Chris Pratt Was Sick of the 70s Music Used for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’
Chris Pratt listened to a lot of old school music as his Guardians of the Galaxy character Peter Quill. But after a while, he didn’t enjoy the soundtrack nearly as much as his Star-Lord did.
Why Chris Pratt grew tired of Star-Lord’s music
Pratt did whatever he could to get into the head of his Star-Lord character in Guardians of the Galaxy. This meant working out rigorously for the role so he could get himself into superhero shape. But this also meant listening to Star-Lord’s music nonstop. When audiences are first introduced to Pratt’s Peter Quill in the first movie, the character is seen dancing around and listening to music. The music is a mix of songs Quill’s mother made for him back when he was still living on Earth.
To get into Quill’s headspace, Pratt spent six months listening to the songs nonstop.
“In my mind, I was thinking: ‘This is the one album this guy has listened to since he was ten. I want to know these songs inside and out,'” Pratt once told BBC’s The One Show (via Express).
But doing so had the exact opposite effect on Pratt than it had on his character. Instead of loving the tracks more, Pratt soured on the music.
“I must have heard each of those songs several hundred times,” Pratt said. “And so, uh, yeah, I don’t like any of them anymore.”
Chris Pratt felt the soundtrack for ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ was better than the first one
The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie is full of classic songs, not only for Quill’s ears, but the audience’s as well. But Quill felt the soundtrack for Vol. 2 might’ve even surpassed the original.
“Yeah, it’s really good man. I daresay it’s better than the first one. There’s some really deep cuts on it man: George Harrison, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, a bunch of kind of lesser-known songs. It’s pretty cool when a soundtrack from the 70’s comes out because there are people who lived with those songs, grew up with those songs, they’re familiar, they bring back this sense of sentimentality,” Pratt once told NME.
But Pratt felt the 70s soundtracks weren’t just for fans familiar with those records. They could potentially create new fans as well.
“And there’s going to be a whole new generation that’s hearing these songs for the first time, and for those artists it’s really great to have their work exposed to a whole new audience and, you know, for them to have another big moment again with the songs that have since come and gone, or seemingly come and gone,” he said. “So that’s pretty cool, we’re really proud of the music. James [Gunn] does a good job of threading the music in and making it – using it as a narrative tool to help tell the story. It’s a big part of our movie, it takes center stage quite a few times.”
Pratt also heard a few songs that he himself was a big fan of.
“I think probably the Cat Steven’s song ‘Father and Son’ at the end, that’s the one that moves me the most, got me most emotional,” he recalled.
Chris Pratt took a different approach when it came to music in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’
Pratt didn’t listen to the same records over and over again for Vol. 2 like he did for Vol. 1. Instead, the Parks and Rec actor decided not to listen to the songs at all to approach his character differently.
“It wasn’t as important for the character to have that engrained in his brain the same way. Because the movie picks up a couple months after the events of the first movie, I would have only had that tape for a couple of months. So I listened to it a couple of times, but otherwise I was allowing myself to really hear it on the day and let it be fresh and new and exciting for me the way it would be for the character,” he told Cinemablend.
