Chris Pratt bought his first gun when he was just 12 years old.

Chris Pratt

Chris Pratt

The 'Guardians of the Galaxy' actor had his father and mother's permission to buy a firearm with his own money, even though his age meant his cousin had to acquire the weapon for him.

He said: "My cousin bought it for me, with my parents' permission [and it was] one I paid for with money I earned."

And the first toy Chris ever bought himself - after doing odd jobs around his local neighbourhood - was an air rifle.

He said: "I loved that BB gun. I must have shot it 10,000 times. It was my main toy. It was mine. I bought it - you know what I mean?"

The 37-year-old actor - who has four-year-old son Jack with wife Anna Faris - became a stripper when he was just 14 years old and charged $40 for his services.

He said: "I put the word out there that I was going to start stripping. I marketed myself."

Chris was first hired for a teenage girl's birthday party, but things didn't go according to plan.

Though he was initially "totally pulling it off", the girl's parents unexpectedly returned home, so he jumped out of the balcony, put his clothes back on, said hello to the couple who were then leaving again, and returned inside to finish his routine.

He said: "It was like something out of a John Hughes movie."

The former 'Parks and Recreation' star then landed gigs at a 40th birthday party and a grandmother's birthday - which he described as "more funny than weird" but he quit stripping when he began to consider it as a full time career option and went for an audition at a local club, only to find one of the strippers sleeping outside.

He told GQ magazine: "It just felt seedy and that I was moving into less innocent territory."