When Chris Pratt signed on to bring The Terminal List to life from the page onto the small screen, he wanted to make the series about a Navy SEAL as realistic as possible, despite its nature as a fictional thriller. Pratt’s been open about making sure there was “no Hollywood bullshit” in The Terminal List, but while the original Amazon Prime show walks the walk and talks the talk, it’s still a far cry from what Navy SEALs go through in real life.
In fact, while Pratt may refer to the show as “wildly authentic,” the Amazon original series star was recently asked if he could hang in Navy SEAL training with the best and brightest. His answer was incredibly honest.
First of all, anyone who ever answers that question ‘yes’ is a douchebag. Even if they kinda believe, maybe in the back of their head, maybe no, the answer has gotta be ‘No.’ You can’t possibly understand or comprehend what these men go through in just through hell week, let alone the full BUD/S training. So I severely doubt it.
Speaking to Yahoo, Chris Pratt’s answer is so rousingly emphatic I’m a little surprised it didn’t start with a “hell no.” To his point, real-life Navy SEALS go through a 12-month training program that the US Navy actually refers to as “brutal” on its official site before then embarking on another 18-month program for pre-deployment training. As a non-military person, I really have no personal understanding of what the training encompasses or the mental toll it takes, but there’s a great article about Hell Week training for SEALs that will have you engrossed if you want to get more into the nitty gritty. In it, it discusses hardened, seasoned individuals who have been training for months dropping like flies for a variety of different reasons as the going gets hard. In short, it’s not easy, and Pratt has a great awareness of this.
This is particularly true given how the actors trained for the The Terminal List, which reportedly included CrossFit workouts and workouts his trainer Jared Shaw devised previously for real Navy SEALs. Shaw even told Men’s Journal he “wanted it to feel just like we were on base getting it in between missions.” Pratt did pull-ups on tree branches and lots of squats, with Shaw also noting it “not about how much you can curl.” Rather, it’s about “if you can carry your teammate to safety if he gets hit.” So Pratt got a facsimile of what to expect in training, even if it wasn’t the real deal.
Still, it’s not a real shock that Chris Pratt went on to elaborate that he feels “most people” really can’t get through the training, intimating he’d be among those volumes of people who would probably not be able to hack the mental grit and fortitude it takes to want to work as a SEAL.
I think most people don’t have the makeup to get it done. I’m blessed to be in a position as an actor and as a producer to be able to share this story onscreen. That’s my journey, but I do it because I have such an affinity for the men who can actually cut it.
What he can do is star in a show like The Terminal List, which hasn’t won over the critics but does seem to be winning over a legion of fans.The show itself follows Pratt as a platoon commander who loses his team in an ambush, and afterwards, his memory of the events is unreliable. Untangling a web of conspiracy, he ultimately goes on a mission filled with twists… and intent on revenge. The Amazon show is based on the popular series of novels written by Jack Carr, a former Navy SEAL who retired from active duty himself in 2016, so it's coming from someone who did live the lifestyle, and clearly Pratt and co. wanted to pay homage to that.
Amazon Prime Video subscribers can catch the brand new series now, as the subscription streaming giant dropped all eight episodes from the first season on July 1.
