How Chris Pratt Stood Up for This Bullied Actor
By Movieguide® Contributor
In a new book detailing the making of PARKS AND RECREATION, actor Chris Pratt recalls putting his foot down over some “mean-spirited” jokes.
“I remember you, particularly more than some others, being worried about some of the Jerry bits being…mean,” PARKS AND REC actor Jim O’Heir and author of “Welcome to Pawnee: Stories of Friendship, Waffles, and Parks and Recreation” said. “I remember you saying, ‘Jimmy, you okay with these?’…Do you remember that feeling at all?”
O’Heir played Jerry, who was constantly teased by the rest of the show’s characters and was always the butt of the joke.
“I do, I do,” Pratt replied. “I was concerned in some of those moments because I care about you and I love you, and I knew that there were some jokes that were, like, mean. But meaner than they were funny. If it’s a joke, it’s funny. But if it’s mean for the sake of being mean, well, I’m not a huge fan of mean-spirited humor, and I just wanted to check in on you.”
He continued, “There was one time where I put my foot down on something. There was that time you use the printer and it says something like, ‘Jerry sucks’ on a piece of paper, and I just said, ‘I don’t think that’s funny. I don’t know about it.’ For the most part, I rolled with it, but there were a couple times where I think it went too far and I was concerned for you.”
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O’Heir said he never took the in-show jokes about his character personally but told his former co-star, “Just so you know, that meant the world to me. You checked in on me, [Amy Poehler] checked in on me, and it’s not like I expected everyone to check in on me, but the fact that you did was so special…You have the biggest heart, and I don’t mean it from a medical perspective.”
Elsewhere in O’Heir and Pratt’s conversation, the GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY star revealed the creative way he tried to help keep PARKS AND REC on the air season after season.
“You have to remember, the show was always on the bubble, it felt like we were fighting for our jobs — [such] that my friend just told me, ‘You just have to go in there and start breaking [stuff],” Pratt explained. “‘People love to see stuff get broken. If you’re going to get canceled, just go down swinging.’”
Pratt said he took the advice to heart and started throwing props around during his scenes, earning laughs from the cast and crew.
“From that point on, it gave me permission to just destroy [stuff],” the actor laughed. “I went through so many props — I was breaking computers, I’d put a huge dent in a car. I just did the craziest stuff.”
Pratt, who played lovable goofball Andy Dwyer, was a fan-favorite character. However, as the show went on, he received other acting opportunities, and the crew of PARKS AND REC were always ready to help him juggle his roles.
Pratt was missing from most episodes in Season 6 of PARKS AND REC, as he was filming the first GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movie — a role that turned him into a household name.
“Because of the amazing production and the team and Greg and the writers, they let Chris Pratt leave to do GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY,” O’Heir wrote in his book. “A lot of shows would never have done that.”
He continued, “That was life altering for Chris Pratt. Now, I’m sure wonderful things would’ve happened anyway, he’s a huge talent. But, he is now one of the top film stars in the world, like in the world. And that is because the people that ran our show knew how important it was to Chris Pratt, not to the show, not to anything other than the person. That was more important than the show. And I think that kind of stuff has to be known because it’s rare. It’s very, very rare.”
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