Reuters"/>Chris Pratt is undeniably one of Hollywood's most visible Christians. From social media to live interviews, the "Passengers" star is unafraid to talk about his faith and share how God continually guides his life.
Now, he's sharing his conversion story, and, in typical Pratt fashion, it's anything but normal.
The actor, who is on the cover of the most recent issue of Vanity Fair, shared how, in his late teens, he lived in a van on the beach in Hawaii, waiting tables at a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant.
Because neither him or any of his friends at the time were old enough to drink alcohol, they'd asked someone else to buy them beer one day, and waited outside of the store.
Pratt recalled: "I was sitting outside a grocery store ... And a guy named Henry came up and recognized something in me that needed to be saved. He asked what I was doing that night, and I was honest. I said, 'My friend's inside buying me alcohol.' 'You going to go party?' he asked. 'Yeah.' 'Drink and do drugs? Meet girls, fornication?' I was like, 'I hope so' ..."
He continued: "It should've made me nervous but didn't. I said, 'Why are you asking?' He said, 'Jesus told me to talk to you . . .' At that moment I was like, I think I have to go with this guy. He took me to church. Over the next few days I surprised my friends by declaring that I was going to change my life."
In a separate interview with Esquire, Pratt revealed that one month after the encounter, he discovered by a film director while he was waiting tables, and he traveled to California to star in the 2000 horror comedy "Cursed Part III."
Today, Pratt is one of Hollywood's biggest stars - he was the highest grossing actor of 2014, making $1.2 billion between his lead roles in "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "The Lego Movie."
Vanity Fair notes that Pratt's story is "strange" and "so distant from what we expect of a movie star."
"In that moment, he yielded," the article reads. "His path has been clear ever since."
Since then, the actor - despite his sometimes raunchy sense of humor - has been consistently vocal about his Christian faith, especially after the premature birth of his son, Jack, who was born nine weeks early and weighed only 3 pounds.
"We were scared for a long time," Pratt previously told People about him and his wife, actress Anna Farris, regarding the month that their son spent in ICU. "We prayed a lot."
The actor says the ordeal redefined his faith in God. "It restored my faith in God, not that it needed to be restored, but it really redefined it," said Pratt. "The baby was so beautiful to us, and I look back at the photos of him and it must have been jarring for other people to come in and see him, but to us he was so beautiful and perfect."
Pratt also made headlines after erecting a giant cross on a hillside on Easter weekend, explaining to Stephen Colbert, "It's Saturday before Easter, if you think about it, that's what Jesus was doing 2000-something years before on a Saturday before Easter, was carrying a cross up a hill!'"
In a recent article, Relevant Magazine editor Jesse Carey referred to Pratt as the "Christian celebrity" culture needs: "Pratt has no agenda," he writes. "His faith seems sincere, because unlike some Hollywood stars turned religious poster-children, Pratt's faith isn't political. It's also not part of his 'brand.' It's just seems to be a part of who he is...He carries himself like a guy with a successful career who's trying to figure out his faith, just like all other Christians are."
