Leading from the front

Over the past five years, Chris Pratt has gone from comedy sidekick to Hollywood heavyweight. His physique and career may have changed dramatically, but his steadfast faith remains the same – and the star is determined to be a role model as well as a leading man.

In all of modern Hollywood you’d be hard-pressed to find a more rags-to-riches story than Chris Pratt’s journey to cinematic super-stardom. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine the Minnesota native as anything other than a man completely suited to play the plethora of heroic on-screen alter egos he has portrayed in recent franchises – from Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill to Jurassic World’s Owen Grady and even The Lego Movie’s Emmet Brickowski.

But at the origin of his career Pratt was living up to the stereotypes of the struggling actor, bussing tables at a Bubba Gump Shrimp in Maui, Hawaii, and sleeping in a tent on a nearby beach. It’s a memory that stays with him even now, with a multi-billion dollar haul at the glob...