I’ve seen Chris Pratt in the hit TV Show “Parks and Recreation” and starring along side Vince Vaughn in the movie “Delivery Man” but its his role as Peter Quill, a.k.a Star-Lord, in Marvel’s newest movie, “Guardians Of The Galaxy” that had me excited about our interview. After all, he did an amazing job bringing his character to life in a way that had you both laughing and cheering him on at the same time. Actually, it may just have been his dance moves, which I should add just may lead to a future Dancing With The Stars Victory.

Group photo with Chris Pratt and Leanette Fernandez

All in all, I love his character and I was happy to sit down and chat with him about it. Here’s what Chris Pratt had to say about his role as Peter Quill, a.k.a Star-Lord in Guardians Of The Galaxy.

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You clearly didn’t need it but did they want you to take dance lessons?

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

How much training did you have to do for the fight scenes?

Oh the fight scenes were pretty intensive, we had about six weeks of rehearsal before we even started shooting in London and we did stunt rehearsals every single day. So, a big part of that was learning, training, refining the fight scenes. 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 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…we did a ton of training but it was really fun and that 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 getting better at it day-by-day at doing something physical. That to me is really like a nice break from sort of the mental exhaustion that can come with acting. You don’t have to think too hard to do stunts, which is just perfect for me.

How does it feel to have an action figure doll made of yourself?

That to me is pretty crazy, it’s pretty weird…my friend has a Peter Quill doll that you push a button and my voice comes out of it…so everywhere they go they’re taking pictures of it…oh look at Star Lord, Star Lord at Subway.

What was your most memorable moment while filming?


That very first day we were on a set in an area that’s called Morag, that was a real set and it looks so fantastical, it’s just such an epic set…you assume it’s all green screen but the thing was a real set…Actually another great moment is the first time I put that jacket on and walked, the jacket was totally telling me how Peter Quill would walk, you know. But I’m running, there’s a wind blowing like probably sixty seventy miles an hour, rain machines, guys are shooting real water from real ponds, hundreds of feet up in the air and we’re on an outdoor set that’s probably a hundred and fifty yards long, a hundred and fifty yards wide. So it’s a massive like two football fields put together with green screen all the way around these giant shipping containers stacked like ninety feet high.

So there’s an element of green screen around the entire horizon, but on the inside it was like a sea had just drained out and it revealed this city that had been underwater for ten thousand years. So, that was the moment where I thought, holy cr*p. This is happening, I’m on this movie, and it’s going to be epic.

How much improv did you have?

You know, we had a little bit of room, not a lot. I mean, when you’re shooting a movie like this, you’ve got to think in terms of seconds, seconds will cost thousands of dollars. They roll that film 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 wasting time and money and everybody is there doing 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 so maybe it was worth it.

How did you get involved in this role?

…I was on the diet roller coaster all the time, so sometimes I was like super fat and sometimes I was super fit and at that point I was super fat and I was like…I don’t want to go audition for this and be told no, so I don’t think so…I know James Gunn definitely wasn’t interested in having [LAUGHS] me in the movie at first…and meanwhile he was testing more and more people and it just wasn’t working.

I saw the movie Zero Dark Thirty in the theaters for the first time and I kind of forgot that I had gotten in good shape for that and that I played this character [LAUGHTER]. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s right, I can do that…so, I thought wait a minute, maybe I should be trying to do action-y kind of movies, ’cause I, I bought it…Then I said, but I want to do it with some comedic elements and kind of bring my own personality into it and my manager said, Guardians of the Galaxy. I said, oh shoot okay, maybe, you know what, why not, let’s go after it and just see, let’s have a conversation. And that’s kind of how we got in.

Then I auditioned and he saw something in me and what he said to me I was really on board with…I wanted to do something in action, I wanted to do something with comedy and I wanted to breathe my own spirit into it and I thought there was nothing out there that was going to let me do that. I thought maybe I’d have to try to develop something or write something and when he said, I just want somebody to come in and do their thing and just own it…I just want someone to come in and own this thing. I just thought, all right, here I go, I’m going to try and own it. And I did.

What was it like working with James Gunn?

James kept telling me over and over that he was going to replace me. [LAUGHTER] it kind of became an ongoing joke that he kept pitching different ideas for actors…he was going to put their face on my face, at the end of the movie…which by the way, I never was offended by. I thought it was funny every time he said it…my favorite part about filming this movie was the relationship I had with James in terms of our comedy, it matches up really well.

It’s super inappropriate [LAUGHTER] and we’re constantly trying to outdo one another in terms of our inappropriateness. So we’d say some pretty shocking and terrible things that we’d be laughing at, but it was kind of like a survival mechanism…

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

I guess if I was smart, I would feel pressure…but I kind of don’t [LAUGHTER]…the pressure doesn’t really fall on us, the actors as much as it does on the studios…they don’t want you to fail, they want you to do well and they do everything they can to make sure you do well. So it’s kind of nice.

How does it feel knowing you’re an iconic hero for younger kids of this generation?

Oh my gosh, that is to me the greatest part of all this. I remember pretending to be Han Solo in my backyard, or pretending to be Indiana Jones, or Luke Skywalker as a kid. I mean comic books and storytelling of this magnitude is what really helped me cultivate my imagination as a young kid and to think that kids are going to be out and they’re going to watch this and they’re going to feel that way. It’s just really…I’ve been Googling synonyms for surreal just to try to help explain what it feels like. [LAUGHTER] It’s really cool…that’s like by far the very greatest feeling…I’m going to be a hero to these kids. They’re going to dress up like me for Halloween [LAUGHTER].

Guardians of the Galaxy will be in theaters on 8/1.  Be sure to connect with them and stay up to date: Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | YouTube | Website