Chris Hemsworth was turned down for Thor – another Marvel star screen-tested for Avenger

Thor: Love and Thunder teased in Marvel Entertainment trailer

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

When Thor finally hit the big screen back in 2011, fans of the Marvel comic books were thrilled. Finally, the God of Thunder would be introduced into the MCU, and with him, the beginning of the cosmic parts of the Marvel universe – including what would eventually lead to Thanos and Avengers Endgame.

But, before filming began on Thor, the bosses at Disney were struggling to figure out who should play the incredible lightning-wielding character.

Get Disney+ Membership At A Discount

Want to watch every single movies from Marvel, Pixar, 20th Century Fox? Disney+ includes all of its animated classics, as well as the complete Star Wars saga, and hundreds of titles in between! There are also new exclusive boxsets added all the time. Sign up for an annual subscription at the link to save over 15% off the monthly price!

View Deal

Chris Hemsworth, at the time, was struggling to find an acting agency to represent him and get him film auditions. As a relative newcomer to the industry, he struggled to even get an audition for Thor. And when he eventually did, one of the film’s casting directors didn’t think he was cut out for the role.

Chris was removed from the audition process and began to pack his bags out of the Marvel universe before he had even settled.

But, thankfully, he had one more play up his sleeve.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wtLLls2nbyI

Chris’ agent was a friend of Kevin Feige, the Marvel Studios boss. And they advocated for Chris, convincing the studio head to give him another shot and put him back in the audition process, where he went up against his brother, Liam Hemsworth, for the role.

But at the same time, British star Tom Hiddleston had progressed through to the screen testing portion of the auditions. Yes, Tom, who fans now know and love as Loki, was on his way to becoming the God of Thunder.

Tom apparently got “ripped” and grew out his long blonde hair to throw around the hammer Mjolnir on camera.

But, clearly, it didn’t end well for him.

Marvel teases Doctor Strange with sneak peek

Tom spoke out about being cast as Thor back in 2019. “Basically, at the time, they were looking for sort of less well-established actors so that the audience didn’t have an association,” he explained. “They just wanted people to see these new characters, these new actors. And the agreement was, if you’re over 6 foot and you’ve got blond hair, you can come and have a pop at it.”

He added: “So I never auditioned for Loki. I only ever auditioned for Thor, which is nuts.”

Eventually, however, they saw Chris perform again, and decided to cut Tom loose from the auditioning. But Tom isn’t bitter about it. He later said: “I think we can all agree that they cast the right actor.”

Tom returned to London, where he went to a pub to reflect on what went wrong… when he got a call.

Tom remembered the phone call was about losing the role of Thor when he was told about being cast as Loki.

“I screamed,” he laughed. “And had to sit down on the pavement somewhere outside of a grizzly pub in North London and think about the rest of my life for a bit.”

Director of Thor Kenneth Brannagh said of the new Loki actor: “Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise. Tom has a wild imagination, [and] so does Loki. He’s got a mischievous sense of humour and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player.”

In the end, Chris and Tom were cast as their perfect respective Asgardians. But Kevin Feige did have some regrets about the 2011 movie.

Kevin has rarely looked back on the early Marvel films and discussed what he would have done differently. But, one of the big things he would change, would be of Thor’s look in his first solo movie.

He said: “Definitively, the one thing I would definitely do differently if I had to do it over again, is we would not have dyed Chris Hemsworth’s eyebrows blonde in the first Thor. Because we were like, Thor is blonde! He has to be blonde! And Hemsworth was great and awesome and pulled it off, but there are a couple of shots I watch and I’m like, oh my God, that poor guy, we made him freaking dye his eyebrows! That’s ridiculous!”

He added: “And I can laugh about it now because Hemsworth is Thor and he doesn’t need long hair, or a cape, or a hammer, or two eyeballs to be Thor.”

Thor is available to watch on Disney Plus now.

SOURCE / SOURCE

Source: Read Full Article