Chris Pratt on What Military Personnel Like Most About His Roles
Chris Pratt stopped by The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night to promote his role in The Garfield Movie and to celebrate Fleet Week. Fallon’s entire audience last night was service men and women, which gave Pratt the perfect opportunity to explain the military community’s reaction to his many military-themed roles and projects.
Noting that Pratt has played “a few different military characters in the past,” Fallon listed off the actor’s patriotic projects: playing a NAVY Seal in Zero Dark Thirty; a Green Beret in The Tomorrow War; and another NAVY Seal in The Terminal List.
Despite his copious on-screen experience, Pratt still defers to the experts around him. “Everything I know about combat I learned from watching TV and movies,” the actor admitted. “My roommate (Max Adams), who’s now my producing partner on The Terminal List, a former NAVY Seal, he used to pick things apart,” Pratt explained.
For example, “I always assumed when something explodes behind you, you just walk away,” Pratt joked. “You don’t even flinch. Everything I know is from watching it on screen.”
When they set out to produce The Terminal List, Pratt and Adams were determined to make the show feel as grounded as possible.
“A big part of The Terminal List was to really take the time, hiring this trifecta of former Spec Ops to oversee all the military action and make sure authenticity was the North Star,” Pratt explained.
“A lot of the time the feedback I’ll get from people in uniform will be, ‘Thank you for caring enough to try to get it right,’” the actor reflected. “The little things that you or I might not notice, they notice when they watch these types of movies. It always feels like a pat on the back when I hear that from them.”
Pratt concluded by thanking the audience for their service before instructing them to give themselves a round of applause.
“I hope it comes through that the whole creative teams behind The Terminal List and these movies have the utmost respect for our men and women in uniforms. I’m so pumped it’s Fleet Week,” Pratt said to cheers.