Q&A With Chris Hemsworth
Q: Please
describe Thor and his weapon.
A:
Thor
is the God of Thunder. He’s incredibly strong and from a place called Asgard,
which is within the Nine Realms of the universe. He has a weapon called Mjolnir,
which is basically a big, magical hammer that has been forged from the heart of
a dying star. It can summon the lightning and control the elements and also
gives him the ability to fly.
Q: What
are the uses of the hammer in this film?
A: The usual, like summoning
the lightning and manipulating the elements and storms and wind as well as breaking
things and destroying things. It’s certainly a weapon that he uses to destroy
rather than build in this one.
Q: What
is it like to be back portraying Thor for the third time?
A: I love playing the character. The trick is to
find new ways to make the character have some sort of advance or growth from
the last film. That’s the trick of the director, writer and the actor obviously
coming together and asking what’s the next step and where are we going to take
him.
Q: As
an actor, what is it like to play a character with such a rich arc?
A: I love the fact that he
is a god but that could be very bland and one-sided. But each time we get to
break him down and find his human qualities and his vulnerable side it’s
interesting because he has such a tough exterior and an unbreakable feel.
Q: What
did you change about the process this time around?
A: It’s different from “Marvel’s
The Avengers” because in that film you didn’t have your individual arc or
journey. The arc of that story was the group, whereas this is certainly each of
us, and we each have our own specific story. And for Thor, it really is picking
up from “Thor” in a lot of ways, with the same questions he still has about his
brother, about why and how they ended up here and what happened to their
relationship. But the bigger picture is that potentially Thor is stepping into
the role of king, and he needs to prove that he deserves to be there and also
understand and come to terms with the responsibilities that becoming king
carries.
Q: Where
do we find Thor in this film as opposed to the last?
A: In the first film Thor
was a young spoiled teenager, about to take on the throne and be king. Then his
father realizes that he’s not quite mature enough to do that and his priorities
are in the wrong place. He’s full of ego and attitude. During that film, he is
humbled and we leave that first story with Thor about to step into the
responsibility of possibly becoming king of Asgard. In this film we pick up
with him really coming to an understanding of what that entails and the darker
side of that responsibility. He figures out that it doesn’t necessarily come
with all the privileges; there are a lot of sacrifices. It’s that next step in
his evolution to become king.
Q: Thor
is back on Asgard in this film. What is he doing there?
A: Thor and The Warriors Three and the other
soldiers of Asgard have been basically putting out the fires across the Nine Realms
since the Bifrost was destroyed, allowing the criminals of the universe to
wreak havoc. So they’ve been doing some sort of peacekeeping and sorting out
the various conflicts all over the place. It’s pretty direct, but also in some
ways more immediate to what we had in “Thor,” with the Bifrost having been
destroyed and the realms now being free of any sort of policing.
Q: This
film is called Marvel’s “Thor: The Dark World.”
What is this “Dark World” that we’ll be seeing?
A: The Dark World is a reference to the planet that
the dark elves are from, but also I think Alan’s [Taylor] take on it was that
this is a darker transition into adulthood for Thor and him becoming king, and
the darker side of growing up. With the maturity and the responsibilities and
then the secrets, it becomes very political about what the people of Asgard and
the universe need to know versus what they want to know. You start to see the
shadier side of the royal family.
Q: What’s
it been like having everybody back together again?
A: It’s great. Tom
[Hiddleston] and I obviously spent a lot of time together on “Marvel’s The
Avengers,” so we jumped straight back into it. But certainly to see Natalie
[Portman] and Anthony [Hopkins] and Kat Dennings and all the Warriors Three,
and the whole cast was great. We had such a fun time on the first one and we
picked up where we left off.
Q: When
you read this particular script, what did you connect with in terms of fleshing
out the character?
A: I’m always looking for
some sort of conflict and what it is that Thor’s trying to work through as
opposed to just being there and being central to the situation. You’ve got to
make sure the hero is a big catalyst to the resolution; that he’s not just
there to step in at the very end and save the day. You want a journey, and
often the villains are so much easier to write on one hand, but also there’s an
advantage just because they’re allowed to be more unpredictable; they’re
allowed to be inconsistent, whereas I think we traditionally know the hero can
be pretty obvious sometimes. So I think it was up to all of us to police that
and make sure he was relevant in the story; he wasn’t just kind of there. I think
what we managed to find was real conflict with Thor about where his place is. Is
it with Jane on Earth, or is it here in Asgard? His senses are now awakening
and he’s having a greater understanding of the world and its problems. That was
something we wanted to thread in from the beginning, which allowed him to be
proactive through the story and constantly searching for something.
Q: What
is the relationship between Odin and Thor this time around?
