Meet Hollywood’s Next Big Hero: Chris Pratt! ~ #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyEvent

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Pictures. Edits by me.

Here we go with another installment of my most recent totally awesome journey out to Los Angeles! In mid-July, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Press Junket. Hopefully by now you’ve read my Vin Diesel interview from last week. I was excited to learn on this press trip that I would have the chance to interview Chris Pratt again. I previously interviewed him for DELIVERY MAN, and I can tell you, he was not only funny, but super sincere and genuine during the Q&A.

Chris entered the room with such enthusiasm and genuine excitement over the film. I just knew this was going to be a fun interview with him! Naturally the first question was about Chris’ dance moves! When you see the film, you’ll be able to tell that Mr. Pratt clearly knows how to cut a rug. He happily noted that it was so cool to work on a film where the dancing turned out to be such an element of the movie.

Of course we just had to know how Chris became Peter Quill. He noted that he became involved in the film pretty early. He had auditioned the year after he filmed ZERO DARK THIRTY. At the time he was on such a diet roller coaster. For ZERO DARK THIRTY he was “super fit” and then for DELIVERY MAN he was “super fat” (his words, not mine!). The time around auditions he was overweight, and wasn’t sure about moving forward with the auditioning process. He then saw ZERO DARK THIRTY (where he played a DEVGRU, a Naval Special Warfare Operator), and remembered that he could get his body into good physical shape.
Knowing he could loose the weight and get back in shape, Chris auditioned, focusing on bringing his own comedic elements and personality take on Peter Quill… And of course as you know, Chris snagged the role! He was excited to create his own incarnation of the character.

Being a Marvel super hero now, were you a fan of the Guardians before or know anything about them, or a fan of comics?

CHRIS: I was a comic book fan probably around sixth grade to tenth grade. We didn’t have a ton of money growing up, so I didn’t have a ton of them, but my friends had a lot of them. I would like to draw the pictures out of them. We were big artists in my family, so we would like to draw and paint. I loved the artistry, I loved the characters, and the physicality of the heroes. I was always drawing comic book heroes. There was one time that I won three hundred bucks playing Bingo with my mom, and bought three hundred bucks worth of comic books! One of them was a Guardians of the Galaxy comic book!

Original Photo: JustEnza.com & MeetKristy.com. Edits by me.

What was your most memorable moment while filming?

CHRIS: That very first day we were on a set in an area that’s called Morag. That was a real set! It looks so fantastical and it’s just such an epic set. We were outside at Longcross Studios. Actually another great moment is the first time I put on Quill’s long jacket… and the jacket was totally telling me how Peter Quill would walk. I’m running, there’s a wind blowing like probably sixty seventy miles an hour, rain machines, guys are shooting real water from real ponds, hundreds of feet up in the air! We’re on an outdoor set that’s massive like two football fields put together with green screen all the way around.  So there’s an element of green screen around the entire horizon. Though on the inside it was like a sea had just drained out and revealed, you know, this city that had been underwater for ten thousand years. So it was the moment where I thought “This is happening! I’m on this movie, and it’s going to be epic!”

How much training did you have to do for the fight scene?

Original Photo: JustEnza.com & MeetKristy.com. Edits by me.

How does it feel to have an action figure doll made of yourself?

CHRIS: It’s pretty crazy… it’s pretty weird. My friend has a Peter Quill doll that you push a button and my voice comes out of it. So my friends treat me like “Flat Stanley!”. Everywhere we go they’re taking pictures of me (my action figure).. “Look at Star Lord! Star Lord at Subway!”

What percentage of Burt Macklin do you think is in this character?

CHRIS: Oh man what a great question! This would definitely be like Andy Dwyer’s favorite movie of all time. There is a certain element of Burt Macklin. I think ten percent Burt Macklin.

What’s your favorite song on the soundtrack?

CHRIS: I have a contentious relationship with that soundtrack because I put it on my iPod as my playlist to run and work out to. So I love and hate all of those songs! For me the best one was probably Ooh Child because there that was a certain beats per minute that matched with my running pace. For me when I’m running, I needed to match my feet to the music, so I can forget how terrible it is that I’m running!

Original Photo: JustEnza.com & MeetKristy.com. Edits by me.

Do you have a favorite behind the scenes moment?

CHRIS: James kept telling me over and over that he was going to replace me! It kind of became an ongoing joke that he kept pitching different ideas for actors. He was going to put their face on my face at the end of the movie. I thought it was funny every time he said it. That was kind of my favorite part about filming. This movie was the relationship I had with James in terms of our comedy… it matches up really well! We were constantly trying to outdo one another in terms of our inappropriateness. So we’d say some pretty shocking and terrible things that we’d be laughing. That was probably the most memorable joke.

How much improv did you have?

CHRIS: We had a little room (to improv.) When you’re shooting a scene on a movie like this, you’ve got to think in terms of seconds. Seconds will cost thousands of dollars. They roll that film and it is costing money. So if you’re going to improv, you better nail it… So that being said, I did improv a lot and I probably wasted a lot of money! Some of it made it into the movie and so maybe it was worth it.

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Just like last time I interview Chris, he was more than happy to take a photo with all us bloggers! I have to say, I’m very excited for Chris in his first top billing role. Just make sure you head to theaters on August 1st to check out Hollywood’s latest super hero Peter Quill aka Star Lord aka Chris Pratt!

Original Photo: Marshall Weinbaum. Edits by me.

Don’t forget to connect with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY on Facebook and Twitter! Be sure to check out my tutorials for homemade galaxy playdough and for Galactic Space Art both inspired by the film’s upcoming release.

Missed my live updates from my LA adventure? No worries! Just head over to my Twitter (@AshBG) and Instagram (@ashb4211) and look for the hashtag #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyEvent!

This film hits theaters August 1st!

Original photo provided by Walt Disney Pictures. Edits by me.

I received the following information as a blogger via Walt Disney Publications. While I attended an expense paid trip by Disney to the press events for Guardians of the Galaxy, 100 Foot Journey, and ABC Family, all opinions are 100% my own.