Chris Pratt’s path to becoming a leading action star began far from Hollywood, when he was living in a van in Hawaii and working as a waiter.
In a recent post on X, the 47-year-old actor looked back on that period and described how a meeting at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company changed things. Rae Dawn Chong came into the restaurant one evening, and Pratt went over to her table to tell her he recognized her as a movie star.
Chong asked whether he could act. Pratt said yes, and enthusiastically asked her to put him in her movie.
Without a phone of his own, he gave her the number of his friend Mike. A few days later, Mike told him someone had called. Pratt got in touch with Chong, who, he said, was serious about the opportunity.
He drove to collect the script, then read all 120 pages three times at Mike’s house. It was the first screenplay he had ever read. His character was named Devon, and Pratt remembered thinking the role sounded like a good fit.
After his audition, Chong told him he could act and offered him the part. The film was shooting in Los Angeles, and Pratt was still living in Hawaii with about $60, a bag of clothes and a pair of rollerblades. He was nervous about how he would get to the production, until Chong told him she would fly him to Los Angeles.
“I remember thinking right then and there, my life just changed forever. I’m going to be an actor,” he wrote. The low-budget horror comedy, “Cursed Part 3,” became his first step into the industry. Pratt said he would always be grateful to Chong for taking a chance on a young waiter.
The part helped lead to larger opportunities, including his breakout role as Andy Dwyer on NBC’s “Parks and Recreation.” He later became widely known as Peter Quill, also called Star-Lord, in “Guardians of the Galaxy,” returning for its two sequels and appearing in “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
In a 2023 interview, Pratt said he was grateful to “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn for casting him. By then, he was already a working actor and a series regular, but he said the role took his career to another level and changed how the industry viewed him. He also said it was the last audition he ever had.
Since joining the Marvel films, Pratt has starred in the “Jurassic World” franchise and voiced characters in “The Lego Movie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and “Onward.” He has also led the television series “The Terminal List” since 2022 and appeared in films including “Passengers,” “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Tomorrow War.”
Pratt was married to actress Anna Faris from 2009 until they announced their separation in 2017. They have a son, Jack, who is 14. In 2019, Pratt married Katherine Schwarzenegger. They have three children together: Lyla, 6, Eloise, 4, and Ford, 1.
Speaking about fatherhood in October, Pratt called it an incredible blessing as well as a lot of hard work. He said he hopes to carry forward the things his own father did well, while learning from the things he got wrong—though, he added, he may not get either part quite right.
