Twisters star Glen Powell credits Chris Pratt’s role in Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy for changing the game for Hollywood leading men.
In a profile piece published by GQ, Powell said Pratt’s Star Lord, who first appeared in James Gunn’s hugely successful 2014 MCU film Guardians of the Galaxy, “really helped” by “not being brooding or dark.”
“I remember when Chris Pratt broke out in Guardians of the Galaxy,” Powell said. “There’s no doubt it really helped — not being brooding or dark. Like, I’m not Christian Bale. Christian Bale has a gravitas and a weight, and [Robert] Pattinson had his thing.
“And when Pratt kind of appeared on the scene where he was doing things that were a little more silly and buoyant, that’s where I feel most at home. And that’s where I feel like I had a gear that is a necessary flavor in terms of Hollywood, and not a gear that a lot of guys can play.”
Powell, then, credits Pratt for helping him become a movie star. He mentioned Christian Bale, who had played Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, and Robert Pattinson, who famously played Edward Cullen in the Twilight Saga — both certainly brooding and dark roles, as Powell described.
Pratt’s Star Lord, however, was a different kind of leading man. As Powell said, Pratt was “a little more silly and buoyant.” It’s a role that saw enormous success for Marvel Studios, and took Pratt’s career to another level.
Will he reprise his role as Star Lord in Avengers: Doomsday? His name was conspicuous by its absence from Marvel Studios’ initial Avengers: Doomsday casting announcement — something the actor subsequently joked about. “I don’t know! I think it was, like, far off,” Pratt told Collider after being asked about his chair. “They must have cut away from it. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know. It was there. I’m sure it was there.”
As for Powell, he’s set to star as the leading man in Edgar Wright’s The Running Man, due out November 14.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
