Alasdair McLellan exclusively for GQ(LONDON) — Chris Hemsworth rose to fame playing the ultimate macho superhero — Thor, God of Thunder — in the Marvel movie franchise, but in a new cover story with GQ, the Australian actor talks about finding his on-screen identity beyond just his muscles and good looks.
“I came into Hollywood thinking I had to be Russell Crowe. I loved his performances, and because of my physicality and my size, that was the obvious choice,” he tells the mag. “I think I was aware that it could kind of get me in the door. But it wasn’t me.”
Hemsworth, a dad of three, says it was “quite jarring” for the people closest to him to see him in movies doing a “straight, heroic, sort of overly masculine kind of thing.”
“What masculinity was, the classic archetype—it just all starts to feel very familiar,” he says.
So in the third Thor movie, Thor: Ragnarok, he aimed to inject the superhero with a more vulnerable and comedic side, something GQ describes as being truer to Hemsworth’s own spirit.
Next up for Hemsworth is the crime thriller Bad Times at the El Royale, due out in October, in which he plays a charismatic cult leader.
“I really do feel a sense of ease for the first time in years,” he says. “I don’t mean that as an assessment of my achievements. I just mean I’m content with what’s going on and relaxed and open about it.”
Copyright © 2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.