Movie Magic
Following the devastating announcement of their parting of ways, the star-crossed couple has generally kept calm around what went off-base. Presently, they’re at last talking out about the downfall of their relationship.
But what was it that led to their part in the first place?
Anna Faris and Chris Pratt have been hitched for over eight years, since their 2009 wedding. Their picture-perfect romance came of age amid the rise of social media, and their super charming Instagram posts, sharing their lives together made us believe in fairy tales.
Both Were Famous
It was jostling, in that regard, when they reported this past August that they were arranging a separation and would be working on co-parenting their child, Jack. It makes us wonder, was their love a Hollywood production or was it the real deal?
Both Faris and Pratt are beloved by just about everyone. Faris was featured mostly in horror satire which ultimately put her on the map. Her bright entrance into Hollywood's good graces was followed up with one comedic role after another.
The Past They Shared
Chris Pratt's role as Andy Dwyer in Parks and Recreation, on the other hand, is what put him on the map and road to superstardom. But in spite of their combined triumphs, it appears the couple battled to bolster each other’s careers.
What they didn't know is that they grew up 20 minutes away from each other in their home state of Washington. Though the pair didn’t meet until 2007, Anna and Chris were drawn to each other in part by their shared past. Pratt once said, “We both got our start in horror spoofs. We both did an animated movie for Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
Anna Faris
We both made our careers playing guileless nitwits for laughs. We both have parents that have suffered from MS. The similarities go on and on.”
Anna Faris started her acting career young, at nine years old when she appeared in a production of 'Danger: Memory!' at the Seattle Reparatory Theatre. She never expected to become an actress despite acting here and there for minor income throughout high school.
Meeting Ben
To her surprises, it took off for her and in 1999, she starred in an indie horror film, Lovers Lane, a role which was well received by critics, even if the film was not. Anna, it seemed, was finally on the road to stardom.
Faris may only have been 22 when she appeared in Lovers Lane, but the film had a profound effect on her future for the next few years, not only jump-starting her career but introducing her to her co-star, Ben Indra. The pair hit it off and quickly began dating before marrying in 2004.
Chris Pratt
The marriage was to be short-lived, however, as tension quickly developed when Anna’s career took off and Ben’s shriveled up. It was fate that Anna met Chris Pratt when she did.
Chris Pratt always had an inkling that he was destined for fame that he mostly chalked up to classic overconfidence since he hadn’t even considered performing when the idea first took root. But in his early adulthood, he fell victim to lazing about, finding himself homeless in Hawaii.
Beloved By Everyone
That quickly changed, however, when in a Hollywood twist, Pratt was “discovered” while waiting tables in Maui. Like Anna Faris, he began his career in an indie horror flick, in this case called Cursed Part 3.
Chris Pratt seemed to have it all during his high school years. He was a talented athlete and an excellent student. Socially, he was comfortable among the many disparate social groups present in any high school, as it seemed the charm he still relies on today had already developed early on in his teenage years.
Moving From Hawaii To Hollywood
He was so well liked, that his fellow classmates even chose him to speak at their high school graduation. There wasn’t a dry eye left when he’d finished.
Chris Pratt struggled to fit himself into the academic mold. After only one semester of community college, he dropped out, earning money by selling discount tickets and as a daytime exotic dancer. But it still wasn’t what Pratt was looking for, prompting him to move to Hawaii.
Staying Down To Earth
He didn’t fare much better there, finding himself tanned from days spent surfing, but living out of a van and a tent on a beach. It was lucky he was discovered when he was.
Even as Pratt’s career began taking off, it was his down to earth persona that drew people towards him. Chris seemed poised to be one of those stars that no matter how famous he became, he could always hang with the guys from home.
A Different Track
In a profile of the young actor from his hometown, it was speculated that his heart would always be in Lake Stevens, Washington, but they weren’t prepared for just how much fame can change a person.
Pratt’s career didn’t have quite the same upward trajectory that Anna’s did. As she quickly made a name for herself as a comedy star, Pratt struggled to parlay his first role into career success.
It Changed Everything
He managed to eek out a living via some small television roles he landed, but fate was on his side when he was cast as Anna Faris’s on-screen boyfriend in Take Me Home Tonight in 2007. However, Pratt would have his work cut out for him, as Faris was still married.
When Anna Faris arrived at the first table read of Take Me Home Tonight, she hadn’t expected to fall in love. Regardless of her expectations, her personal life was secretly on the rocks. Pratt was instantly smitten with the comedienne, which he later described as being “like magnets”.
