“You need to have an obsessive approach, just like anything where the odds are stacked against you and it’s a one-in-a-million chance that you’re going to get your foot in the door.” – Chris Hemsworth on Acting
Though Marvel fans love Chris Hemsworth as the almighty Thor, the God of Thunder of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the actor was virtually unknown outside of his native Australia when he was cast in 2011’s Thor. He’s gone on to perform as Thor in 7 more MCU films and will appear as Thor at least once more in Thor: Love and Thunder. While Hemsworth remains committed to the role and appreciative of the support of fans, he admits in an interview with GQ that he sought a lower-profile, more challenging role to boost his confidence as an actor.
While Hemsworth has starred in several films that have grossed over a billion dollars each worldwide, he admits that he can still be insecure about his status in the industry. He says, “You need to have an obsessive approach, just like anything where the odds are stacked against you and it’s a one-in-a-million chance that you’re going to get your foot in the door. But once you are on that train, not a day goes by where you don’t think it’s going to be taken away, all of a sudden.”
Part of that insecurity came from Hemsworth being unable to land roles earlier in his career — but he realizes now that if he had gotten some of those roles, he never would’ve been cast as Thor. He explains, “I had seven or eight call backs and I thought one of those was going to land. But then neither of them did and all of a sudden I thought: this is it, I’ve missed it again. But then Thor came along. If I had got one of those previous roles I wouldn’t have got Thor.”
Of course, as with most actors who play the same role from a prolonged period of time, Hemsworth begin to feel a little limited playing Thor repeatedly a few years back. He reveals, “I felt a lack of creativity. But that was less about whether I was typecast – it was, ‘Is this all I can do?’” He credits his role in the film Bad Times at the El Royale for snapping him out of that feeling. He says, “It reignited my love for acting. I got to do something that wasn’t about special effects and action sequences. When it becomes too familiar, it’s very easy for me to say, ‘What the hell am I doing this for?’”
