Before being cast as Star-Lord in 2014's Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt was best known for his role in Parks and Recreation. However, he shocked everyone by shedding his comedy persona by getting ripped for a small, albeit memorable, role in Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty.
Playing the MCU's Peter Quill has changed Pratt's life and made him one of Hollywood's biggest action stars. In an interview with Josh Horowitz, the actor gave filmmaker James Gunn a heap of credit for that.
When Disney fired Gunn for some resurfaced Tweets (which he'd already apologised for), Pratt was among those who implored the studio to bring him back for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Neither he nor the rest of the cast wanted to make the threequel without Gunn, and publicly voiced their displeasure at the possibility of his script being used by another director.
Reflecting on that, Pratt told the Happy Sad Confused host, "I remember it all clearly. I talked to Louis D'Esposito at Marvel, and he said they had to let James go. I told him it was a mistake. 'You can't do this.' But it happened anyway. I reached out to James and said, 'This isn't over.' I started praying on it and strategising. Dave Bautista defended him publicly in his own intense way."
"But ultimately, the credit for bringing him back goes to the people at Marvel and Alan Horn at Disney. He realised it wasn't right," Pratt continued. "Some people get cancelled and then act in ways that justify it. James was incredibly classy. He owned everything. Once things settled, it was clear it was unfair. He got the job back because firing him was a glaring mistake."
Elsewhere in the conversation, the actor reflected on what sold Gunn on him playing Star-Lord:
"I didn't know that I had it yet, but I was screen testing and felt pretty solid. I thought I could get this. My close friend Ben Davis was doing the Drax readings for James and gave me some inside information about what people said after my first screen test. He told me, 'This is yours to lose. Just keep doing what you're doing.' But when I did the scenes with the Gamora character—the Fooled Around and Fell in Love scene—I wasn't good. James thought I was blowing it. Then he saw me and Dave Bautista improvising together, saw that dynamic between us, and thought, okay, we can make this movie work."
Pratt has made it clear that he's eager to reprise the role of the Legendary Star-Lord, and it's widely believed that he will be part of Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars, or both. Gunn won't be returning to the MCU for the foreseeable future now that he's in charge of DC Studios. So, any future Guardians movies will have someone new at the helm.
In case you missed it, you can check out our recent interview with Pratt about Mercy in the player below.