Chris Pratt‘s journey to becoming one of Hollywood’s go-to action stars started with him living in a van in Hawaii.
In a recent post on X, the 47-year-old actor reflected on his beginnings: “Before Hollywood, I was living in a van in Hawaii and waiting tables at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company,” revealing that a chance encounter working one night changed his life.
“One day, the incredible Rae Dawn Chong walked into the restaurant, and naturally, I went up to her table and said, ‘Hey, you’re a movie star! What are you doing here?'” he recalled. “She asked if I could act, and I said, ‘F- – – yeah, put me in your movie!'”
Since he didn’t have a phone, he gave Chong his friend Mike’s number, who told him a few days later that someone had called for him.
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“I called her back, and sure enough, she was serious,” he wrote. “I drove over to pick up the script, went back to Mike’s house, and read all 120 pages three times in a row. First script I’d ever read. My character’s name was Devon, and I remember thinking, ‘Sweet! I could totally play a Devon!’
After the audition, he recalled Chung telling him he “could act and offered me the part.”
While he lived in Hawaii, the movie was filming in Los Angeles, which made Pratt a little nervous, as he had “about $60 to my name, a bag of clothes, and some rollerblades.” He then found out that Chung would fly him out to Los Angeles for production.
“I remember thinking right then and there, my life just changed forever. I’m going to be an actor,” he wrote. “That little movie was ‘Cursed Part 3,’ a low-budget horror comedy that opened the door to Hollywood for me. I’ll forever be grateful to Rae for taking a chance on a kid working at a shrimp restaurant. Everybody starts somewhere, and this is where it all began for me.”
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Pratt’s role in “Cursed Part 3” led to bigger projects, including his breakout role playing Andy Dwyer in the hit NBC show, “Parks and Recreation.”
He then landed the role of Peter Quill, or Star-Lord, in the Marvel movie, “Guardians of the Galaxy,” playing the character in the film’s two sequels, as well as in “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Avengers: Endgame.”
When speaking to Moviefone in May 2023, Pratt shared he is “grateful” for “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn for casting him as the lead in the movie, saying, “He’s changed my life” and the life of his children.
“He found a working actor who had already at that point done way better than most people who come out to town. I wasn’t a waiter any longer, I was a series regular on a show. I was getting recognition,” he said. “He brought me to a whole new level that ultimately changed the entire way the industry saw me. I no longer was auditioning. That was the last audition I ever had. So he changed my life.”
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Since becoming a Marvel superhero, Pratt has starred in the “Jurassic World” franchise, voiced characters in “The Lego Movie” and its sequel, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” and its sequel and “Onward,” and has starred in the TV series “The Terminal List” since 2022.
He has also starred in a number of standalone blockbusters, including “Passengers,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Tomorrow War” and many others.
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Pratt was married to actress Anna Faris from July 2009 to August 2017, when they announced their separation. They share one child together, a son named Jack, 14.
He then married Katherine Schwarzenegger in June 2019, and they share three children together; Lyla, 6, Eloise, 4, and Ford, 1.
“It’s an incredible blessing to be a father. It’s also a lot of hard work. And so I think I just want to teach them that … I don’t know, I want to do my best,” he told Fox News Digital in October. “I basically want to get right everything my dad got right and get right everything my dad got wrong. And I’m sure I’ll screw up both, you know?”