"Thor: The Dark World" Star Chris Hemsworth: My Muscles Are Just A Tool
Esquire's September cover boy, Chris Hemsworth, chats about reprising his role as Thor in the upcoming sequel, Dark World. "Thor is large," he says. "For that I had to add some muscle, which hasn't been all that hard so far."
The 29-year-old actor has played a wide variety of roles and body sizes, including a lean American jock in Cabin in the Woods and a buffed-up hunter in Snow White and the Huntsman. He was a little surprised how pared down he'd have to be to play wild-child race-car driver James Hunt in Ron Howard's biopic, Rush (above): "I like training just fine, thanks. But to play a Formula One driver, I had to drop quite a bit of that. You know, slim it down," Hemsworth tells the mag. "First time I looked at a Formula One car in person, I just stared at the cockpit, figuring I'd never get in there. The drivers wear the whole car like a tight-fitting suit. So I just started training differently, shedding all that Thor [weight]. I've come to see size as just a kind of prop."
Below, check out Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde in Rush
And see how Chris uses his size "as a prop" in the trailer for November's Thor: The Dark World