The Tomorrow War finds Chris Pratt doing his best to help save the world in the Amazon Prime original sci-fi summer blockbuster.
The actor was first truly introduced to audiences with the NBC comedy hit Parks & Rec. and broke into the action movie realm with his star-making turn in Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. The very next year, his action movie mettle status broke through the roof with Jurassic World.
He brings that experience and so much more (his comic timing!) to The Tomorrow War and The Movie Mensch was lucky enough to participate in a virtual press for the film and got Pratt’s take on this most unique of alien invasion films.
When asked about his most memorable scene from The Tomorrow War, there were too many to recall. But did light up talking about the scene that, well, everyone will be talking about.
“There’s a really great sequence—and I know that we’re focusing on the people of present-day 2021—but when we do make that jump to 2051, there’s this transition, and we fall from the sky in Miami and land in a pool,” he recalled.
“There was some serious waterwork that we got to do and that is a lot of fun. We got to jump off of this high dive that we built out of a forklift and jump off into the water. The camera followed us down and then you had stunt people jumping down and landing on top of you forcing you underwater.”
The Tomorrow War chronicles what happens when a handful of soldiers arrive out of nowhere at the World Cup and informs the world that three decades from now there is an alien invasion and our fight against them is not going well. Eventually, a national draft is imposed, and folks are drafted and trained to “leap” into the future. The percentage of those who make it home has not been high, so when Pratt’s Dan Forester gets drafted.
His wife and daughter (played by Betty Gilpin and Ryan Kiera Armstrong) are not so thrilled. But what kind of future is the former special ops, current schoolteacher, leaving for his little girl if he doesn’t do his part to fight for the future?
One of the things that most spoke to Pratt when reading the script wasn’t necessarily the many envelope-pushing action sequences. It was the part of his on-screen persona that involves the familial.
“My character, Dan, is something he has to do to protect his family and to protect his daughter and leave her with a home life of having her mother there. It’s a different theme to think about someone being drafted away from their children rather than children being drafted away from their parents,” Pratt said.
There was also the fact that everyone who is drafted and is heading into battle in the future is of a certain advanced age. Usually, onscreen, those heading into battle are among society’s youngest.
“We’ve seen these movies where it is 18, 19-year-old kids getting thrown into the throws. You’re getting thrown into battle. They’re just kids forced to become men. Everyone who goes forward into the future is over the age of 30,” Pratt remarked.
“You are dealing with people who are making life decisions based not on the life that they could lead, but rather the world that they’re leaving for their children.”
Some of the challenges of modern movie making involve actors and actresses having to dig deep into their actor’s toolbox and emit that emotion—in whatever form that is required—to something that isn’t there. Whether the Jurassic movies, the Guardian of the Galaxy films or with The Tomorrow War, Pratt has become quite the expert.
“I’ve had my fair share of experience of running from and fighting against creatures that aren’t there. Yes, there’s certainly a craft to it. You could have a whole podcast episode about the way to achieve it, but it’s a combination of various things you’re going to look at, whether it will be a tennis ball, or the guy named Troy who’s seven feet tall, a mountain of a man, and very scary. Then you’ve got the prosthetic and then you’re sometimes in the big wide shots, you may have nothing,” Pratt said.
“You’re not trying to have an emotional relationship with one of these creatures, but in a close-up, you might be looking into the eyes of an actor. You have something you can pull from. It’s the most embarrassing acting you’ll ever do. Acting opposite something that’s not there and fighting something that’s not there is particularly embarrassing.”