40 Things You May Not Know About Chris Pratt

Updated on 2/22/2015 at 6:20 AM

You know Chris Pratt is handsome, charming, and talented, but did you know he landed his break while waiting tables at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.? The Parks and Recreation star has taken Hollywood by storm over the past year, and he's just getting started, with the buzzed-about Jurassic World and a possible leading role in the Indiana Jones reboot on the horizon. Whether you're already a huge fan — with so many sexy Chris Pratt pictures, who could blame you? — or you're just starting to notice him, now is the perfect time to get to know more about the star. Check out reasons why Chris is so lovable, then take a look at facts you may not know about his past, his marriage, and his many random talents.

His Family and Early Life

Chris was born in 1979 in Minnesota, but his family moved to Alaska when he was 3 years old because his dad worked in mining and construction. After about four years, they relocated to Washington state.
He has two older siblings, Cully and Angie, and we may have his brother to thank for that ab-tastic gym selfie. When he shared it, he joked, "Kinda douchey to post this but my brother made me."
For the past 29 years, Chris's mom has worked at a Safeway grocery store in Washington. (She hasn't quit because she's only about one year from retirement, and yes, Chris did buy her a house.)
Chris's dad passed away in 2014.
He grew up hunting, and he bought his first gun at age 12 with babysitting money.
At Lake Stevens High School, Chris was an athlete.
The outgoing actor also emceed school assemblies — his first experience in front of a crowd.
Surprise, surprise — he was voted class clown before he graduated in 1997.

The Start of His Career

After graduating from high school, Chris spent a few semesters at a community college, where he took a theater class.
He's also revealed that he was a stripper when he was 18, working a bachelorette party and — yes — his friend's grandmother's birthday party.
Stripping is just one of the many jobs on his lengthy résumé; Chris also cleaned peoples' cars, painted murals, worked for his dad, worked at a burger joint, spent time as a room-service waiter, and manned the snack bar at a bingo hall.
At one point, he moved to Hawaii, where he waited tables at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
It was while waiting tables that Chris met a visiting director. He ended up moving to California to star in the 2000 horror comedy movie Cursed Part III.
(He still has nightmares about waiting tables: "They're like the worst nightmare you can have. You're totally in the weeds. You have like six tables. You forgot to put the order in. You're sweating, and you wake up and 'Oh, my God. I'm so glad.'")
For his first role, Chris was paid $700 plus a plane ticket to LA.
He's embarrassed by his cheesy first headshot photo, which came about thanks to some funny, slightly creepy circumstances.
Fans of The WB's early 2000s TV dramas may have first fallen for him when he landed a role on Everwood. That show wrapped in 2006, when he joined The OC as "Ché."

His Love Story

Chris and Anna grew up 20 minutes apart in Washington.
Anna wasn't single when the pair met on the set of Take Me Home Tonight in 2007, so Chris didn't think twice about leaving porn magazines out when she went to his apartment.
He did plan to win her over, though. Of meeting him on set, Anna said, "He was cast as my boyfriend . . . and when I met him at the table read he was wearing a Seattle Seahawks t-shirt. I was all, 'No way, I'm from Edmonds!' He had planned the whole thing, which is romantic to me. He was like, 'I'm gonna get her,' and he got me."
The pair tied the knot in Bali in July 2009.
Chris pinches himself over their relationship: "I'm like, 'Oh my God, my wife is really cool, really hot, and really funny, oh my God.' What happened? I just want to know what terrible things happened in my previous life that give me the fortune to have this happen."
In Chris's truck (a red Ford F-150 Raptor pickup), Anna is programmed as "Anna, my love" in the bluetooth system.
Also, fun fact: Anna always picks their dinner order when they go out together.

His Son

Chris and Anna's son, Jack Daniel, was born in August 2012. He's named after the couple's dads, his first name after Anna's and his middle name after Chris's.
Jack was born nine weeks early, a scary experience that Anna said brought them closer as a couple.
Chris has shown his support for the March of Dimes organization, and his emotional, funny speech about Jack's birth went viral after a 2014 March of Dimes event.
He's spoken candidly about how his career has pulled him away from his family, saying he saw Jack twice between his seventh month to his 13th.
Busy career or not, though, Anna's gushed about Chris as a father, saying he's "a great dad" and "a little more serious than he was before."

His Many Talents

During the press tour for Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris rapped to Eminem's "Forgot About Dre."
As to how Chris learned all those lyrics, he said that when he lived in Maui, he lived in a van with his friend, and they pretty much listened to that album and smoked weed every day.
That same press tour also revealed Chris's knack for french braiding.
Meanwhile, he seems to have a go-big-or-go-home attitude when it comes to going out: "I just feel like, if I drink, I want to drink a case of beer and not two beers. Two beers doesn't do anything for me."
Let's not forget about his musical talents, either, which made their way on to Parks and Recreation thanks to Mouse Rat.
Speaking of Parks and Rec, Chris casually mentioned that he flashed Amy Poehler on set when he wasn't getting the reaction he wanted from her.
Recently, he also shared a supersweet fact about his teenage self. The Jurassic World star said he saw Jurassic Park twice in theaters the weekend it opened in 1993, adding, "The 13-year-old me would have been tickled to death" about the upcoming role.

And What Other People Say About Him

He defies stereotypes: Chris didn't win over his Parks and Recreation costar Nick Offerman right away, but that quickly changed. Nick said, "I thought, Oh great, who's this meathead? Obviously he's very beautiful, but he must be dumb as a post. And then he proceeded to be perfectly sweet and absolutely sharp as a tack, and I thought, Oh, I see. You're a superhero."
He's also "brilliant" according to his TV wife Aubrey Plaza: "I just want him all to myself, and now I feel like the whole world is let in on the secret brilliance of Chris Pratt . . . He's a talented rap artist, like to a scale that people don’t know about. He can do anything and everything. He's like a real live superhero."
Oh, he's also not afraid to chow down, says Aziz Ansari: "Chris is the sweetest, funniest guy. He always also never uses a spit bucket. When you do scenes where a character is eating, you eat and then spit it out into a "spit bucket." Chris just keeps eating. If you see Andy eating a cheeseburger in a scene, you should know Chris Pratt ate like eight cheeseburgers."
And last but not least, as his wife Anna sweetly said, there's a lot to know about him: "His intelligence hits you by surprise. It's easy to lump him into 'Big dude who likes trucks.' As you get to know him, he's a really complicated, interesting person."