The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his fangirls.
"As a kid, you run around the house pretending to be a superhero, and now to be doing it as a job, I feel very lucky."
Christopher Hemsworth (born 11 August 1983) is an Australian actor.
He first became known for acting in the Australian soap opera Home and Away before becoming known in America for his Small Role, Big Impact as George Kirk in J. J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009) reboot. This led to him being cast as Thor, the Asgardian prince and Norse god of thunder, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is by far his best-known role. He played him for the first time in his eponymous film in 2011, and has since reprised it on several occasions.
Since Thor, Hemsworth has also earned good notices for his roles in works including The Cabin in the Woods and Snow White & the Huntsman, and was said to have proven his dramatic range with his performance in Rush, a Biopic about the rivalry between Formula One racers James Hunt and Niki Lauda.
Not to be confused with his younger brother Liam Hemsworth, nor his elder brother Luke Hemsworth. Also not to be confused with Chrises Pine, Evans, or Pratt. He has been married to Elsa Pataky since 2010.
Partial Filmography
- Star Trek (2009) as George Kirk
- A Perfect Getaway (2009) as Kale
- Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thor Odinson:
- Thor (2011)
- The Avengers (2012)
- Thor: The Dark World (2013)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Team Thor (2016-2018)
- Doctor Strange (2016) note
- Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
- Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
- Avengers: Endgame (2019)
- Loki (as Throg) note
- What If...? (2021)
- Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
- The Cabin in the Woods (2012) as Curt
- Snow White & the Huntsman (2012) as Eric the Huntsman
- The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016)
- Red Dawn as Jed Eckert
- Rush (2013) as James Hunt
- Blackhat (2015) as Nick Hathaway
- Vacation (2015) as Stone Crandall
- In the Heart of the Sea (2015) as Owen Chase
- Ghostbusters (2016) as Kevin the receptionist
- Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) as Billy Lee
- Men in Black: International (2019) as Agent H
- Extraction (2020) as Tyler Rake
- Extraction 2 (2023)
- Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) as Dementus
- Transformers One (2024) as Optimus Prime (voice)
- The Hulkster (TBD) as Hulk Hogan
Tropes relating to Chris Hemsworth include:
- The Ace: Manages to be an acclaimed actor, a good singer, a great improvisational comedian, incredibly attractive, and run a fitness program (app-based Centr). He also managed to land Elsa Pataky for a wife.
- Barbarian Longhair: Was this with his star-making role in Thor and during much of his earlier career but nowadays has largely dropped it.
- Chronically Killed Actor: Surprisingly often. His characters have died in Star Trek, The Cabin in the Woods, Red Dawn, Rush, and Bad Times at the El Royale.
- Dyeing for Your Art: invoked Like Christian Bale before him, he has often had to gain and lose a large amount of weight in quick succession due to his other projects in between superhero roles. He bulked up to play Thor but had to quickly slim down during production because he'd gotten too big for the costume (he was losing circulation in his limbs). He had to lose 30 pounds of muscle in order to convincingly play James Hunt in Rush (otherwise he was too big to fit in the racecars), and then had to gain it all back again for Thor: The Dark World. He also had to go on a crash diet to play an emaciated, starving sailor for In the Heart of the Sea and re-bulked back up again to Thor-weight for Avengers: Age of Ultron. And now it appears he's slimmed down considerably for Ghostbusters.
- The fat suit he wore in Avengers: Endgame actually served a purpose of obscurity his actual body while filming as after filming 3 Thor outings back to back to back, he then immediately went on to film Men In Black International with a much more trim physique.
- And now he's bulked up again, even more than previously, in Thor: Love and Thunder and to play Hulk Hogan in a biopic.
- Fake Nationality: invoked
- Hemsworth adopts a British accent for Thor and James Hunt, Scottish for The Huntsman, and played Americans in Red Dawn and The Cabin in the Woods. He also used an American-ish accent as George Kirk in Star Trek (2009).
- By his admission, Ghostbusters is the first project he's ever done since his stint on Home and Away that he gets to use his natural Australian accent.
- Hidden Depths: His costars on Ghostbusters expressed surprise at his strength at improvisational comedy.
- Hunk: Even outside of roles, he clearly prefers to keep himself in shape. His "slimmed down" look mentioned above (although not as huge as his Thor physique, as mentioned) is still considerably big and fit; with the exception of Owen Chase, when he did look emaciated.
- Leslie Nielsen Syndrome: invoked After his Star-Making Role as Thor, he's landed plenty of action-oriented roles. However, after Ghostbusters (2016) and Thor: Ragnarok demonstrated his surprising talent at improv comedy, Hemsworth has since been given more comedic roles that play better to his comic skills than his appearance as a Hunk.
- Likes Older Women: His wife, Elsa Pataky, is seven years older than him.
- Mr. Fanservice: A number of female cast and crew from the sets of the Marvel films would find excuses to touch his arms and chest. Others didn't even bother with excuses. Even Robert Downey Jr. has been known to talk about it frequently in interviews. When one interviewer told Scarlett Johansson (no stranger to being considered a Ms. Fanservice herself) that she/her character Black Widow is considered the most attractive member of the Avengers, Johansson's response was "Have you seen Chris Hemsworth?"
- His castmates at Ghostbusters (2016) got distracted talking about him
in The Graham Norton Show instead of promoting the film.
- His castmates at Ghostbusters (2016) got distracted talking about him
- Real-Life Relative: His brother Luke played a "theatre" version of Thor in Ragnarok and Love and Thunder.
- Separated-at-Birth Casting: invoked As George Kirk in Star Trek (2009), he bore enough of a resemblance to Chris Pine, who played main character James Kirk, that according to director J. J. Abrams, some viewers mistakenly thought Pine played both characters.
- Sibling Rivalry: Apparently he and his brother Liam used to get into fights so vicious (Liam admits that knives were occasionally involved) that they had to be separated when their parents (the only ones able to handle them both) went on a trip to Europe. They were finalists for the role of Thor, and he had actually asked Liam for pointers during his second audition (Liam had initially received a callback and Chris didn't). Mocked heartily in the 'Bitman Begins' spoof they did for Jimmy Kimmel (a skit where Kimmel re-imagined famous YouTube clips as Oscar Bait movies, in this case, the famous "Charlie Bit My Finger" vid.)Chris: We both came all the way over here from Australia and ended up battling against each other.
- Star-Making Role: invoked An odd case, and borderline inversion. Both The Cabin in the Woods and Red Dawn (2012) were clearly meant to be this for Hemsworth, but the financial troubles at MGM meant they weren't released until after he had starred in Thor, which is what ultimately did end up being Hemsworth's star-making role instead.
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's 6'3", although he's blonde rather than dark-haired.
