cult classic Tromeo and Juliet, which Gunn co-wrote, and they’ve had a professional relationship ever since, but it goes beyond that. In a 2017 interview with FreakSugar, Blackehart said, “James is my best friend. My closest friend in the world. To the point where if he accidentally drove his car off a cliff, I’d probably have to do that, too.” He went on to acknowledge that the filmmaker has continued to cast him even “when it seemed like the rest of Hollywood had lost my number.” Further proof of their friendship, Blackehart was James Gunn’s best man when the filmmaker married actress Jennifer Holland in 2022.
GOTG Continues James Gunn’s Stephen Blackehart Casting Record
Since meeting during the making of Tromeo and Juliet, Stephen Blackehart and James Gunn have collaborated on at least 17 other known film and TV projects, though the former hasn’t always appeared on-screen in the latter’s work. For Gunn’s directorial debut, Slither, Blackehart is only credited as a research consultant. He has appeared in every one of his features since. As a director, Gunn has now cast Blackehart as an actor in 10 projects. As a producer, he can add three more roles to that record roster. Compare that to Nathan Fillion’s five castings and Michael Rooker’s nine, including two movies Gunn produced. Even Sean Gunn has only acted in eight of his brother’s directorial efforts.
Every James Gunn Project Stephen Blackehart Has Been In
In the acclaimed Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which James Gunn wrote, directed, and produced, Stephen Blackehart plays Steemie, a denizen of Knowhere celebrating Christmas alongside the titular team. This character is apparently different from his part as the Knowhere Dispatcher from the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, meaning he also now ties with Joe Russo for the record of most MCU acting roles, with three. Blackehart has kept his MCU work solely within the Guardians franchise, though, as his other role was the Ravager called Brahl, seen in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He also played two different characters in the DCEU: helicopter pilot Briscoe in Gunn’s The Suicide Squad and Charlie the Gorilla in its spinoff show, Peacemaker.
Going back to Blackehart and Gunn’s first collaboration, Tromeo and Juliet, the former played Benny Que, a character based on Benvolio from Shakepeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Also for Troma Films, he played Felix the French Trickster in the studio’s shows The Tromaville Cafe and Troma’s Edge TV, both of which Gunn co-directed. The two next played police detectives in the 2003 horror film The Ghouls then worked on- and off-screen together for the mockumentary LolliLove, directed by Gunn’s first wife, Jenna Fischer. In 2008, Blackehart played a kidnapper in Gunn’s TV pilot Sparky & Mikaela and had a couple of roles in the filmmaker’s web series PG Porn.
In Gunn’s second feature as a director, the underrated comic book movie Super, Blackehart portrayed the part of Quill, one of Kevin Bacon’s character’s thugs. He later played an interpreter in The Belko Experiment and Travis in Brightburn, two movies that Gunn produced. As with his part in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, they may be small roles, but they continue to count toward his and Gunn’s record together. The collaboration isn’t over anytime soon, either, as Blackehart will reprise his role as Steemie in the upcoming MCU sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
