Thor: Love and Thunder star Chris Hemsworth admitted that the second film in the franchise, Thor: The Dark World, bored him.
The Aussie actor explained how his disappointment with the 2013 blockbuster directly impacted its sequels in an interview with Vanity Fair. "I wasn't stoked with what I'd done in Thor 2. I was a little disappointed in what I'd done," he said. "I didn't think I grew the character in any way, I didn't think I showed an audience something unexpected and different. And then when [Thor: Ragnarok] came along, out of my own frustration of what I had done -- and this is not on any other director or anyone, this was my own performance -- I really wanted to break the mold."
"And I said this to [director] Taika [Waititi] and I think the conversation we had was, I said 'I'm really bored of Thor,'" Hemsworth continued. "And he said, 'Yeah I'm really bored of Thor, too.' And then we decided not to be bored and any time that feeling came into play, we'd go in a different direction." This approach appears to have paid off for Hemsworth and Waititi so far. Thor: Ragnarok is the most critically and commercially successful solo Thor movie to date, while the follow-up film Thor: Love and Thunder is one of the most hotly-anticipated films of 2022.
Waititi's free-spirited take on the Thor mythos was apparently what motivated Natalie Portman to reprise the role of Jane Foster, too. The director recently revealed that he lured Portman back by promising the Oscar-winning actor a more exciting role than she played in the first two Thor movies. "I had to just talk to her about the fact that I wanted to change that character, just like we'd changed Thor's character for Ragnarok and to give her a bit more license to be adventurous and fun because Natalie's a really funny person," Waititi said.
Waititi added that a similar pitch helped secure the services of Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, who was also looking for a fun part to play. According to Waititi, Bale's Gorr is not only the most sympathetic villain to ever menace the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he's also the most popular. The Kiwi filmmaker confirmed that Thor: Love and Thunder test audiences have scored the deity-hunting baddie higher than any other MCU movie's antagonist.
Thor: Love and Thunder arrives in theaters on July 8.
Source: Vanity Fair, via YouTube