There's a common denominator in Chris Pratt's ascent from podgy funny man to power-packed superhero, and it's not a set of weights.
The 43-year-old star of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World admits he always had it in himself to ascend to the heights of the major players in Hollywood, both in terms of film choices and physique – the only thing holding him back was his own self-confidence.
The freedom and fearlessness with which he now pursues his projects extend into an animated adventure, The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Guardian of the Galaxies Vol 3.
A creative gift to his daughters, Eloise and Lyla, who he shares with his wife and author, Katherine Schwarzenegger. He also has a son, Jack, with ex-wife Anna Faris.
As it turns out, it's a bit of both.
STRIPLV: They say that voiceover work is one of the easiest gigs when you're an actor. Did you find it so for The Super Mario Bros? PRATT: I think you'd be a liar if you said it wasn't the easiest way to pull off a movie. I mean, there's little interaction with anyone else, you can work the schedule much more to your own requirements, and you don't even need to dress for the occasion! What I would say is there's a different sort of intensity to the whole thing. You're not waiting for the crew to set up, you're not doing make-up, you're not traveling to various different locations, it's just you in a recording studio, but that brings about its own pressure. You can't really lean on anyone else, you can't feed off others, and that can actually be quite tricky. All actors need a sounding board and people around them to bring the best out of them, so in this scenario, it's down to you to bring the best out of yourself. STRIPLV: Did you do that? PRATT: You tell me! (Laughs) STRIPLV: Super Mario Bros transcend generations, so was that a treat for you or your children? PRATT: I think at this point it was as much a treat for me, and actually a privilege to be voicing Mario. I mean, it doesn't get much better than to actually be a character we all grew up with and who really helped kick off a gaming generation that has grown and grown way above what anyone might have imagined. STRIPLV: Were you a fan as a kid? PRATT: Ah, come on, I mean, we all were. It defined a generation, and that's an incredible thing to think about. I will admit I never foresaw a situation when I was a kid where I would come back and be this guy as a 43-year-old man. I mean, that's where this gets weird. STRIPLV: This is another pleasant diversion for you. You're almost regressing slightly, having stepped up in terms of strength and all-action movies. PRATT: I want to keep reinventing, is the truth. I think we all do. When I look at older stuff I've done, like Parks and Rec, whatever, I do not recognize that guy. I can't see myself. It's really fucking surreal. It's like I've aged backward. I've Benjamin Buttoned. (Laughs) I don't know who that guy is, and I don't want to go back there because I wasn't healthy, I wasn't eating right, I wasn't exercising like I should. I never felt it happening. I never felt bigger. It only hits me now when I look back. STRIPLV: Are you happier for being in shape, as well as being a household name? PRATT: Yeah, I lost some weight, got an ab or two, yet it's not the recipe for life happiness. I'm happy now, but I was happy then, I just needed to lose weight for work, and it's sort of stuck now. But actually, before I started acting, I looked great naked. I wasn't always out of shape. Some people actually wanted to see me naked, you know, not just for laughs. STRIPLV: Speaking of strength, you've had times when you've moved away from being ripped. You seem comfortable in yourself these days, no matter what your shape. PRATT: In many ways, the work taken to shed 80lbs in moving from comedies The Five Year Engagement and Delivery Man into the action genre for The Guardians of the Galaxy was the big shift. Once I did that, I don't think I was ever going to put that back on. When you have the momentum of losing a lot of weight, it carries you through into a continual process of slimming or narrowing down, whereas when you start from the point of relative fitness and are needing to trim small percentages, that's when a lot of the real effort comes in. You may have days when you feel you are getting nowhere at all or even running in reverse. STRIPLV: You've always been open about your relationship with image and food. PRATT: I think you have to be balanced and honest. It's okay to say you like eating. We seem to be obsessing, as a society, with the notion that food is an extreme or evil when in reality, it's an absolute necessity to us. I'm happy to admit I miss happy moments that I had with really great food that I don't have. I even have sad moments now because I'm hungry, and I don't like that. I don't like having to