No-name? Not Chris Hemsworth!
It's hard to believe just over 10 years ago the blockbuster action star was considered a "virtual unknown," according to a 2009 Vulture casting announcement Hemsworth resurfaced in honor of the decade anniversary of Thor. The Vulture post, penned by Mark Graham and titled "Marvel Rolls Dice, Casts No-names for Thor," recapped the news that Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston had been cast in Kenneth Branagh's upcoming creation, "despite rumors that had everyone from Shia LaBeouf to Josh Hartnett being cast."
"Let's hope they follow the J.J. Abrams route," Graham wrote, "and put the money they saved in casting straight to special effects."
All these years later, Hemsworth is having the last laugh. "This year marks the 10th anniversary of THOR when two unknown lads were given the keys to the kingdom," he wrote in an Instagram post, partly quoting the article. "It's been a hell of a ride and we clearly haven't aged a day."
While Hemsworth had been a working actor for nearly a decade before he landed the role of a lifetime, it's true he wasn't the household name he is today. Not only did Thor change his career, but it was also something his personal life had to adapt to. "In the beginning it was beautiful—when I met him he wasn't known at all and I grew with him and experienced all his successes and changes, and then he became just so huge and I've been sharing that too," his longtime wife Elsa Pataky recalled to Vogue Australia in 2018. "Going through every moment and being there with him with every success was actually a good thing—we grew together. It's difficult when you go from being an unknown person to a very known person and all the changes that come with that."
After playing Thor in seven films within the Marvel Universe, Hemsworth will next appear as the prince of Asgard in the the next installment, Thor: Love and Thunder, due out in May 2022.
The movie will reunite Hemsworth with some of his fellow Marvel stars, including Natalie Portman, Chris Pratt and Tessa Thompson. You know, just a bunch of no-names.