Chris Pratt on how Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 helped him deal with his father’s death

Entertainment Weekly
Updated

Chris Pratt was filming Jurassic World in 2014 when his father, Dan Pratt, died after years of struggling with multiple sclerosis. But according to the actor, it wasn’t until work began on another project that he was able to come to terms with that loss.

In a new interview with British GQ, Pratt revealed that filming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 forced him to deal with his father’s death.

"The truth is I ripped open some wounds that had been healing for some time. And I didn’t want to,” Pratt told the magazine. “But I knew it was right for the moment... There are wounds that are never going to be totally healed. It would probably make for a better story if it was some emotional thing that I hadn’t dealt with... When we face the death of a parent, you sometimes feel regret that you didn’t fully embrace what you had."

Guardians Vol. 2 focuses on Pratt’s Peter Quill (a.k.a. Star-Lord) searching the galaxy for his own father (Kurt Russell, revealed over the summer to be playing Ego in the film).

Last year, Pratt recalled focusing on Jurassic World after his father died. “I knew, being the lead in the movie, that I was really responsible for everybody’s attitude,” he told the American edition of GQ in June 2015. “So I compartmentalized it all and dealt with it in my own way, but not openly for people to see. I got pretty angry and got drunk and almost got in a fight with a drug dealer outside of my hotel room.”

At that time, he described Dan Pratt as an “old school kind of dad,” which he said was “actually a good thing.”

“In his own way he let me know that he was proud of me,” Chris Pratt added. “He didn’t really react in any way, one way or another, but he was definitely proud. If I was on TV, he watched everything I was in. So it felt like I was able to communicate with him through doing work that was on TV.”

Head to British GQ for more from Pratt’s latest interview. He’ll be seen next with Jennifer Lawrence in the sci-fi romance Passengers, which arrives in theaters Dec. 21. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be released next May.