Tomorrow War Star Chris Pratt on Being 'Just Dad' to Son Jack and His Love for Action Movies: 'I Used to Dress Like Rambo'

You could say that the make-believe play of Chris Pratt's childhood ended up fueling his Hollywood career. Long before fighting aliens in blockbuster films—or starring in the new military sci-fi movie The Tomorrow War, which arrives today on Amazon Prime—the 42-year-old Guardians of the Galaxy star pretended he was Rambo while fighting made-up monsters out in the woods.

In even more of a personal-life-meets-professional-life coincidence, Pratt grew up with a love for action movies at a time when the genre's biggest star was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is now Pratt's real-life father-in-law—the actor married Katherine Schwarzenegger, Arnold's oldest child with ex-wife Maria Shriver, in 2019.

Related: Everything You Need to Know About Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger's Intimate Wedding

"I grew up in the '80s and the '90s and that was really the height of, you know, American action cinema with people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and I really love those movies," Pratt told Parade.com in a new interview ahead The Tomorrow War's premiere.

In fact, he loved them so much that, as a kid, he "played them in real life."

"I used to dress like Rambo. I had a Rambo survival pack that I carried around with me with a Rambo knife with fishing line and like a sewing kit and I'd go out dressed all in camo in the woods and just be gone all day long cutting trails and army crawling through the bushes," Pratt shared.

He added, "Those movies, that pop culture really defined me as a young man, so I never really looked past the exact moment I was in, in terms of like, what I would do as an adult, but it does make sense that I'm continuing to do what I did as a kid, which is just fight imaginary monsters with guns."

Since those days of boyhood rambunctiousness, Pratt has solidified himself as a bona fide action star playing Owen Grady in the Jurassic World flicks and Star-Lord in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Tomorrow War sees Pratt play a father, Dan Forester, who sets out to save the world for his daughter. "This is, in a way, It's a Wonderful Life," he says about the film. "It's a story about redemption and second chances and looking at what you have right in front of you is a real blessing."

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Every Hunky Leading Man in Hollywood Named Chris

The role of Dan resonated with the Parks and Recreation alum in part because he's a father himself. While many kids might find it thrilling to have an action hero as their parent, Pratt insists he's "just dad" to his 8-year-old son, Jack.

"He just doesn't have the perspective against which to weigh that so it doesn't feel that cool to him. I'm just dad to him," Pratt said of his son, whom he shares with ex Anna Faris. "I've been doing this job his whole life. And so he doesn't see it as extraordinary per se, which is actually I think, a really good thing.  He's got a different relationship to movies and moviemaking than most other kids would, but I think he thinks it's cool. I know he knows that it makes me happy."

In addition to Jack, Pratt is also a father to daughter Lyla Maria. The Marvel actor and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger welcomed their first child together last August—and the dad of two is loving his new role as a girl dad!

"It's so nice, so sweet," he said. "She's got so many bows and cute outfits and she's already just pretty and sweet and fragile. She's amazing. I love her."

Related: Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard Talk Dinosaurs, Parenting and Friendship

Having a little girl has been "kind of the same" for Pratt after first becoming a boy-dad in 2012. "I think that if you have children within, say, a couple of years of one another, you have it fresh in your mind what they were like as infants, but it's kind of the same for me just, they brighten up your day and you walk in the room and there they are and they light up to see you and that's really exciting," he says. "I'm excited to see the more nuanced differences the older she gets. I think you know, as infants, a lot of babies are pretty similar and then you know soon enough she'll be turning from an infant into a little girl and [I'll] be curious to see if that looks different."

Continue reading for more on The Tomorrow War, Pratt's quarantine experience, plus which of his movies is son Jack's favorite...

You recently said that your son Jack has watched all of your movies. Has he seen The Tomorrow War?  

He has seen this, but he's seen it in various cuts along the way because I was a producer on this movie, an executive producer on this movie, so I was able to see various cuts and give input along the way. So he's seen it in its various iterations leading up to this final cut, but has not seen the final version of the movie with, you know, the full score and all visual effects, finish and all that stuff. So, I'm looking forward to showing him that when it comes out on July 2.

What's his favorite movie of yours? 

Gosh, I'd have to ask him. He loves Jurassic World. He'll be 9 in August and he loves dinosaurs, so probably Jurassic World is his favorite, but he also really loves TheLego Movie, too, which is a great movie.

The Tomorrow War really shows the great lengths that parents will go to in order to protect their kids. Do these types of roles resonate with you being a father?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it did. This role particularly resonated with me being a father. Of course, I wasn't a girl dad yet. My daughter Lyla was conceived during the making of this movie. I've since become a girl dad. But being a father—it's not a reach to understand what it's like to be in the position that you would do anything. You'd lay your life down for your children. I think that's natural with parenting. So that resonated for me and there's a father-daughter dynamic in this film. My character Dan and his daughter Mary, and there's also a father and son role, me being the son Dan and the father being J.K. Simmons, so there's really kind of a two-pronged approach examining the relationships between parent and child in this film.

The movie wrapped before COVID-19 struck. How was your quarantine experience? I feel like for a lot of families, it was a make-it-or-break time and for others, it brought them closer together.

Yeah, this was a pressure cooker for everyone. I think for us, it brought us closer. I was fortunate to work through the pandemic, which was good, but also incredibly hard. Katherine was pregnant. Her entire pregnancy happened in the pandemic and she gave birth in the pandemic and I was working on Jurassic World in London and because of the travel restrictions and the quarantine stuff I was gone for a lot of that. So that was really hard. My support for her in her pregnancy was, you know, virtual. It was over Zoom and over FaceTime and that was really hard. That was really complicated. Like I said, I was grateful to be working—but it was complicated and to give birth in a pandemic and have an entire pregnancy in a pandemic. Any mom who's been through that and has gone through that, they know just how hard that is and she handled it like a real champion, but it wasn't easy.

The Tomorrow War premieres July 2 on Prime Video.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Next, CinemaSins ranks Chris Pratt's 10 best roles—from Parks and Rec to Jurassic Park.