A: Once again, the challenge
was not to repeat what we had in the first film, but at the same time, the
conflict between Thor and Odin was something people seemed to love. So we found
new ways of having them disagree. But it’s a much more mature, respectful
disagreement as opposed to the first one where Thor was a young teenager.
Q: What
is it like working with Anthony Hopkins now that you have that relationship
from the first film?
A:
He's the greatest.
Obviously having worked together before, there’s an immediate ease and
familiarity, which is great to dive back into. Anthony is one of those rare
actors that I could just be around and watch all day long. There’s such a
weight and depth to everything he does, no matter how subtle. I think we both
have such a great time playing these characters and finding new ways to explore
the conflict and love they have for one another.
Q: How has the
relationship between Thor and Loki changed throughout the movies?
A: In the very first film Loki
and Thor as brothers had a friendship where there was less hatred involved. We
get to a place in this one where there’s more of that this time around again. Thor
gets to ask Loki what this is all about and how they got to this point in their
relationship.
Thor
is able to confront Loki and say, “It’s about time that you recognize your role
in this. You know, it wasn’t all everyone else’s fault.” In “ Marvel’s The
Avengers” it was us yelling at each other and butting heads, and that happens a
bit in this, too, but for the most part it’s a far more interesting dynamic.
Q: What
is it that Tom Hiddleston brings to the role this time around?
A: We make the assumption
that Loki is walking the line a lot of the time about which side he is going to
fall to, and is it going to be the Loki we’ve come to know or is it the one we previously
knew? Tom brings so much to the part; people love that character. He brought
such empathy to Loki that audiences were conflicted. He’s the villain but we
kind of love him. Any time you can do that, it makes it so much more interesting.
Some of my favorite scenes are with Tom in every film we’ve done. It’s great.
Q: Why
is it important for the film to contain some of the humorous beats that it
does?
A: The humor in all the
Marvel films is what ties them together. It also allows people to buy into the
fantastical world that you’re a part of. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. In
moments, it’s serious enough, but any chance you get to laugh takes the
pressure off of having to believe that there’s a guy with a big hammer and a
red cape flying around the place.
Q: Give
some examples as to where we see some humor in this film.
A: The humor doesn’t lay so
much in Thor’s kind of naiveté as it did in the first one when that
fish-out-of-water quality played so well.
As much as we wanted to repeat that we couldn’t because it would
contradict the fact that he was now becoming more mature and aware. But Kat Dennings
and Natalie Portman certainly have a ton of humor in this and some great
dialogue. It’s through their observations of how wacky our world of Asgard is.
So, it’s sort of what we had in the first one, but a bit of a role reversal. It
plays so well. The two of them are just so good at it and it brings that
element into the story that it needs to buy into the fantastical world.
Q: What
are the evils that Thor and Asgard face in this film?
A: The bad guys are the dark
elves. They’re another race of beings that have come into conflict with the
Asgardians thousands of years ago, and they since have been thought of as extinct;
their planet’s been destroyed and they no longer exist. But they’ve reawakened
and their big concern isn’t necessarily the Asgardians, it’s the weapon that
the Asgardians happen to have that they’re after. Thor and his family are
stepping-stones to the dark elves taking over the universe in the bigger
picture, and they don’t see Thor and the Asgardians as much of a threat.
Q: What
was your impression when you first saw the dark elves in costumes and makeup?
A: The prosthetics and
costumes on the dark elves are incredible. The whole world that they’ve created
for them, from the sets and the locations to shooting in Iceland, just made it
feel so possible. There’s an epic feel to their world, but a grounded quality
as well.
Q: Where
do Thor and Jane Foster stand in this film in terms of their relationship?
A: Jane’s been wondering
where the hell he is and where the hell he’s been, and why he hasn’t contacted
her since he left. Thor did have a brief trip to New York with the Avengers but
didn’t give her a call, so she’s not too happy at first. She comes to
understand that he’s been saving the universe, so that’s not a bad excuse. But
the two of them have to figure out whether or not this is a realistic
relationship. They do feel strongly for each other, so regardless of everything
else, they’re thinking with their hearts instead of their heads.
Q: How
do Thor and Jane not let their relationship cloud their judgment overall?
A: It does cloud their
judgment a bit until the very end. Then Thor actually gets to be honest and go,
“Okay, now that the dust is settled, is this a crazy idea or is it possible?”
And for Thor it certainly becomes then about the darker side of him taking on
the throne, which is all about what people need to hear versus what they want to
hear.
Q: How
do you think people will react to Jane being brought to Asgard?
A: I hope they like it. It’s
a bit of fun. It’s something that we’re nervous about as well, but anytime
there’s a big risk with something, there’s a bigger payoff if you pull it off.
