Actor Chris Hemsworth revealed why he thinks that fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seem to be so taken with his version of Thor as audiences await the highly-anticipated Thor: Love and Thunder to hit the big screen.
In an interview with Deadline, Hemsworth explained that it is Thor's character and personality that makes him such an icon. "There’s an adolescent quality to him, a sense of adventure," he siad. "And a sort of fun immaturity."
It appears that these are qualities that famed Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi share too, allowing him to bring out the God of Thunder's playfulness, which was largely absent in his first two solo films. "[Working with Waititi] it's something different each time, something fresh," Hemsworth said. "And he's a dear friend. He has the same sort of immature quality I was talking about. In the best way possible."
A Whole New Thor
Waititi's role in revitalizing Thor as a character also resulted in a re-imagining of the Asgardian's love interest, Jane Foster. Played by Natalie Portman, the new version of Jane sees her become the Mighty Thor, a hammer-wielding 6-foot-tall woman with plenty of muscles to go around.
"Taika imagined this change in Jane and it was a really great proposition that he had to join his wild ride," Portman explained about the shift in her character. "It was amazing to get to be challenged with that because I don’t think there's many people who would cast a 5'3" woman as a 6' character, so it was great to be able to get to imagine how someone who's that big walks through the world, certainly not the same as me, always looking up at people, who always feels like a kid in every situation."
Marking the MCU's fourth movie Thor movie, Love and Thunder features the eponymous Avenger (Hemsworth) as he retires from the hero lifestyle to focus on finding inner peace after Thanos' assault in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Adventure soon finds Thor, however, when a new evil named Gorr the Butcher (Christian Bale) appears with a mission to defeat and kill all gods in existence. Thor gets help from friends such as the newly ordained King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Watiti) and Jane Foster (Portman) in order to defeat what may be his most challenging villain yet.
Thor: Love and Thunder will be released in theaters on July 8. Thor, Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok are available to stream now on Disney+.
Source: Deadline