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The day I came home from the Guardians of the Galaxy press conference, my son picked up the talking Battle FX Star-Lord figure we received from Hasbro and immediately said, “Hey…that’s Emmet!” I am constantly impressed with how intuitive my son is, and it provoked an insightful conversation about how films are made. While it’s definitely too soon to decide, I can see his interest in film growing and I love any opportunities we have to delve into the cinematic world when possible.
With Guardians of the Galaxy slated to debut in theaters this week, I thought I’d share some perspective on the film from my absolute favorite character…Star-Lord! Chris Pratt, who’s work includes Zero Dark Thirty and The LEGO Movie, sat down to talk about how he got involved with the project, his longstanding affinity for comic books, his favorite moments on-set, and what it means to be a hero.
Pratt’s lead character Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord), is the leader of the Guardians, abducted from his hometown in Missouri as a child and raised by the Ravagers, a group of thieves and smugglers who’s teachings armed him with the knowledge and skills necessary to steal the highly coveted Orb.
Pratt’s initial reservations about taking on the role of Star-Lord were primarily focused on his own physical capabilities. It took watching Zero Dark Thirty for him to realize that he was capable of getting “back into shape.” Simultaneously, Pratt was having a bit of an identity crisis as an actor, but eventually realized he wanted to do something that combined action with comedy. Because there have been “many incarnations of this character,” Pratt wanted to “breathe [his] own spirit into it. Along with incorporating comedic elements into the character of Star-Lord, Pratt also brought his personality to the project.
Pratt’s affinity for superheroes began around the eighth grade, and while he did not own a lot of comic books, he used his friends’ books as a guide to draw the pictures out of them. Coming from a family of artists, Pratt recalls loving “the artistry, the characters and what they were, and the physicality of the heroes” rather than the stories. His first introduction to Guardians of the Galaxy arose after winning three hundred dollars during a game of Bingo he played with his mom. He used that money to purchase a slew of comic books, one of which was Guardians of the Galaxy.
As you might expect, Guardians of the Galaxy is a joyous, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. Pratt recalls many memorable moments from his time on-set, but his favorite was hands-down the first day of shooting in an area called Morag. In one of his early scenes, Pratt finds himself running, with the wind blowing approximately 60-70 mph. This fantastical, outdoor, real-live set is approximately the size of two massive football fields put together, and during this scene, the filmmakers have the rain machines going and “guys are shooting real water from real ponds, hundreds of feet up in the air.” The set boasts an element of green screen around the entire horizon, but on the inside it was like a se had just drained out and revealed a city that had been underwater for ten thousand years. Pratt had this moment where he realized that he was in this movie and “it’s going to be epic.”
My son has yet to see Guardians of the Galaxy, and already Star-Lord is “his” superhero. For Pratt, being a hero to kids is “the greatest part of all [of] this.” Pratt recalls his childhood days of imaginative play where he pretended to be Hans Solo or Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker. “Comic books and storytelling of this magnitude is what helped me cultivate my imagination as a young kid. To think that kids are going to watch this and feel that way is really cool.”
See Chris Pratt as Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which opens in theaters Friday, August 1st, 2014.
Images: Marvel
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