Chris Pratt nearly made Christo his stage name

Appearing on the latest episode of Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, Chris - who worked as a waiter at the seafood chain's Maui, Hawaii, restaurant - revealed: "I was going to be Christo.

"I had a name tag that said 'Christopher' - but this is at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. But the P-H-E-R part got rubbed off, so it said Christo, and everyone called me Christo for a long time while I was working at Bubba Gump, high turnover rate, the new employees thought my name was Christo."

However, the Guardians of the Galaxy star's nickname did not catch on in Hollywood.

Chris - whose first professional role was 2000's short film Cursed Part 3, and came about after director Rae Dawn Chong, 64, discovered him at the restaurant - said: "As I navigated being discovered and brought to Los Angeles to follow my dreams, part of me thought in earnest, 'Maybe I'd go by just Christo.'"

The Jurassic World actor then joked: "It's never too late."

Meanwhile, Chris insists artificial intelligence (AI) actors end his acting career, as he hit out against AI 'actress' Tilly Norwood.

The star - who has been acting professionally for over two decades - told Variety: "I don't feel like someone's going to replace me that's AI. This Tilly Norwood thing, I think it's all bulls***. I've never seen her in a movie, I don't know who this b**** is. It's all fake, until it's something."

In 2025, Tilly's creator, Eline van der Velden, insisted that it had not been designed to replace humans, but is "a piece of art".

She said: "To those who have expressed anger over the creation of my AI character, Tilly Norwood: she is not a replacement for a human being, but a creative work - a piece of art.

"Like many forms of art before her, she sparks conversation, and that in itself shows the power of creativity. I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool, a new paintbrush.

"Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories. I'm an actor myself, and nothing - certainly not an AI character - can take away the craft or joy of human performance.

"Creating Tilly has been, for me, an act of imagination and craftsmanship, not unlike drawing a character, writing a role or shaping a performance.

"It takes time, skill, and iteration to bring such a character to life. She represents experimentation, not substitution. Much of my work has always been about holding up a mirror to society through satire, and this is no different."