Avengers: Infinity War’s Chris Hemsworth Gets Candid About Almost Passing Up The Chance To Play Thor

Someone get Doctor Strange on the phone; Chris Hemsworth wants to borrow the Eye of Agamotto and, more specifically, the Time Stone hidden within.

Currently out promoting his true-life war drama 12 Strong, Marvel’s God of Thunder swung by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (h/t ComicBook.com), where talk inevitably veered toward Avengers: Infinity War, the deadliest MCU movie yet.

In doing so, Fallon quizzed Hemsworth about the time he almost passed up the chance to play Thor for Marvel Studios. It’s something that the Aussie actor has addressed before, of course, and he’s been pretty forthcoming about his initial hesitation (spoilers: Chris Hemsworth was wary of signing a multi-picture deal for a project still in its infancy). But now that the MCU has ballooned into a billion-dollar franchise, the actor has precisely zero regrets, and admitted that if he was in possession of a time machine, he’d travel back and “slap that younger, pretentious version” of himself.

I might’ve had a hesitation and I kind of want to get a time machine and go back and slap that younger pretentious version of myself. I was trying to be an artist. I was like, ‘Oh, I want to do independent films. It’s too big! It’s a franchise!’ No. I love that character. I’ve loved this experience. It’s been the best.

Hemsworth continued:

I think my hesitation, I had no idea what it was gonna be. If it was gonna be a good experience or bad. Thankfully, it has been the best experience I’ve ever had. We just wrapped Avengers 4. So, that’s kind of it now, most of the franchise.

And you can’t exactly blame him. Before Kenneth Branagh launched his Thor solo movie, Hemsworth was still an up-and-coming actor, so you can imagine his hesitance about committing his immediate future to the fledgling MCU – in fact, Chris Evans had similar reservations, too.

Fast forward to now, and Captain America and Thor are two of the biggest stars on the entire planet. They’ll each make their return via Avengers: Infinity War, before the battle against Thanos reaches dizzying new heights in Avengers 4.