Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt (born June 21, 1979, Virginia, Minnesota, U.S.) is an American actor known for his amiable charm in roles ranging from comic nitwits to heroic leading men. He gained fame as a television actor before becoming a movie star.

Early life

Pratt’s mother worked at a grocery store, and his father worked in various capacities, including mining and home building. When he was a child, the family moved from Minnesota to Lake Stevens, Washington, where he grew up. Pratt acted in school plays in high school, and, after his 1997 graduation, he enrolled in community college acting classes and also occasionally acted in community theatre and dinner theatre. He soon dropped out, however, and moved to Maui, Hawaii, where he held odd jobs and lived in a tent on the beach. While working at a restaurant, he met actress Rae Dawn Chong, who recruited him to appear in her short comedy horror film Cursed Part 3 (2000). Pratt decided to remain in Los Angeles and pursue a career in acting.

Recognition with Parks and Recreation

After performing in a few minor roles, Pratt was cast as a high-school sports jock in the well-received television drama series Everwood (2002–06), and, when that series ended, he had a recurring role in the final season (2006–07) of The O.C. He then appeared in the workplace comedy Parks and Recreation (2009–15), portraying the hapless and often clueless Andy Dwyer. The show became a cult favourite and was a breakthrough for Pratt, who soon landed film roles. He played catcher-turned-first-baseman Scott Hatteburg in Moneyball (2011), a Navy SEAL in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and a colleague of the protagonist (Joaquin Phoenix) in Spike Jonze’s Her (2013).

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Pratt was still best known for his character in Parks and Recreation when he took the role of the irreverent good-hearted thief Peter Quill/Star-Lord in the space western Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), based on a minor Marvel Comics story line. The movie was an enormous hit, and it made Pratt an undeniable star. He played the role again in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).

Pratt gave another winning performance—in this case, as the heroic velociraptor wrangler Owen Grady—in the Jurassic Park follow-up Jurassic World (2015), which was also a blockbuster. He then starred with Denzel Washington in the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven. He reprised his role as Owen Grady in the widely panned sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), and he played a villain in the western The Kid (2019). In 2021 he starred in the sci-fi adventure The Tomorrow War. The following year Pratt appeared in Jurassic World Dominion, the last installment in the trilogy. He then returned to TV with the action series The Terminal List (2022– ), in which he was cast as a Navy SEAL. Pratt supplemented his on-screen appearances with voice work in animated movies, including The Lego Movie (2014) and its 2019 sequel and Onward (2020), about a quest by elven brothers to bring their father back to life. Pratt also voiced the iconic video game character Mario in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) and the comic strip cat Garfield in The Garfield Movie (2024). In 2026 Pratt also starred alongside Rebecca Ferguson in Mercy.

Personal life

From 2009 to 2018 Pratt was married to actress Anna Faris. In 2019 he wed author Katherine Schwarzenegger, daughter of actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and TV journalist Maria Shriver.