With the upcoming Avengers: Endgame, we may or may not be seeing the end of Chris Hemsworth’s eight-year run in the MCU that started with 2011’s Thor, but if things had gone a little differently, then the Australian star might have left Hollywood before he was even cast as the God of Thunder.
In an interview with Men’s Health, Hemsworth recalled how he intended to use his acting career to pay off his parents’ house, but in the period following his brief turn as George Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek, he found that work was in short supply:
“I was about to quit. I always wanted to act, and one of the first things I wanted to do when I got any money was pay my parents’ house off. I’d asked Dad once when he thought he’d pay it off and he said, ‘Honestly, probably never.’ Most people are in that boat and I wanted to change that. So I was super active with auditions. Then in that eight-month period, I got more and more anxious, to the point where I couldn’t harness that energy. I was trying to convince myself I wasn’t nervous before auditions rather than grabbing hold of it and going, [deep intake of breath] ‘Use it, raise up your awareness here, sharpen your focus.’ And then my mentality changed, which came from being at a point where I was like, ‘I’m going to go back to Australia.’”
Ultimately, it was his parents’ house that motivated him to keep going, eventually landing some of his biggest gigs yet:
“I had one more audition where I was like, ‘Do this for his house. Think about reasons other than yourself.’ That was for The Cabin in the Woods, and I got that job, and from there I got Red Dawn. And then I got Thor.”
In the years since, Hemsworth has become inseparable from the God of Thunder in the mind of many a filmgoer, with the actor’s turns in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War proving particularly effective in establishing the hero as a favorite among MCU fans.
Nonetheless, Thor’s journey just might be coming to a close with Endgame, in which case, the character will have one last chance to make up for his oft-ridiculed mistake at the climax of Infinity War. While Marvel Studios is remaining characteristically tight-lipped on Hemsworth’s part in the Phase 3 finale, various leaks have revealed that the popular Infinity War pair-up of Thor and Rocket will continue with this next film, and that the two of them will be wearing some shiny new suits that may well be used for journeys into the Quantum Realm.
We’ll find out what else is in store for the Asgardian hero and his peers when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters on April 26th, 2019.
