Thor: Love and Thunder is only days away from pushing the Marvel Cinematic Universe forward and it looks to be an epic adventure that stars not only Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, but will also see Natalie Portman take up Mjolnir to become Mighty Thor and Christian Bale doing his best to terrorize our heroes as Gorr the God Butcher.
To help share why Thor: Love and Thunder will be worthy of Mjolnir and the MCU, IGN sat down with Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, and Tessa Thompson to discuss what it’s actually like working in the MCU, how it was seeing the mighty return of Portman as Jane Foster, and more.
What It’s Like Working in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Since Iron Man kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2008, the MCU has become one of the biggest entertainment properties in the entire world. A big part of that success comes from Marvel’s ability to draw world-class talent and tell a connected narrative that very well may never come to an end.
Thor: Love and Thunder will be the 29th MCU film in this never-ending story and the fourth film to star Chris Hemsworth as the God of Thunder. Hemsworth first took up Mjolnir in 2011’s Thor, and he has grown a lot since that first film and has gone from a traditional superhero with bleached eyebrows to the funniest Avenger before our eyes. Hemsworth understands this better than anyone, and he shared a bit of his perspective on his journey as Thor with us.
“I definitely think from Ragnarok onwards, the sense of humor made [Thor] all the more relatable as there was a greater sense of fun and enjoyment there to be had,” Hemsworth said. “I think the more vulnerable he became too over time, and the more complex as far as he was susceptible to emotional trauma or emotional sort of complications and his mental fitness wasn't always at a 10, I think people kind of appreciated that.”
While Hemsworth has led the charge in the Thor films, Tessa Thompson’s Valkyrie made an incredible first impression in Thor: Ragnarok and has since become a fan-favorite. She is a relative newcomer to the MCU, and she discussed how becoming a superhero really does require a lot of imagination as oftentimes you are acting against a green screen and, in a way, have to embrace the way we used to play as kids when we would have to save the universe against threats we conjured in our minds.
“I think that's a really tough thing to access,” Thompson said of the place you must go to convince the moviegoing audience you are a true superhero. “There's also a lack of… I don't know how to describe it. It's almost like a lack of dignity that you have to have in making these movies. You have to really not be afraid to make a fool out of yourself, and I think that is something that is tremendous and really stretches your range.”
Thompson has always wanted to be part of a film like Thor: Ragnarok, and she was up to the special kind of challenges these types of projects require, including the necessity to be in the best shape of your life.
“In some cases, you're working on [superhero films] for six or eight months,” Thompson continued. “And then you come back and you do reshoots many months later. And also getting in that level of shape requires a certain amount of discipline, which I think is tremendous for an actor. And so I think there's so much that these films require that is really useful if you're interested in it.”
The Mighty Return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster
The initial sparks of Thor and Jane Foster’s romance began in 2011’s Thor, but the two characters would end up going their separate ways and Portman’s Foster would be completely absent from Thor: Ragnarok after starring in the first two films.
In Thor: Love and Thunder, Portman makes a triumphant return as Foster, who is now the Mighty Thor.
“I think when Jane Foster and Thor parted, it was left pretty open-ended,” Hemsworth said. “And we had a lot of room now to sort of create whatever we wanted to between the two characters. We had all of these unanswered questions and for him to be on this journey of self-discovery, trying to figure out who he was and all of a sudden see someone, his ex-girlfriend, dressed the same as him or similar, and being able to wield Mjolnir certainly took a moment of pause and shaking of his sort of belief system or understanding of how the world operated.”
However, Foster’s return is much more than just about Thor. In this new film, we will get to learn more about Foster’s backstory and her motivations, which in turn will help strengthen her in more ways that Mjolnir ever could.
“It's really incredible to get to understand where Jane comes from and what's motivating her and what her challenges are and what her driving force is,” Portman said. “I think it's very humanizing to this kind of scientific character and love interest character, that we had established in earlier films, to have her have a little bit more of her own battles she's waging and her own specific personality.”
Jane Foster will also get to explore her sillier side in Thor: Love and Thunder, and this allows Portman to play the character in a whole new way and add a new dimension to her.
“It was so great to get to let her be silly and to let her have kind of this more powerful [side], and yes, sometimes, the other sides of power that come along with it,” Portman said. “It was great to have a different imagination of her, and I was really grateful for [director] Taika [Waititi] taking that on.”
Portman’s expanded role will undoubtedly be a treat for fans, but her performance and the impressive road she has walked to get to this point in her career as a woman have inspired those around her, including her close friend Tessa Thompson, who she co-starred with in the film Annihilation.
“Natalie is such an incredible actor who has been working for a long time now. And I feel really inspired when I see someone that has been doing it for a long time and they're still trying to reach new heights and do things that challenge them,” Thompson said. “It's very seldom, especially as a woman, that you're asked to actually expand yourself, to get bigger, to get as big as you can get. Typically, you're asked to get smaller in all sorts of ways. So watching her do that and take up that challenge was wonderful.
“And then she and I, outside of Annihilation, have also just had the opportunity to work together as colleagues in thinking about how to make this business more equitable and safer for women and girls. And so to me, she's actually just a real-life superhero in a lot of ways. And so to get to play with her in this space as one is also just fun.”
Thor: Love and Thunder will storm its way to theaters on July 8, 2022. For more, read on as to why Chris Hemsworth calls Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher one of his favorite Marvel villains.
Francesca Rivera is Video Producer at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @fbrivera.
Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