think, "Now, what will that do to my body?". That's not fun. It can't and shouldn't ever be about how you look. How depressing would that be? It's about a sound body, sound mind, and keeping healthy as you can because we've only one body, that's it. Of course, personally, getting fit has been the key to getting better roles and also just feeling better in general. Once I started getting better scripts and I started playing in big films, I just saw how important it was to stay in shape, go to the gym, eat healthy, and change my lifestyle. STRIPLV: Did you ever worry that you wouldn't get cast in roles other than the nerd or sidekick kind of character? PRATT: Somehow, I always had this inner feeling that one day I was going to get to be able to play lead roles and be part of big films. I never gave up on myself, and I always had faith that, one way or another, I was going to succeed at a higher level, even though I wasn't sure how I was going to get there. STRIPLV: When you think about how your career has skyrocketed in the past few years, do you ever shake your head in disbelief, especially with you starring in multiple film franchises? PRATT: I feel blessed every day. I have a beautiful wife and three amazing children, and I'm getting the kinds of opportunities that I never could have expected earlier in my career. Getting to be part of film franchises is a pretty rarified space to be in, and that's why I've been working so hard the last few years. STRIPLV: Has being a father changed you in any significant ways? PRATT: It makes you more responsible. I take my role as a partner and father very seriously, and I am very dedicated to seeing to it that my children grow up happily and in a loving and caring environment. STRIPLV: What's your greatest challenge as a dad? PRATT: Knowing when to switch off; when to let go; knowing that I want to turn down a script and do very simple, very normal things. To enjoy the long evenings at the farm, to spend time with my family without the phone ringing, basically, to be a dad in the most invested way I can, not a movie star! And if there's one thing my kids taught me and should teach any dad out there, it's to be healthy and to stay healthy, alive, and active for them. If you can't do it for them, who can you do it for? STRIPLV: Would you have been happy with being the "lovable schlub" for another ten years in your career? PRATT: Completely, yeah. I thought for a while that that would be my niche, and I thought that there was nobody else really doing that. All of the vanity is taken out of it. Obviously, this reality is better though! STRIPLV: Guardians of the Galaxy 3 just came out. Before getting the Star-Lord role, did any of the auditions that didn't pan out affect you? PRATT: I think that the one that really stuck with me most was Star Trek. I remember that in the description, this character has "it." We can't put our finger on it, but it's the "it" factor. When I walked into that room, I didn't feel like I had that at all. Neither did they! I mean, I walked in, and I was like: "Hi, I'm Chris," and they were like: "Okay, hey." Not very upbeat or bothered that I was there. The cameras were rolling, and they never looked at me. The camera saw me, and I'm sure that they probably never gave that tape to anybody. That did sting a little bit. Yet in the middle of voicing The Lego Movie, that two-year process, I got cast in Guardians of the Galaxy. I went through this body transformation, this career transformation, and it was all very public. It was interesting to see how this ordinary, optimistic lovable guy gets the opportunity to do something really great and is accepted as a hero. I felt like that's what was happening in my life.
FIVE THINGS CHRIS PRATT GETS UP TO WHEN HE'S NOT BUSY WORKING
ONE Collecting cars Pratt was once almost the complete opposite of his multi-millionaire income self, living out of a van. He won his first car in a game of Blackjack - a 1968 yellow Volkswagen Beetle. He has gone on to add many more classic cars to his collection.
TWO Fishing The man who got his big break as the goofy character Andy Dwyer on the sitcom Parks and Recreation in 2009 regularly posts pictures of himself on social holding up fish he catches, and he says it helps him relax away from the movie industry.
THREE Hunting It may not be incredibly popular with some people, but the MCU star also likes to spend some of his free time hunting, for which he refers to himself as "an outdoorsman." Pratt says he has respect and remorse for the animals he hunts.
FOUR Dead bugs Pratt hoards the motionless corpses of insects. It was one thing his ex-wife Anna Farris revealed that helped get them together, as she did the same thing!
FIVE Father and son time Farris and Pratt had a son together, Jack, and dad Chris loves spending time with his eldest. They go fishing together and play sports.