Chris Pratt has done his share of gregarious goofing on the TV series Parks and Recreation, flexed a chiselled physique in Guardians of the Galaxy, and shown some dramatic chops in Moneyball. In other words, he’s not exactly a shy guy.
But if you really want him to cut loose, put him in the vocal booth, as co-writers and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller did for the animated hit The Lego Movie.
In this clip from a recent instalment of the Envelope Screening Series, Pratt talks about his uninhibited work in the film.
“I felt the least amount of self-consciousness as I’ve ever felt doing any role,” Pratt says of voicing Lego protagonist Emmet. “Not so much because of the way I sounded, but because I wasn’t concerned at all about the way I looked.”
There’s “a big distinction between doing anything on film and television and doing voice-over,” he adds. “I would show up [to Lego] barefoot, wearing some shorts and a schlubby T-shirt, and I hadn’t shaved and had ranch dressing on my shirt, and I’m pouring sweat and I don’t care. It was nice. ... You can be big and you can make crazy facial expressions that your vanity would never allow you to do on camera. So I felt very loose.”
Asked if he tapped into his inner child, Pratt replies, “I think so, yeah. My 35-year-old self is the equivalent of the average 8-year-old-self, so I just tapped into my own self.”
— Los Angeles Times
