Jurassic World: Chris Pratt Explains How He “Manifested” His Role During Parks and Recreation

Chris Pratt’s breakout role as a movie star came in 2014 as Star-Lord in Guardians of the Galaxy, paving the way for him to become one of today’s most popular performers, but the actor recently detailed that he had unexpectedly predicted he would join the revival of the Jurassic Park franchise while making a joke behind the scenes of the sitcom Parks and Recreation. Given that Pratt’s involvement in the first season of the sitcom and how he impressed the creatives with his talents resulted in his character being expanded into becoming a series regular, it’s no surprise that it was his own will that makes surprising opportunities available to him.

“In Season 2 of Parks and Recreation, I am doing behind-the-scenes videos with something called a Mini Flip. I was seventh on the call sheet which meant that from Amy [Poehler] down to number 6 on the call sheet they had all said, ‘No, I don’t want to do this,’ so they let me do it,” Pratt recalled to IMDb’s How Well Do You Know Your IMDb Page? “As I was doing it my phone rang and I pretended that I had gotten a text from Steven Spielberg that I was going to be in Jurassic Park 4. The bit was so funny because I was like, ‘There is no way Steven Spielberg is going to cast you in Jurassic Park 4. That’s funny!’ And then it turned out that it happened which is wild. I manifested it.”

Clearly Pratt’s involvement in the franchise had an impact on the reception of Jurassic World, as it went on to become one of the top-grossing movies of all time, reviving the series after more than a decade of it being largely dormant. Pratt would return for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the upcoming Jurassic World: Dominion, which underwent some production delays due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s a very emotionally rich and thematically rich movie. It’s got a lot on its mind — because all of us did,” director Colin Trevorrow previously shared with ComicBook.com. “And I think it understands each of these characters better than we ever have because each of these actors has been playing them for so long that they’re the ultimate authority on their own character. Much in a way that I did on Safety Not Guaranteed, I really gave all the actors an opportunity to — in a lot of ways — do some writing, to really dig in and find the truth in each of these people. And the product of that is something that I never could have done alone. It’s pretty special.”

Jurassic World: Dominion is currently set to hit theaters on June 10, 2022.

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