In Another Life
Pratt longed to be with Faris, but as long as she was still married, he focused his attention elsewhere, embarking on a series of flings with background actresses. Faris couldn’t help but notice.
In 2015, Pratt told Elle about the early days after they met, “Our personalities meshed. She was a goofball. She liked to have fun.
She Was Jealous
It was impossible to offend her. I just remember thinking, ‘Wow, in another life, that’s who I want to be with—we would be so good together, I just know it,'” Luckily, the pair would spend plenty of time getting to know one another as they were playing love interests opposite each other in the film.
Despite her marriage status, Anna Faris has recently shared that she was quite jealous of the other women Chris was keeping company with throughout the shoot of Take Me Home Tonight. Faris went on to add that Pratt was ever the gentleman, accompanying her to her door to drop her home at night, and even helping her find a lost credit card without once trying to push things further as long she was committed to someone else.
On Its Last Leg
His kindness made her swoon.
Even with their growing attraction to one another, Pratt wouldn’t be the one to push Faris over the edge with regards to leaving Ben Indra. She shared in her recent autobiography that it was actually co-star Topher Grace who raised the question of leaving Indra to Faris.
A Wakeup Call
After a wild night out with the cast that Faris opted out of, Grace asked why she was staying with her husband when he saw the behavior he had engaged in the night before.
Grace’s comments to Faris about Indra’s hard partying behavior were a wake up call to the actress. Though she knew their marriage was on the rocks, it had been hard to admit to herself just how bad it really was.
The Final Straw
Following her conversation with Topher Grace, Faris’s attraction to Pratt was also becoming more undeniable. She was at a personal crossroads and was desperately seeking guidance as to how she should navigate such a sensitive situation.
Following a cast outing that took place at Chris Pratt’s home, Anna was in a tizzy. She finally confided in another co-star, Dan Fogler that she thought she was ready to split from Indra.
He Didn't Believe Her
Faris recently wrote, “Dan also told me that if I was going to leave my husband, I had to be a surgeon with a scalpel about it. Do it immediately and effectively, he said.” Fogler’s words seemed to be the final push Anna needed.
Anna swiftly informed Ben Indra that she was finally leaving him. In a candid comment, she wrote that she felt “like a villain” in speaking her truth, even though it was what she needed for her own well being. “ven on the phone I had to repeat myself a number of times before he took me at my word.
Her Fame Destroyed Him
“You’re just tired; you’re really tired,” he responded at first. I just said: “Nope, I’m leaving you.” And that was that,” she wrote.
By 2014, Faris was ready to discuss what went wrong in the course of her first marriage. As her career began to take off, Indra’s career hit a road block. He’s faded into such obscurity that he doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page and hasn’t had an acting role in over 12 years.
Reaching An Agreement
“That kind of destroyed my marriage,” said Faris in an interview with Marie Clare in 2011. “The divide became too great.” But the struggle wasn’t over just yet.
By the time Anna Faris and Ben Indra finalized their divorce settlement, it was 2008, and Faris was on a hot streak. The release of the chick flick comedy, House Bunny, was imminent, and she also had a full slate of movies on her schedule, which would be released the following year.
Getting Wild
Due to the disparity of their success, Faris agreed to pay him $900,000 in addition to evenly dividing up the rest of their acting royalties and real estate holdings.
Faris’s break up with Indra made her feel free for the first time in years. Even though Pratt was still on her mind, she knew she needed to take some time to explore other people first.
Enter Pratt
Faris began a stint of serious partying, coupled with a bunch of random flings. She also boosted her confidence by getting cosmetic enhancers, both for her bust, a decision she is still happy about, as well as getting lip fillers, a decision she regretted.
When Faris had finally gotten the partying out of her system, she recalls pretty much knocking on his door asking him to take her, body and soul.
Their Dreams Come True
But far from being a wild romp in the hay, she wrote that their first physical encounter was intimate in a way that she had ” never experienced before.” The two actors felt completely in sync with one another, and their relationship quickly progressed.
Following their engagement in 2008, Pratt let slip in an interview with People, “I knew I wanted to marry her pretty soon . It took a while for me to admit it, because it would be crazy to be like, ‘I want to marry you’ the first day I met her.
The Depths Of Their Connection
But I could have!” He told Elle in a separate interview, “The day that she told me she was leaving her husband, I knew that I was going to marry her.”
