Absurd as it is as there’s anyone to particularly take “blame” for a popcorn superhero blockbuster that raked in $761 million during its theatrical run—few studios would see that, critical drubbing or otherwise, as something to find blame in—Chris Hemsworth seemingly cannot help but take on a lot of the audience reaction to Marvel’s last Thor movie, Love and Thunder.
“I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” Hemsworth recently told Vanity Fair of his performance in the film. “I didn’t stick the landing.”
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This is not the first time the actor has come out and offered himself up as the source of Love and Thunder’s ailed appraisal. Last year, he told GQ that he had too much fun during the process of making the film. “I think we just had too much fun. It just became too silly,” Hemsworth said in June 2023. “It’s always hard being in the center of it and having any real perspective… I love the process, it’s always a ride. But you just don’t know how people are going to respond.”
But in speaking to Vanity Fair, its clear that Hemsworth has had a lot of struggles with the characterization of Thor even beyond the pivot to a more tonally jokey iteration in Taika Waititi’s duology. “Sometimes I felt like a security guard for the team,” Hemsworth continued. “I would read everyone else’s lines, and go, ‘Oh, they got way cooler stuff. They’re having more fun. What’s my character doing?’ It was always about, ‘You’ve got the wig on. You’ve got the muscles. You’ve got the costume. Where’s the lighting?’ Yeah, I’m part of this big thing, but I’m probably pretty replaceable.”
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And yet, it’s kind of weird that he’s become the face of taking the blame for Love and Thunder’s less-than-thunderous critical and audience response. Even mixed reviews of the film at the time were largely unlikely to pin any of the film’s failings on Hemsworth’s performance as Thor. There was plenty elsewhere to critique, like the film’s wild fumble of its villain Gorr, the latest in a long line of Marvel villains excoriated for daring to make a valid point—and lacking in a chance for Christian Bale to give the kind of charismatic turn that made Cate Blanchett’s Hela so much fun in Ragnarok previously. Likewise, the film’s utter waste of Natalie Portman’s return as Jane Foster—transformed into a Thor in her own image—mishandled adapting one of the most beloved Thor comics in recent publication history speaks to Love and Thunder’s narrative failings far, far more than Hemsworth believing he’d become a parody of his own performance.
For what it’s worth, at the very least Hemsworth is excited about his next major genre role—the villain of George Miller’s Mad Max prequel Furiosa, where he played Warlord Dementus, describing it to Vanity Fair as his favorite role since the 2013 Ron Howard racing film Rush. “Ron took me out of that typecast space of the muscly action guy and let me play a character with complications and darkness. I remember thinking at the time, ‘Oh, this is going to change everything’,” Hemsworth reflected. “It’s been a long wait.”
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