Chris Pratt talks ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ new pic Karen Gillan as Nebula

From Parks and Recreation as Andy Dwyer to being a member of SEAL Team Six in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, Chris Pratt has changed a lot. For Pratt, a lot is going to change with a lead role in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy this summer and then as the main protagonist in Jurassic World.

As a new photo of co-star Karen Gillan as Nebula dropped (check it out below), Pratt spoke with Hero Complex about his career change and playing the lead in a Marvel film.

“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I can be taken seriously as like a guy who’s one of the baddest dudes in the world,’ you know?”

Guardians shot in London in late summer and early fall 2013, and Pratt said the most difficult aspect of preparing for the production was shedding the weight and gaining the muscle required. He changed his diet, quit drinking and would work out for hours in his home gym, listening to some of the songs featured in the movie.

In the end, Pratt, who will remain in action mode for his next film, Jurassic World, said the exertion was worth it.

“I was shooting on a set that they built that probably cost more than my house,” Pratt said. “And I was the guy on it, walking around with cameras following me. I’m like an action figure for some of the scenes. I’m just like walking through the scene or running through the scene or fighting or jumping or beeping or shooting. It was unbelievable.”

The film stars Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, David Bautista, Lee Pace, Benicio Del Toro, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Michael Rooker, Peter Serafinowicz, Glenn Close, and the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

Guardians of the Galaxy opens theaters on August 1st.

Here’s the official synopsis for Guardians of the Galaxy:

From Marvel, the studio that brought you the global blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team – the Guardians of the Galaxy. An action-packed epic space adventure, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the cosmos, where brash adventurer Peter Quill finds himself the object of an unrelenting bounty hunt after stealing a mysterious orb coveted by Ronan, a powerful villain with ambitions that threaten the universe. To evade the ever-persistent Ronan, Quill is forced into an uneasy truce with a quartet of disparate misfits – Rocket, a gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly and enigmatic Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax the Destroyer. But when Peter discovers the true power of the orb and the menace it poses to the cosmos, he must do his best to rally his ragtag rivals for a last, desperate stand – with the galaxy’s fate in the balance.

Read more at http://collider.com/transformers-4-images/#yGIbcRFSJ4kPWbRH.99