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Chris Pratt Challenged This Co-Star to Wrestle While High on Ambien

"I want to wrestle. I want to wrestle you. No one needs to know..."

Possible side effects include… challenging your co-star to wrestle you? Actors often share funny stories from filming when making the talk show rounds, and an anecdote shared by Chris Pratt about one of his cast-mates had a funny pharmaceutical element. While appearing on The Late Late Show in July 2021, Pratt admitted that he challenged one of his Guardians of the Galaxy co-stars to wrestle him while he was high on Ambien. And he didn't remember it. And that co-star is a former professional wrestler.

Read on to see what Pratt had to say and to find out how his fellow actor reacted to the surprising challenge.

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Pratt was once a wrestler himself.

Chris Pratt at the premiere of "Avengers: Infinity War" in April 2018
Tinseltown / Shutterstock

Pratt's decision to challenge a fellow actor to spar didn't come out of nowhere—even if he had no memory of doing it. The Parks and Recreation star was a wrestler in high school. This past experience inspired him to produce a documentary about Olympic wrestler Helen Maroulis, as reported by Deadline. It's also overlapped with his career in other ways, like being interviewed by his former coaches.

He used to text people when he was "blacked out."

Pratt explained on The Late Late Show that his wrestling past combined with a sleeping aid made him challenge his co-star over text.

"There was a moment in my life where I would take sleep aids to help me sleep, and I don't anymore because of things like this," he explained. "I would text people and I'd black out. No idea what I'm texting people. On, like, an Ambien."

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His co-star had to tell Pratt what he had said.

Dave Bautista at CinemaCon 2019
DFree / Shutterstock

After one night of forgotten texting, Pratt said that his Guardians of the Galaxy co-star Dave Bautista brought up a message he sent.

"He goes, 'Hey man, that text you sent last night.' I go, 'What text?' He goes, 'You don't remember?'" At this, Pratt did an impression of Bautista laughing loudly and at length. "He walks out, I was like, 'What did I text him?' I look at my phone: It's a text like this long," he added.

Pratt continued, "It was like 'Dave? I want to wrestle. I want to wrestle you. No one needs to know, but I just want to know, I think I could take you. I think I can wrestle you, bro, like collegiate rules. No elbows, no knees. I just want—I want to feel the power.'"

Pratt knows he wouldn't have had a chance.

Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, and Chris Pratt at a London screening of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" in 2017
Karwai Tang/WireImage via Getty Images

Bautista is not only an actor but a former professional wrestler, who spent many years as part of WWE, which explains why he laughed in Pratt's face about his Ambien text. In fact, it's Bautista's wrestling background that made him a good fit for his fearsome Guardians of the Galaxy character, Drax the Destroyer.

"I was mortified, like, oh my god," Pratt said of realizing what he sent Bautista. "Dave would kill me." Host James Corden added, "I fancy your chances against a lot of people. You should never, ever wrestle him." Pratt concluded, "He is by far the toughest dude in all of Hollywood."

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Lia Beck
Lia Beck is a writer living in Richmond, Virginia. In addition to Best Life, she has written for Refinery29, Bustle, Hello Giggles, InStyle, and more. Read more
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