It was done in a tasteful way, but at the same time there was a right amount of
humor again for her character. It allows you to laugh with the ridiculousness
of it as opposed to pointing your finger and rolling your eyes.
Q: What
kind of training did you have to do this time around?
A: On this one I came in and
said, “Okay, I want to make Thor more dynamic.” The guy can fly and split the
earth in half with his weapon, yet a lot of the time we have seen him in the
past just fighting hand-to-hand combat like a Viking, which is an element of
his style, but I think we needed to embrace that he has far more advanced
skills than that. So the idea of getting him off the ground a lot more, using
more wire work. There’s a lot more wire work in this than previously. Developing
different ways to use the hammer, but not always using the hammer. So it just
became about making it a bit more dynamic.
Q: What
does Alan Taylor bring to the franchise and what is his process like?
A: Alan’s fantastic. He’s
got a great sense of story and a need to find the truth in this story and not
have it be hokey and ridiculous. Very much like the “Game of Thrones” series, which was where Alan had just
come from, there was grounding in reality no matter how mythical the world got.
There were a lot of exterior locations and a lot of the sets were built outside
with less blue screen, which I think is great. Asgard does look like a place
you could visit. There’s a sort of medieval feel, but there’s also a science
fiction quality to it. Alan wanted more of the Viking feel than the science
fiction.
Q: What
has it been like working on these sets, and being in London?
A: It’s great. It does feel
like a place that exists as opposed to a set. There’s a worn quality to them,
and they’re not quite as clean as they could’ve been, so it looks like it’s
been lived in. A lot of the sets were built outdoors so we could use natural
lighting as opposed to the indoor studio look.
Q: What
will we be seeing in terms of your wardrobe this time around?
A: The hammer has been taken
and roughed up and beaten a bit and scratched, so it looks like it has been
through thousands of years of war and battle and it’s not straight off the rack.
The sets, the costumes, the hair, the makeup—all of it was about making it look
more realistic. Not having them so much like gods that they were unrelatable. There’s
a human quality to them all, which is wonderful.
Q: Why
do you think Thor is so relatable to audiences, considering it’s such a cosmic
story?
A: Thor’s in love with a
human, so that helps. Instantly there’s a connection. It helps that we’ve
brought the story into a more real, grounded look. But Thor is going through
human problems. His conflicts and emotions are the same as ours. They’re not so
far off that we can’t find any connection to it. He’s battling with his
responsibilities and coming to terms with who he is, his place in the world, his
relationships and family. You could take all these stories and put them in a
little independent film. It’s a father with two sons battling for their
father’s affection. Or there’s a Romeo and Juliet quality to it of two
different families with children who want to be together and everyone thinks
it’s ridiculous. It’s what they go through and their journeys that are similar
to what we could go through.
Q: How
are you pushing the boundaries in this film to make it such an amazing product?
A: It’s probably the scope
of this film that feels bigger than any other Marvel film. We were in Iceland
and London and various locations that were very rugged with very outdoor
landscapes. So the feel of it wasn’t just New York City or Santa Fe, New
Mexico. The whole scope of it was far larger than anything we’d seen before.
Q: What
do you think separates these Marvel films from the typical Hollywood fare that
we normally see?
A: It was a big risk to
individually build these characters up and then bring them all together. Marvel
pulled that off and each film was recognized as its own thing and loved and
then they slammed them all together in “Marvel’s The Avengers.” It was a big risk
but a huge payoff. The Super Heroes are from different times; they’re from
different worlds. There’s a unique quality to them individually, and that’s
what makes them so special.
Q: What
is it that you love most about the fans of “Thor” and how they’ve reacted to these films?
A: They’ve been really
supportive and I love them for that. It could’ve gone the other way. Staying
true to the comic books and these characters was something we were mindful of
from the beginning. These characters already existed and had a fan base that was
a lot more knowledgeable than we were, so you don’t want to let anyone down in
that sense. But there’s a lot of feedback they give us that helps shape where
we take these characters to.
Q: What
are you most excited to see once this hits the big screen as well as the small screen?
A: This film is very
different to “Thor” even to “Marvel’s The Avengers.” I’m excited for people to
see the updated version of this world and these characters. I’m excited myself
to see it all come together on the big screen. There are so many pieces in the
puzzle and so many different sections and departments with everyone doing their
bit that it’s such a satisfying thing when it comes together and works. It is
what you thought it was going to be and hoped it would be.
Trademark Marvel, 2013.
“Thor: The Dark World” is presented by Marvel Studios. The executive
producers are Louis
D’Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Craig Kyle, Alan Fine, Nigel Gostelow and Stan Lee. The film
releases on Blu-Ray combo pack February 25th, 2014, and is
distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.
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