Guardians of the Galaxy: Interview with Chris Pratt aka “Star-Lord”!

Disclaimer: I was provided an all expense paid trip to attend the Guardians of the Galaxy press junket.  Check out #GuardiansOfTheGalaxyEvent

Today is my Birthday! So for my birthday I am gifting to all of you the chance to experience my moment I had with Christ Pratt! I was able to interview him for the NEW Marvel Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, that comes out August 1st! Chris Pratt is not the Andy Dwyer that you are use to seeing him as. He is clean cut, VERY fit, and so charismatic! Move over Tom Cruise, I have a new “star crush” in my life. When you watch Guardians of the Galaxy you easily forget that he was Andy Dwyer and you definitely see “Star-Lord”/Peter Quill. That is a sign of great talent. When I watched Guardians the night before, then interviewed Pratt, he looked like he had kept his workout regime from the end of filming until now. I did read that his wife, Anna Faris, was trying to “Fattin him up”. She is another sweetie!

“An adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of a bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the entire universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits—Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand—with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.”

Here are the highlights of our interview?

Question: You clearly didn’t need it but did they want you to take dance lessons [LAUGHTER]?

Chris: Well, once they saw me cut a rug, they…[LAUGHTER]…That’s just like another element to this movie that’s like unlike anything, uh, anyone has ever done in a way, so that’s pretty cool.

Question: Is there any added pressure being the face of a new franchise?

Chris: Oh, I guess if I was smart, I would feel pressure on both of them, but I kind of don’t know, I don’t it’s a really good question. The pressure doesn’t really fall on us, I don’t think, or on the actors as much as it does on the studios, you know. They have more to lose than we do, I mean, they’re putting- they’re spending all the money for it- we’re just hired to do a job, you know. So, I guess there’s pressure with both. But they set you up so you don’t really feel that pressure, you know. They don’t want you to fail, they want you to do well and- and they do everything they can to make sure you do well. So it’s kind of nice.

Question: 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 discussed being a comic book fan in the 8th-9th grade and not being able to really afford comic books. He liked to draw comics and came from a family of artists (gosh I would love to see him draw…I have seen Chris braid before).

Question : What was your most memorable moment while filming?

Chris : That very first day, the very first day we were on a set in an area that’s called Morag, which you’ll see in the movie, it’s,….hat was a real set, you know, it looks, it looks so fantastical and I don’t know, like it’s just such an epic set it- you, you assume it’s all green screen. The, the thing was a real set. I mean we were in- outside at, at Longcross Studios, I’ll never forget this.

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

Chris: Oh the fight scenes were pretty intensive, I mean, we had about six weeks of rehearsal before we even started shooting in London and we did stunt rehearsals every single day. And so a big part of that was, uh, was learning, training, refining the fight scenes. So we would learn a fight scene for a couple of weeks and then it would end up changing, and we’d learn it again. I secretly think it was like a way for them to get me to lose even more weight, they’re like, Hey, Chris, even more stunt rehearsal, can you believe it [LAUGHTER] this stunt is you running on a treadmill. Um, so- so, um, we did a ton of training.

But it was really fun and that is the stuff I really like. I was an athlete growing up and played sports and it’s just nice to be part of a team of athletic people and being coach-able and being told what to do and, you know, getting better at it day-by-day at doing something physical. That, that to me is really like a nice break from sort of the mental exhaustion that can come with acting, you know. You don’t have to think too hard to do stunts, which is just perfect for me. Yes, ma’am.

Question: What percentage of Burt Macklin do you think is in this character? (My question I asked that came from my buddy, Jake!)

Chris: Oh man what a great question.  Um, this would definitely be like Andy Dwyer’s favorite movie of all time.  Um, and there is a certain element of- there’s a certain element of Burt Macklin that I think maybe, uh, maybe ten percent.  I think ten percent Burt Macklin yeah.

Question:  How much improv did you have? 

Chris: You know, we had a little bit of room.  We had a little room.  Um, not a lot.  I mean, when you’re shooting a scene- when you’re shooting on a movie like this, you’ve got to think in terms of seconds, seconds will cost thousands of dollars.  You know.  They roll that film and- and it is costing money.  So if you’re going to improv, you better nail it. Because if you blow a take trying a joke that no one knew about and you just kind of spit it out, you’re, you’re wasting time and money and everybody is there doing a, a job that takes six months to do.

So that being said, I did improv a lot [LAUGHTER] and I probably wasted a lot of money.  But some of it made it into the movie and so, you know, that- maybe- maybe it was worth it.

–>Guardians of the Galaxy will be in theaters on August 1st!  Be sure to see it…even Rotten Tomatoes has given it 100%!<—