Andy Dwyer is one of the most popular and beloved characters from Parks & Recreation became one of the best TV shows of the decade.
Parks & Recreation follows the daily lives of the Parks Department crew in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, with perky bureaucrat and eternal optimist Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) leading the team. Through Leslie, viewers met a variety of characters close to her, with many of them becoming fan favorites, such as Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza), and Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt). The latter was initially planned to be just a guest star, but the producers liked Pratt’s performance so much that Andy stuck around for the whole series, eventually becoming part of the main cast.
Andy Dwyer was the dim-witted, lazy, but lovable character of the group, who started as Ann Perkins’ (Rashida Jones) unemployed and slacker boyfriend who broke both legs when falling into the pit next to her house, but as the series progressed, he became a family man who found his true calling by mixing his musical talents and his love for entertaining the audience, particularly children. Andy, then, became one of the most popular characters from Parks & Recreation as well as one of Guardians of the Galaxy, and it was all thanks to one of his first TV roles: Winchester “Ché” Cook in The O.C.
Pratt ed the teen drama The O.C. in 2006 as Winchester “Ché” Cook, one of Summer’s (Rachel Bilson) friends from Brown University and the one behind her left-wing activism. Ché blamed Summer for all his illegal activities, leading to her suspension from Brown, but he later tried to apologize and do things right. After ending up in prison with Seth (Adam Brody), who he believed was his soulmate, he realized that his soulmate was the girl in the cell next to them, and they left Newport together. Pratt was only in The O.C. for nine episodes, but it was more than enough to catch the attention of writers and producers. Speaking to Uproxx in 2014, Michael Schur revealed that his wife, J.J. Philbin, had worked with him on The O.C. as she was a writer on the series, and she reminded Schur of Pratt's work when he and the Parks & Recreation crew were looking for the right actor to play Andy.
Schur added that Pratt “flat out won the part” and that he did improvisations in his audition, which he did alongside Rashida Jones, and gave them enough material that “could’ve just gone into an episode of the show verbatim”. Chris Pratt’s comedic skills shone through his performance as Ché in The O.C., but he fully seized them in Parks & Recreation, winning over the hearts of fans before he took over the galaxy as Star-Lord, and no one could have foreseen that his role as an eccentric activist would have led him to his biggest and most popular TV role, which in turn opened a lot of doors for him in the entertainment industry.