Chris Pratt Says He Once Blacked Out on Ambien and Challenged Dave Bautista to Wrestle Him

Chris Pratt is avoiding sleep aids after a mortifying text exchange with his Guardians of the Galaxy co-star Dave Bautista.

While appearing on CBS’ The Late Late Show Thursday night to promote his new Amazon sci-fi action movie The Tomorrow War, the actor spoke about his high school wrestling team experience, going to Wrestlemania in Seattle and tussling with his brother “for no less than six or seven hours” in their living room when they were growing up.

After Pratt finished, host James Corden playfully suggested that he’d “absolutely love to wrestle” the actor, to which Pratt responded, “I know what that means, and I appreciate it. So thank you because I’d like to wrestle you, too.”

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That’s when the Marvel star launched into a story about someone he wouldn’t want to wrestle — former WWE champion Dave Bautista. But Pratt told the Late Late Show host he nearly did due to a bad experience with a sleeping pill.

“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,” the actor admitted.

Pratt said he would text people “while on like an Ambien” and black out, waking up the next day with no memory of the messages he sent. That happened with his co-star and famed wrestler, who approached him the next day to ask him about “the text you sent last night.”

“He goes, ‘You don’t remember?'” replicating Bautista’s voice and laugh. “When he walks out, I was like, ‘What did I text him?’ I look at my phone — it’s a text like this long.”

“It was like ‘Dave? I want to wrestle. I want to wrestle you,'” Pratt continued. “‘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.'”

While laughing, Pratt admitted he was “mortified” and said that Bautista would kill him in a match. Corden seemed to agree.

“I fancy your chances against a lot of people; you should never ever wrestle him,” Corden warned.