Chris Pratt is a hugely talented actor and his role as Peter Quill in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise put him on the map as a leading man in Hollywood. However, he's since played a lot of characters with undeniable similarities to the MCU's Star-Lord.
Jurassic World's Owen Grady isn't all that different from Quill and neither, for that matter, is The Electric State's Keats.
Now, Pratt has acknowledged that he's started to notice the similarities between his big screen roles, explaining that with a "big commercial tone like this," you'll get "a Sliding Doors version of the characters that I like to play."
"They're both products of the same era, and so there's a similarity in the sense of nostalgia for an era that's bygone," he said of the parallels while talking to Entertainment Weekly. "Although it's an alternate version [in Electric State], it's the '90s, and obviously, Quill has all of these pop culture references to the '80s, things that helped inform him and who he was before he left Earth at 13. Keats is also a product of that time. So in that regard, they're similar."
"I guess as a character arc goes, they have a journey; they find something bigger than themselves to want to fight for and are willing to sacrifice themselves for," Pratt continued. "There's him talking to an animated character through the course of it. So I guess, even now, just in this interview, I'm realizing that there are similarities."
"He kind of feels like what Peter Quill could have been if he didn't get picked up and go to space, but instead lived through a robot war and went on the run with his robot friend."
Despite that, the actor argued that The Electric State "feels like a completely different movie" than his Marvel Studios work and noted, "I think [Keats] is less competent than Star-Lord. I think he's a bit more inept, a bit more of a goofball, and looks different, the hair and the moustache."
Pratt added, "I kind of like to think, hopefully, that's like every character I ever play though, in this tone, something that's like a big, family-friendly, raucous, adventure, sci-fi film. When it's a big commercial tone like this, you're going to get a Sliding Doors version of the characters that I like to play."
An actor who stars in commercial fare can play more than just the same archetype, but it's not easy. Look at Robert Downey Jr. While he's since won an Oscar for a dramatic role in Oppenheimer, his versions of Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes had a lot in common.
Pratt will reteam with the Russo Brothers for Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, two movies expected to put the Legendary Star-Lord front and centre with a lead role.
The Electric State, which reportedly had a $320 million budget, hasn't fared well on Rotten Tomatoes with a disappointing 14% score. It has, however, been given 76% from audiences and fans and critics alike seem to agree that Pratt is a highlight in a movie that's otherwise lacking them.