Anna recalled in a 2015 appearance on The Late Late Show that the first time Chris gave her a personal tour of his apartment after they began dating that she couldn’t help but cry when she saw that he had an African stick bug framed on his wall. “I was like, ‘I’ve met the man of my dreams.
He Knew
We both have dead bug collections. ‘Make out’ was a gentle way to put it.” It seemed as though the two were meant to be.
Chris shared in another interview, “We were friends first, but she left her husband at the end of the movie, and we started dating when we were back in LA. So we were friends, and I was there for her.
Putting A Ring On It
And we had just played love interests, so we had this tight bond spending so much time and spending nights in Phoenix, but we never crossed the line…The day that she told me she was leaving her husband, I knew that I was going to marry her.”
Though Chris was ready to marry Anna from the day they met, he held off proposing until the end of 2008, giving her time to work through her divorce before immediately remarrying. They adorable pair upped the cute factor when Chris also began sporting his own engagement ring, figuring that if his fiancée had one, he should have one too.
Eloping In Bali
To the elated couple, they were truly a Hollywood fairy tale approaching their happily ever after.
Anna and Chris never officially planned a wedding, keen as they were to be married. Instead, they piggy backed off of a friend’s wedding that they were attending in Bali, and decided to cap up the retreat by tying the knot themselves.
Waxing And Waning
Luckily for the high profile Faris and beau Chris, whose fame was finally heading towards stardom, the last minute wedding meant that their nuptials were kept far from the press, even as their close family and friends were able to attend.
What goes up must necessarily come down. As Chris Pratt’s career was on the rise, Anna Faris’s began to wind down ever so slightly. Pratt finally began to get widespread recognition when he was cast in Parks and Recreation.
Jealousy Is A Two Way Street
Though his role was intended to be temporary, he charmed producers so much that he was signed on as a series regular. It was the boost Pratt needed, and suddenly the film offers kept rolling in. But it was tough for the competitive Anna to handle.
Both Anna and Chris have been quite open about their jealousy towards each others costars or past partners, which is not the most stable foundation for a relationship. When Faris was filming What’s Your Number?
Failing At Romance
with Chris Evans, Pratt felt the envy well up inside him as his wife was starring opposite a different Chris. Pratt, however, had nothing to worry about, and ended up becoming such close friends with Evans that Faris reported jealousy of her own.
Faris revealed during the publicity tour for What’s Your Number? that she is very much unlike her character. Her intimate romantic encounters were few and far between outside of her two marriages.
A Knight In Shining Armor
She candidly revealed that intimacy made her so nervous, she mostly avoided the encounters. She admitted to being a bad romantic partner when things got intimate due to her anxieties. Luckily, Chris never seemed to mind much, though perhaps her comfort with him helped put her at ease.
Faris had plenty to gush about with regards to her and Pratt’s relationship. She shared that he was the king of romantic gestures, from French braiding her hair while the two spent a night at home to sending her hand written letters while he traveled during film shoots.
Expanding The Family
However, for all the gestures in the world, it just wasn’t enough for Faris, even if it seemed like she had managed to put together the perfect life.
Pratt and Faris announced in May 2012 that they were expecting their first child together, revealing that Faris was due to give birth in the fall of that year. Shortly after their wedding, the pair had shared with reporters that they both hoped to have a large family, but found the timing to be tough to manage given their disparate busy schedules.
Scary Arrival
It seemed Pratt had wanted to get started right away, but it was hard for Faris to give up her busy film schedule.
Chris and Anna welcomed their son Jack in August 2012, but his birth was not the happy arrival they’d expected. Anna went into labor two months early, giving birth to their infant son well ahead of schedule. It was necessary for the premature infant to spend a month in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
She Didn't Love It
They pleaded with the press for privacy during that scary time. Regardless of their fear, Jack’s parents knew their lives had just been changed for the better.
In discussing plans for future children, Anna reflected back on her first pregnancy with Jack, sharing on her podcast, Anna Faris is Unqualified, “We both love kids, Chris and I have both dreamed about having a big family,” Faris continued. “But I didn’t love pregnancy … I was just bored.
Denying How Bad It Was
I was uncomfortable at times, and Jack came early. He came two months early, so now I’m in a high-risk pregnancy category, but I would love to.”
