Chris Pratt is chronicling his journey from Bubba Gump Shrimp waiter to one of Hollywood’s most in-demand actors in the February issue of Vanity Fair.
The “Guardians Of The Galaxy” star is currently on a self-imposed hiatus, taking a break from acting after a decade of continuous work. It’s a decision he credits to one of his acting heroes, Jim Carrey.
“There’s very few people in the world who I can expect to understand exactly what I’m going through,” he says. “Jim Carrey is one of them.”
Pratt approached the actor at a party last year and asked him for advice on what his next career step should be. The “Dumb And Dumber” actor told him, “There’s going to be a point in life where you’re going to have to prove that your family is more important to you than show business.” So Pratt decided to put his family first, taking a break from acting.
Speaking of family, Pratt guest-starred on his wife Anna Faris’ sitcom, “Mom”, playing her character’s love interest.
“Normally, when you do a kissing scene, it’s awkward, and when it’s done you say, ‘Are you O.K.?’ But this was different,” he explains. “After they yelled ‘Cut,’ we laughed and just kept on kissing.”
Pratt started his transition from lovable TV star to big screen action hero with 2011’s “Moneyball”. That was the first time Pratt realized the weight he gained during his “Parks & Recreation” days were holding him back from movie roles.
“[‘Moneyball’] was the first time I heard someone say, ‘We’re not gonna cast you – you’re too fat’,” he says of his audition to play Oakland A’s catcher Scott Hatteberg, a role he eventually landed.
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“I decided to drop the weight, like in wrestling. I couldn’t afford a trainer, so it was all running and crash-dieting and cutting alcohol,” he says. The weight-loss kicked off his transformation into a leading man and action hero.
Now, Pratt seems synonymous with the action genre thanks to roles in “Guardians Of The Galaxy”, “The Magnificent Seven” and “Jurassic World”. But it was his role as a Navy SEAL in “Zero Dark Thirty” that convinced him he could be an action star.
“That’s the first time I bulked up, got into great shape because I was playing a Navy SEAL,” he says, recalling his nerves before sitting down to watch the film for the first time. “I was like, ‘My God, I buy that guy.’ I’m SEAL Team Six in that movie, and I felt like it was real. I can do this. I can play those roles.”