‘MAGNIFICENT ’
Pratt a hero on & off the screen
MUCH LIKE the cowboy he plays in “The Magnificent Seven,” actor Chris Pratt is riding into a town to play the hero to beleaguered locals. Only now he’ll be packing a big check instead of a six-shooter.
And it just so happens the place that needed some saving is his hometown of Lake Stevens, Wash.
Pratt raised funds to build a teen recreation center for the local Boys & Girls Club in the former mill town that sits in a county enduring a rise in heroin abuse.
“When I was a teen, I fished a lot or hung out at friends’ houses or went with friends to drink a beer in the woods, but we didn’t really have a place to go,” Pratt, 37, told the Daily News.
“I think it’s important for these kids to have a place to go to feel safe. I don’t have any illusions that we’re going to get every kid off drugs, but hopefully we will effect some positive change in the lives of young people there.”
Pratt won’t admit it, but he’s easily the most famous product of Lake Stevens, which seems further from Seattle than the 40 miles separating the two cities.
He may have gone Hollywood, but he never completely left. Pratt married a woman from just down Interstate 5 in Edmunds — actress Anna Faris, 39. Their son, Jack, 4, will be raised to cheer for the Seattle Seahawks.
“I remember being a kid and I remember having heroes from my town and how meaningful it was,” Pratt said. "We had a guy, Richie Chambers, who was a state champion in wrestling and went on to play football at (the University of Washington).
“I remember being really proud, and I couldn’t believe that they were from my hometown — and I can’t help but feel that some young kid is going to feel that way about me.”
The population of Lake Stevens, now 30,000, has quadrupled since Pratt left in 1998 for Hawaii — where actress Rae Dawn Chong discovered him on his way to scoring roles in TV shows like “Everwood” and movies such as “Jurassic World.”
More residents meant a tighter squeeze for the Boys & Girls Club, the site of the old bingo hall where Pratt used to flip burgers part-time as a high schooler.
“Our kindergarten program has grown so much that we ran out of space and places to put all these kids,” said club director Mike Wetmore. “So, the fourthand fifth-graders had taken over that teen room and basically pushed the older kids out of the building.”
This isn’t Beverly Hills. The organization stalled after raising $165,000 of the $550,000 they’d need for an annex. One of the donors, Dru Miller, got the idea to reach out to Pratt for help through the star’s old high school football coach, Michael Hodgins.
The club heard back immediately. Pratt was onboard.
“Chris has never, ever forgotten where he’s come from,” Hodgins said.
To raise the funds, the actor launched a contest in March on Omaze, the online fund-raising site that runs contests like “Have John Legend Play at Your Wedding” or “Hang Out With Matt Damon in Las Vegas” for charity. Pratt raffled off a chance for one lucky winner to visit the set of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” for $10 an entry. And enough fans shelled out money to cover the cost needed to reach the funding goal, Wetmore said.
“It’s important to me to use this platform to give back,” Pratt said.
The Lake Stevens Boys & Girls Club is in the process of finalizing permits, hoping to break ground this fall, with Pratt in a starring role at the ceremony.
When finished, the annex will house billiards and Ping-Pong tables, a kitchen for cooking classes, a computer lab — and, naturally, a screening room for movies.
“Hopefully, this will inspire some kids to think they can achieve their dreams and get out of the town if they want to,” said Pratt.
“It can happen to a kid from Lake Stevens, because it happened to me.”