Chris Hemsworth
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- In full:
- Christopher Hemsworth
Chris Hemsworth (born August 11, 1983, Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian actor who came to fame for his role as Thor in several Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
Early life and career
Hemsworth’s mother was an English teacher and his father a social-services counselor; his two brothers, Luke Hemsworth and Liam Hemsworth, also became actors. The family moved back and forth between Melbourne and the Outback community of Bulman, Northern Territory, eventually settling on Phillip Island. Hemsworth’s first acting job came in 2002, when he played King Arthur in two episodes of the fantasy television series Guinevere Jones. Like many Australian actors, he cut his teeth with a role (2004–07) on the soap opera Home and Away.
Thor
Hemsworth then moved to the United States in hopes of transitioning his acting career to film. He was cast in the role of Captain Kirk’s father in J.J. Abrams’s 2009 movie Star Trek, and that same year he played a menacing hitchhiker in the thriller A Perfect Getaway. He appeared in the minor action movie Ca$h (2010) before his first outing as the title Norse god in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor (2011). The movie told the story of Thor’s arrogant breaching of a peace and being banished to 21st-century Earth to learn humility. Hemsworth’s light, self-mocking, and human touch in his portrayal of the comic superhero made the film a hit and launched a popular franchise. He later starred in Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022); the latter two were both directed by Taika Waititi. Hemsworth also played the character in other Marvel movies, including The Avengers (2012).
Other roles
During this time Hemsworth appeared in numerous other films. He had a leading role in the horror movie The Cabin in the Woods, filmed in 2009 but not released until 2011. He then portrayed the Huntsman in the reimagined fairy tale Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), a character he repeated in the less-successful The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016). Other notable roles include that of Formula One race driver James Hunt in Ron Howard’s critically praised Rush (2013), a computer hacker in Michael Mann’s crime thriller Blackhat (2015), and a sexy receptionist in Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), a gender-flipped remake of the classic 1984 comedy film.
He gave a well-received performance as an underestimated Green Beret captain in the Afghanistan War story 12 Strong (2018). Hemsworth also played a secret agent handling alien affairs in Men in Black: International (2019) and a heroic mercenary in the action movie Extraction (2020). He reprised the latter role in Extraction II (2023). Hemsworth was almost unrecognizable under a large prosthetic nose in his performance as the blowhard villain Dementus in George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024).
Other work and personal life
In 2022 Hemsworth starred in the docuseries Limitless, which centers on wellness and self-improvement. Throughout the series, he undertakes various health-related challenges that test his limits. In 2024 the actor was chosen as a cochair (alongside Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and Zendaya) for that year’s Met Gala, the annual benefit for the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Hemsworth married Spanish actress Elsa Pataky in 2010, months after meeting. They have three children, daughter India (born in 2012) and twin sons Tristan and Sasha (born in 2014).
