Los Angeles, Mar 30 (IANS): In "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2", Vin Diesel returns to voice Groot, an extremely humanoid tree with a limited vocabulary. The actor says it was his son who made him choose the character.

Groot is one of the most popular characters in the Guardians universe, thanks to his iconic "I Am Groot".

Talking about what attracted him to pick Groot's part, Diesel said in a statement: "I went to meet with Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios President) for a couple hours to talk. A couple of weeks later, Marvel sent over a book of concept art and they had this crazy idea that kind of played to the Iron Giant character I played in the beginning of my career."

"And what sealed the deal for me was when I opened up the giant book of concept art and fell in love with the character Groot. I asked my son which character he thought Daddy should play, and my son, Vincent, who was three at the time, pointed to the tree. And something about that made me feel like it was going to be the perfect match."

Diesel finds the character lovable.

"I loved the gentle giant aspect of Groot. I loved how enigmatic the character is. He's been labelled the most interesting character in the Marvel universe because he's so unique and so different," Diesel said.

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" is written and directed by James Gunn, and stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, featuring Vin Diesel as Baby Groot, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Tommy Flanagan, Laura Haddock, with Sylvester Stallone, and Kurt Russell.

It is releasing on May 5.