Chris Pratt was told he was too fat for Moneyball

Anyone who knew Chris Pratt before he became a proper movie star will remember his, well, ‘cuddly’ alter ego Andy Dwyer from the sitcom ‘Parks and Recreation’.

But it seems that he was a bit too cuddly.

Speaking in an interview with the cover story of the current Vanity Fair, he’s revealed that his heft almost lost him a job.

He’d auditioned for the role of Oakland Athletics’ first-baseman Scott Hatteberg in Brad Pitt and Bennett Miller’s sports drama ‘Moneyball’ in 2011.

“That was the first time I heard someone say, ‘We’re not gonna cast you — you’re too fat,’” he told the magazine.

“So I decided to drop the weight, like in wrestling. I couldn’t afford a trainer, so it was all running and crash-dieting and cutting alcohol.”

He still got the job, but it wasn’t until a year later that Pratt realised that he could potentially carry off action roles.

“Zero Dark Thirty. That’s the first time I bulked up, got into great shape because I was playing a navy SEAL,” he goes on.

“I was like, My God, I buy that guy. I’m SEAL Team Six in that movie, and I felt like it was real. I can do this. I can play those roles.”

He also spoke about how his ‘chubby’ persona (not to mention his doubt in his own talents) also saw James Gunn initially pass on him for his breakthrough role as Peter Quill, aka Star Lord, in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.

“Guardians had come around, and I passed,” Pratt says.

“James Gunn [the director] passed on me, too. When they announced it, I looked it up and saw a list of the top 20 dudes in Hollywood who might play Peter Quill. I was not on that list. I did not want to go in and embarrass myself.

“My agent said, ‘Guardians is everything you’ve been saying you want to do.’ I said, ‘F**k, you’re right.’ But I’m going to go in there and do exactly what I mean by action comedy. My brand of stuff. Brash. Honest. I played the room.

“Jim Gunn, the way he tells it is like this: ‘Who do we have next? Chris Pratt? What the f**k? I said we weren’t going to audition the chubby guy from Parks and Rec.’ ‘Well, he’s already here.’

“They’d tested probably 10 people, spent a lot of money, and James wasn’t convinced on anyone yet. When I finished [my scene], he said, ‘Do you have any questions?’ I was like, ‘Are you f**kin’ crazy? Tell me everything.’

“I gave him my Peter Quill version of an answer. Once you get smart about auditioning, you learn to audition before they say ‘Action.’ You walk into the room as the character. You let them think the person you are is close to the character they want. You make them think you already are that guy. Gunn was like, ‘Damn, this is it.’”

And the rest is galactic history.

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