(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Pratt and his wife Anna Faris were told that their son Jack may have special needs and would need cosmetic surgery to correct his eyes.
In a speech both touching and funny at Friday’s March of Dimes Celebration of Babies Chris Pratt shared about his son Jack’s premature birth born nine weeks early at just 3 pounds 12 ounces. “That’s a decent-sized bass” he said to laughs from the star-studded crowd at the Beverly Wilshire. “Very small for a human.”
“I’ve done all kinds of cool things as an actor - I’ve jumped out of helicopters and done some daring stunts and played baseball in a professional stadium but none of it means anything compared to being somebody’s daddy” Pratt said. While Jack was in the NICU Pratt said he cherished moments where he’d cradle his son skin-to-skin. “I made promises in that moment about what kind of dad I wanted to be and I just prayed that he’d live long enough that I could keep them.”
Pratt and his wife Anna Faris were told that Jack may have special needs and would need cosmetic surgery to correct his eyes (“Welcome to the club kid” Pratt joked) but after about a month in the NICU they took their son home.
“Our Jack went from a small helpless little squirt to a strong smart happy funny beautiful boy who loves monster trucks and ‘Daniel Tiger’ and believe it or not loves vegetables. Broccoli and cherry tomatoes are his favourite foods.”
“None of what we went through would be as easy even 10 years ago” he said. In the NICU life or death hangs in the balance - “a balance that’s tipping towards life by cutting-edge medicines much of which is a direct result of this wonderful organisation the March of Dimes.”
Honored at the luncheon were Elizabeth Banks and Fox 2000’s Elizabeth Gabler. “We honour people for their most important job and that’s being a mom” said luncheon co-chair and Universal Pictures president Jimmy Horowitz.
Steve Carell introduced Banks whom he met when she auditioned for The 40 Year Old Virgin. “She’s always the right person for the part. She plays characters that are elegant and goofy chillingly remote or completely accessible gorgeous or just really really beautiful. On top of that she’s funny.”
Universal will release Banks’ feature directorial debut Pitch Perfect 2 in May. “She had a lot of kids to work with she did an amazing job being both their director and their mother at the same time” Horowitz said. Banks spoke about the March of Dimes’ advocacy work including lobbying to remove pregnancy as a pre-existing condition that made it possible for many women to be denied health insurance.
The luncheon raised more than $1 million. In the crowd: Eddie Redmayne Selena Gomez Emily Blunt and John Krasinski Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Ron Howard Chris Weitz and emcee Jason Bateman.