Although Chris Pratt has been in the public eye for over 20 years now, even he would probably agree that the role that brought him the most notice wasn’t that of Bright Abbott on Everwood or even his improvisational Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation. No, the role that really made Pratt explode in popularity worldwide was that of Peter Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, which led to a host of appearances in additional Marvel movies and a multitude of other opportunities. The star revealed that he’d been “dying” to join the MCU before then, but couldn’t even nab a role as one of the “other guys” in Thor.
What Did Chris Pratt Say About Auditioning For Marvel Before Guardians Of The Galaxy?
For nearly the past decade, the man also known as Star-Lord has been a major big screen presence and cemented himself as someone who can lead a movie to both big box office numbers and great critical/audience reception. Along with those mentioned above, Chris Pratt’s best roles include The LEGO Movie’s Emmet Brickowski, while he’s also brought us Jurassic World’s Owen Grady and recently dominated in theaters as Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
However, the actor revealed during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that he’d been hoping to work in the MCU for quite a while before hitting his goal, and when asked if he ever had concerns about joining such a huge franchise said:
No! God, no! I had been dying to do something like that my whole career, so no, I've been very grateful the whole time. Mostly I set the bar low enough --'Don't want to go back to serving food to people' -- and then, superhero was way above that bar. So, I was gonna take it.
Well, this is perfectly understandable, right? For one thing, we love heroes, so that an actor would be thrilled by the idea of being able to embody someone with those qualities makes sense. Also, not for nothing, waiting tables is a hard, usually low-paying gig, and if you can nab even a small part in a superhero franchise that ends up recurring, you could set yourself up in a position where you have enough financial leeway to not “go back to serving food to people,” which is one thing Pratt was hoping for.
He continued, and revealed that like many guys of his age in Hollywood, he made the rounds of Marvel auditions many times before becoming our Peter Quill, including trying out to be one of the Warriors Three in the Thor movies, though even that didn’t go well for him:
Oh man, yeah I did [audition for Captain America]. I auditioned for them all. I had a rough run with Marvel. I auditioned for Thor, but not even to be Thor! But to be one of the sidekick guys and I didn't get a callback. Yeah. Usually you get a little bit of feedback and I remember the casting director was like, 'Wow, you really made a big choice there.' Which is code for like, 'Hey, dial back the acting there, guy.'
The star (who’s also part of The Electric State cast and will be back for the renewed The Terminal List at some point in the future) is known for bringing some big personalities to the screen, but it sounds like whatever he did in his audition was a bit much. And, it sounds like that feedback really discouraged him for a time, as we’ve heard previously that when Guardians came around, Pratt didn’t even want to audition for it. As he explained:
It got to the point where I was never gonna audition for Marvel again. It was like, 'This is stupid; I'm never gonna be in a Marvel movie.'
Luckily for him and all of us, the casting director was able to change his mind, so that Pratt was able to fulfill a professional dream and give fans the Star-Lord most of us didn’t even know we needed.