Faris gave a candid interview with Redbook magazine in 2015 where she shared just how terrified they were. “My water broke in the middle of the night at seven months,” she said. “We rushed to the hospital and they were able to halt active labor with magnesium.” But then she went into labor again only a week later.
Reignigting His Faith
“I was in denial,” she added. “For hours I was like, ‘I’m just having indigestion,’ ”
As the couple prayed for their tiny son, the situation renewed Chris’s religious connections. He told People in 2014, “It restored my faith in God, not that it needed to be restored, but it really redefined it,” the actor said.
Chris Was In Tears
“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.”
Faris shared more about son Jack’s birth on her podcast last year, saying “Chris’ face when Jack was being born is unforgettable,” she added. “He was holding my hand and he was just sobbing.
Dealt Another Blow
I was scared he would be turned off by the whole thing … That was amazing, seeing his face.” She said Chris’s amazement at Jack’s birth was among the reasons she really wanted to have at least one if not more children with Chris.
Just four days after their son Jack’s premature birth, a doctor came to Pratt and Faris with some bad news. The tiny premature baby’s brain was bleeding badly, and they didn’t know how it would affect him until he was much older. It was possible that Jack could have sustained lasting brain damage, and they wouldn’t know for at least a year and a half.
The Seeds Of Discontent
Faris wrote,“I only half heard the words as they came out of the doctor’s mouth. I was in complete shock.”
Chris’s renewed spiritual awareness seemed to begin the rift that would eventually tear his marriage apart. It also didn’t help their marriage that his fame had finally eclipsed hers, and he was so busy working that he didn’t see his son for five months while he was working on Guardians of the Galaxy, the 2014 sci-fi blockbuster.
Losing His Father
It was hard for Anna to be left at home with the baby, while Chris was galavanting across the globe.
In 2014, tragic news reached Chris while he was on the set of Jurassic World. His father, who had been suffering from MS for over 15 years, had passed away.
Coming To Terms
He said he felt responsible for morale on set, and shared how he dealt with the loss, “I compartmentalized it all and dealt with it in my own way, but not openly for people to see. I got pretty angry and got drunk and almost got in a fight with a drug dealer outside of my hotel room.”
A year after his father’s death, Pratt was finally ready to open up about his tricky relationship with his father. Pratt revealed that his father was old-fashioned and believed in men being tough. Pratt shared with GQ, “Part of us appreciate that he made us tough, you know, through sort of emotional scarification.
Jealous Of J-Law
Just an old school kind of dad. Which in a way is actually a good thing.” Pratt learned how to be tough from his dad.
Though Pratt and Faris had mostly been ignored by tabloids, even at the height of her fame, Faris recalls her publicist warning her that was about to change, since Chris would be starring opposite Jennifer Lawrence in Passengers. Even with the warning, Faris said the tabloid rumors that Chris and J-Law had become involved romantically, even when she knew it wasn’t true, made her feel really insecure.
Differing Futures
The jealousy she felt with regards to the friendship and his career proved detrimental to their marriage.
In the last year, Anna became more vocal about her desire to have a second child, but it seems for as much as Chris wanted a big family in theory, he wasn’t willing to take time off from his career in order to help her out.
Not Best Friends
It seemed that Chris wasn’t shaping up to be the man Anna thought he was, and they ultimately let their competitive natures and careers get in the way of maintaining their marriage.
In the aftermath of their shocking break up, Anna has a lot of surprising revelations regarding their relationship. In a recent interview with Cosmopolitan, she shared, “I was once told that I didn’t need a tight group of girlfriends because Chris should be my best friend. But I never bought that.
Making Mistakes
The idea of your mate being your best friend — it’s over-hyped. I really believe that your partner serves one purpose and each friend serves another.”
Anna finally got candid with listeners of her podcast.
Editing Out Pratt
One of her fans called in asking for relationship advice, to which Anna responded that she’d “made mistakes.” She continued, “Life is too short to be in relationships where you feel this isn’t fully right or somebody doesn’t have your back, or somebody doesn’t fully value you.” It seems like her resentment of Chris’s career finally simmered over, as the statement is a complete reversal of her previous descriptions of his unwavering devotion to her.
It recently came to light that Faris purposely left out a chapter of her book in the wake of her break up, as it detailed how she and Pratt dealt with keeping up their relationship long distance. In light of this, she commented, “There is no finish line when it comes to relationships, and I think the search for one will just make you frustrated.
So I have no illusions that this book is done and now I can close the door on my past.”