Last week, Kaiser presented the notion that director Kenneth Branagh was infinitely more bangable than his Thor leading man, Chris Hemsworth, and the comments section went wild in agreement. Indeed, Chris (who had a small role in the Star Trek reboot and will soon reprise his Thor role in The Avengers) is a very blandly attractive actor in line with a few of his contemporaries, namely Sam Worthington and Channing Tatum. You know, actors who are conventionally functional in a typical Hollywood blockbuster sense but who would be quite difficult to pick out in a lineup. With Chris Hemsworth, however, his lack of noteworthiness continues into his personality as reflected within Interview Magazine’s May issue:
On The Film’s Surprising Cast: I am incredibly lucky to work with those involved! I think the attraction for Natalie [Portman] to a film like this was Kenneth Branagh’s involvement. At that time in my life, I wasn’t in a position to pick and choose who I wanted to work with. I just needed to pay the rent, and I was excited to be involved with something on this scale. I was signed up either way! This is by far the biggest thing I have ever been involved in and there is more anticipation than anything else.
On Using An English Accent: For whatever reason, we relate to anything godlike with an English accent. The English are very proud of that. And with anything Roman or gladiators, they have an English accent. For an audience, it is an easy trick to hook people in.
On Thor’s “Hammer”: It is a pretty impressive piece of equipment. It was quite heavy, so that helped with the stunts. If it was too light, you would swing it around like a toothpick and it wouldn’t look impressive. When there is some weight to it and you have to physically use your shoulder and back, it gives you a sense of power. I got very comfortable holding it. When I did the earthbound scenes without it, I felt naked.
[From Interview magazine]
Hemsworth goes on at length to stress that Thor isn’t just a special effects movie but also “about great character development,” which is certainly an ambitious statement in reference to a comic-book movie, but we’ll see how things fare when the movie releases on May 6. I certainly don’t believe that the genuinely overexposed Natalie Portman would sign onto a comic-book adaptation for a great script but only for the prestige involved with working for Branagh. Thor will probably be on par with any other summer popcorn movie as mindless entertainment; speaking of which, Hemsworth recently appeared on “Dancing with the Stars” as part of his promotional rounds. Again, he’s not the most engrossing part of the performance, but he gets the job done:
Photos courtesy of Interview
