Chris Pratt may have been saved because people wanted to save a few bucks.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, the affable actor credits his family and, oddly, coupons for making him a star. Fame, though, wasn't something that was on his radar until he was in high school and saw his brother star in a Christmas play.
"One Christmas, he was in a play, a musical, and sang, and it knocked everyone's socks off," Chris said. "My mom was crying. And I was like, 'That's what I want to do.'"
Soon, Chris was telling people of his plan to be an actor, although the road to get to where he is now was bumpy, to say the least. Before honing his acting chops, Chris sold coupons door to door, but that didn't work out and he returned home dead broke and really embarrassed.
A friend then encouraged him to move to Hawaii, which he did, eventually becoming a server at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. There, his fate changed thanks to a little known actress named Rae Dawn Chong. Rae had actually starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Commando."
Rae encouraged him to audition for a film. He did, and he ended up getting the lead spot.
"It was the worst movie I'd ever seen," he said, adding that the film never got released. Still, in Chris' mind, it served a purpose. "The whole reason that movie came along was just so I could be brought to Hollywood."
It's those days of clawing for jobs and shilling coupons that he says made him the actor he is. In fact, he thinks he owes his career to that stretch of time.
"I feel like it was perfectly planned. People talk about rejection in Hollywood," he said. "I'm like, 'You're outta your f—— mind. Did you ever have someone stick their dog on you at an audition?'"
Once a more heavyset star, Chris said it was a part in the 2011 film "Moneyball" that actually led him to transform his body into the hunky star he is today.
"That was the first time I heard someone say, 'We're not gonna cast you—you're too fat,'" he recalled. "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."
The cinematic world has been forever grateful.