Chris Pratt Came up With the Famous ‘Who?’ Joke in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Chris Pratt revealed that filming Guardians of the Galaxy was a collaborative effort. So much so that the cast and crew didn’t always need to stick to the script, which might’ve only improved the film.
How Chris Pratt came up with the ‘Who?’ joke in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Guardians of the Galaxy seemed like the perfect film for Pratt. The actor was able to apply some of his own humor as the superhero Peter Quill in James Gunn’s superhero flick. In an interview with Pursuitist, it was mentioned that Pratt did a lot of improvisation in his comedy show Parks and Recreation. Pratt was asked if he could improvise in a similar way with Guardians of the Galaxy.
“We got to do a little bit but you’ve got to be careful when you’re on a movie that costs, you know, $15,000 a second. You can’t just go blowing takes by trying out some new material. It was less improvisation and more collaboration in terms of the comedy,” Pratt said.
An idea Pratt gave Gunn was that no one should know who Peter Quill is. Which would become a running joke throughout the film.
“I would go to James and say, ‘Hey, this is what we should do in this scene…’ Like having people go ‘Star-Lord who?’ That whole thing was not written that way originally, I said, ‘People don’t know who Star-Lord is, you know? It’d be kind of funny if everyone is going ‘Who?’ That was a collaboration,” Pratt said.
There were other suggestions Pratt came up with, like his reference to Footloose, that made it in the movie.
“I came up with that because I was thinking, ‘If this kid was nine years old when he left Earth he would have seen Star Wars and he would have seen Footloose, all the movies I loved when I was his age,” Pratt said. “We were both born in 1979 and I was nine years old in 1988, just like he was. That kid is the kid I was too. Granted our circumstances were very different.”
Why Chris Pratt felt his character was right for Peter Quill
Pratt noted that there were already plenty of similarities personality-wise between himself and Peter Quill. So, Pratt needed little preparation to slip into the role.
“I didn’t have to change all that much. If anyone else had done the movie it would be a different movie. I didn’t pull a Daniel Day-Lewis or anything like that. I just threw on a space jacket and pretended it was me, and I think it works. That’s what I meant by that,” Pratt said.
But he did have to transform physically for the role, and obtain the physique needed to believably portray a superhero.
“The first five months of my involvement on this film were spent transforming myself physically. I was in LA working with personal trainers and nutritionists every single day,” Pratt said. “It became my job. The thing I loved most about comic books as a kid was the imagery: The covers and these super-ripped dudes and mega-sexy women. It was fantasy to me. It’s what I appreciated most as a kid and it was what was most important to me in approaching this role – so I tried to get my body to look as much like those guys as I could. I enjoyed it but it was pain.”
How Chris Pratt’s ex-wife reacted to his transformation
Pratt achieved this physique the old fashioned way, spending tireless hours at the gym and eating a diet of mainly broccoli and rice. As pleased as he was with the results, his wife at the time Anna Faris had mixed feelings about it.
“She would vacillate between being turned on and happy and like ‘Oh my God honey, look at your body, that’s crazy!’ That was one side but the other side was ‘Oh will you just eat something, you grumpy bastard,'” Pratt recalled.
