The story of Peter Quill, the character played by Chris Pratt in James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, is certainly a strange one. As a child back in the 1980s, he found himself whisked off of planet Earth and far off into the cosmos where he would spend the rest of his life living amongst all kinds of bizarre aliens from other worlds. In this situation, it’s not hard to believe that a kid would search for life guidance in the sci-fi adventure films that he enjoyed watching on the big screen – the most notable title, of course, being Star Wars - and as a result, those kinds of movies played an important role in Chris Pratt’s approach in his performance.
The video you see above comes from a recent press event held for Guardians of the Galaxy on the Walt Disney Studio lot in Burbank, California, where I had the fortunate opportunity to interview the new comic book movie hero about his new movie. Though our time was short, we got to dive deep into the film and how he connected with the part.
More than just movies, music also played a significant part in Chris Pratt’s turn as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord. In addition to packing the soundtrack with amazing pop/rock hits from the 1960s and 1970s (coming together as an amazing mixtape), director James Gunn also told his lead to listen to the tracks religiously to get into character. I asked Pratt about some of the other songs Gunn gave him, and while he couldn’t immediately remember the titles, there was one title in particular that really spoke to him:
Written and directed by James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy’s story kicks off as Star-Lord comes into the possession of a mysterious orb that, unbeknownst to him, holds an extreme power. The orb leads him to a brief fight with an assassin named Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and two alien bounty hunters named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), but the incident lands them in space jail – where they meet a revenge-seeking inmate named Drax (Dave Bautista). The five anti-heroes team up to escape prison and try to make a big score with the orb, but they quickly realize that their larger mission is to keep the potential weapon of mass destruction out of the hands of a war criminal named Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace). The movie opens in theaters around the United States tonight!
