Chris Pratt reveals Marvel audition failures

Could you imagine ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ without Chris Pratt? Well, it almost happened. Pratt recently revealed that he bombed his Marvel auditions so badly that he almost gave up on being in trying to secure a role with the franchise entirely.

According to Pratt, he auditioned to be a sidekick character in ‘Thor’ with no luck. The actor didn’t even get a call back with feedback.

Failed auditions

On April 27, Pratt revealed to Jimmy Kimmel as a guest on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ that he failed his previous Marvel auditions so badly that he almost gave up forever.

“I auditioned for Thor, but not even to be Thor – but to be one of the sidekick guys, and I didn’t get a callback.”

“Usually they give you a little bit of feedback, and I remember the casting director goes, ‘Wow. You really made a big choice there,’” he added. “Which is code for like, ‘Hey, dial back the acting there, guy.’”

Losing hope

He opened up about the feeling of failure, saying it “got to the point where I was never gonna audition for Marvel again.”

“I was like, ‘This is stupid, I’m never gonna be in a Marvel movie,’” he admitted.

At the time, he explained was auditioning for “anything that came out that needed a guy that even remotely looked like me.”

“I would either submit a tape and they would say ‘No, we don’t need to see him,’ or I would get there and see them, they’d go, ‘No, that’s the last time we need to see you,’” he said.

Finally securing a Marvel role

Thankfully, Pratt’s auditions were successful, and he was booked for his ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ role. According to Pratt, the role didn’t come without its sacrifices.

In 2018, Pratt told Men’s Health Magazine, “I probably lost about 35 pounds in six weeks. I ran five or six miles a day. I ate leafy green salads and protein shakes. I cut out all alcohol. Trim, trim, trim.”

Pratt will conclude his run in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ with the upcoming film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3.’ The first installment was released in 2014.

“Don’t do any emotional preparation, just go see it, and you’ll see why people were moved,” Pratt explained to the audience during Marvel’s San Diego Comic-Con panel in June 2022.

He continued, “It’s an emotional moment for us, certainly as actors who were in the piece, watching it for the first time and being reminded of everything we did over the past year-plus making the movie. And being out in Hall H in front of all these fans [for] the first time in years and understanding that this is the end of this trilogy. It’s all emotional.”