Chris Pratt Conquers The World

“Fuckin’ tequila man. [Plane emoji. Hammer emoji. Unhappy queasy face emoji].”

Chris Pratt is hungover and tweeting, a mere two days after our conversation about not drinking so much anymore because, it’s true what they say, getting old makes it so much harder than it used to be.

“I don’t drink as much, I don’t smoke as much pot, I knuckle down,” he says. “I have fun when I want to have fun, I do, but I have to get up in the morning and I have to be there and I have to be always of a clear enough head to take care of shit if the shit goes wrong.”

There’s his body to consider, now toned and solid and incessantly talked-about. There’s his wife, the comic actress Anna Faris, and his two-year-old son asleep at home, far away from wherever that plane emoji brought him to talk to journalists to promote the biggest blockbuster movie of the summer. Fuckin’ tequila, man. Fuckin’ life.

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Pratt is known for his youthful exuberance. Or at least, he was before he became an action hero. If you were familiar with Pratt before last year, when he starred in The Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy (two of the highest-grossing movies not just of 2014, but of all time), chances are you’re a fan of Parks and Recreation, the critically adored, almost entirely ignored NBC sitcom that ended its seven-season run in February.

The story goes that Pratt was never supposed to be a series regular. He came in to read for the part of Andy Dwyer, City Hall shoe shine boy and one-episode love interest for Rashida Jones’s character—and blew everyone away. And the kicker? He didn’t really even read, so much as bounce around in the audition room, unrehearsed, becoming the character on the spot.

He got the job, he stuck around, he became central to the show, getting top billing along with his comedy royalty co-stars Amy Pohler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari and Rob Lowe. Pratt’s Andy Dwyer is a lovable goofball, a clumsy, prat-falling ignoramus who’s more puppy than man. You can trace a direct line from Andy Dwyer to Pratt’s early childhood heroes: Jim Carrey, Will Ferrel, Adam Sandler.

So then what? Well, you don’t get famous as a puppy in Hollywood. Not real famous. Not can’t-go-to-the-airport-comfortably famous. Look at all those guys Pratt looked up to early on: Carrey, Ferrel, Sandler, they all played against type at some point. They all took on projects they liked just because they liked them, even if there wasn’t a laugh anywhere in sight.

For Pratt, that role was as a Navy SEAL in Zero Dark Thirty. That’s when things changed. Partly, yes, because he’s great in his short time onscreen. And partly because he posted a picture on Instagram of his newly sculpted abs, which went completely viral. Here, all of a sudden, was a guy who could be a movie star.

From Zero Dark Thirty, it’s a short jump to Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic book movie with a plot that makes absolutely no sense in the retelling, but that features Pratt as the universe-saving hero, complete with leather jacket and expertly tussled hair. To put things in perspective: Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper are also in the movie, the former as a mutated tree, the latter as a talking racoon.

And now, in his next move towards complete box-office domination and bona fide action hero status, Pratt is starring in Jurassic World, the much-anticipated follow-up to the ’90s dinosaur franchise.