Hemsworth As Thor
3 min readChris Hemsworth faces the challenge of being involved with Thor, which like Star Trek has a pre-existing fan base.
As with Star Trek, fans of Thor know what they like and Hemsworth is sensitive to that and is hoping to please the fans as well as help to tell a good story. “It’s a challenge,” said Hemsworth. “You walk into something which has a pre-existing fan base. People are very passionate about it and know what they want to see. As far as how you bring the excitement or challenge, a lot of that, the script comes along. That’s not my department. For me it was reading as much as the comic books and things that inspired me.”
Playing an already established character means doing one’s best without letting the pressure get to one. “There’s a lot of pressure with something that has existed for so many years,” said Hemsworth. “You try not to let it affect the way you approach the film. For me, you do it as well as you can whatever it is, whether it’s a small film or whether it’s something like this here. But yeah, it’s both exciting and daunting.”
Hemsworth is looking beyond the established fans, hoping that Thor draws in new fans. “That’s another challenge,” he said. “You’ve got to look after the fans, but you’ve got to make the film appealing to audiences outside of the fan base too. You can’t think about it too much though. You sort of simplify it and just do the best you can and respectful of what already exists, take it to where you’re trying to go with it.”
Training for the role meant temporarily putting on some weight for Hemsworth. “I had to drink a lot of protein shakes and eat a lot of chicken breast,” he said. “There was an intaking of a lot of calories, a lot of food, a lot of working out and try to get as much rest as you can. That’s the other one-third of the equation. I put on twenty pounds and lost a lot of it since shooting purely from not eating that amount.”
In researching for the part, Hemsworth found his own favorite Thor story. “The stuff with The Avengers I really liked. There’s one particular one where they approach him and Thor’s sitting on a beach in a party or something. There’s fire and people sitting around playing guitar. Thor’s there drinking a beer and up walk out SHIELD and I think Iron Man. They’re like, ‘Supposedly you’re a god and we want you to join our team.’ He’s like, ‘Psh, I’m not joining nothing.’ I think one of them says something like, ‘I don’t believe he’s a god anyway.’ Thor makes big rain and thunder and they scurry away. I enjoyed that moment.”
Thor is due out May of 2011.
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