Chris Hemsworth: Beefcake Status "Makes Me Laugh"

Thor star discusses being a summer beefcake and how he got such a buff bod

By Ted Casablanca, Aly Weisman May 02, 2011 7:43 PMTags
ThorZade Rosenthal / Marvel Studios

Abs of steel! Arms the size of small children! Flowing locks of golden hair! A deep, authoritative voice and an extremely large...hammer!

Chris Hemsworth nails the part of Thor Odinson, heir to the throne of the magical realm of Asgard, in the new summer flick Thor, out this Friday.

Heck, Hemsworth looks just short of godly in the role. While comic book fans will be talking about director Kenneth Branagh's modern take on the old fairy tale, all we could look at was Hemsworth's out-of-this-world bod:

"I had read the comic books and I noticed the character was about 10 times bigger than I was—so that lit a fire in me to get to the gym and start eating buckets of protein," Hemsworth, 27, dished to reporters at Sunday's Thor press junket in Beverly Hills.

"Prepping for the role was probably more exhausting than the shooting of the film!"

And turns out it was people's lack of faith in the fairly new-to-the-scene Australian actor that made him want to get super buff.

"I heard quite a few people say in the beginning, 'Oh, he's too skinny he'll never do this' and that was even more motivation," revealed Hemsworth, who says he got his other-worldly abs thanks to "Good old fashioned body building exercises and eating copious amounts."

When we saw one key Thor scene, Hemsworth disrobed in front of his love interest, Natalie Portman, and we were just as speechless as Portman's character, whose jaw literally drops to the floor and is mesmerized by the sight of such muscles!

Unfortunately, no love scenes between these two this time around but, spoiler alert: the movie finishes open-ended and primed for a romantic sequel. Please agree, Portman! (Too bad both actors have already been snatched up in real life.)

So how does Hemsworth feel about acting opposite an Oscar winner and is he ready to take on the title of leading Hollywood hunk?

"I didn't walk in trying to think about doing that, it was the same pressures of any film; you want to do a great performance and you want to make a great film," the humble hottie told us. "A year and a half ago I was banging on the door trying to get an audition and to be here now working is incredibly exciting."

Hemsworth added, "So far, we're getting great feedback and a great response to the film, whatever comes now keeps me working, keeps me in a job, keeps me here, that's the focus."

The hardworking hunk also told us that his focus is not necessarily to retain his Hollywood beefcake status. "That just makes me laugh," the actor told us, in between chuckles, and slight red face.

But looks like Hemsworth's godly Thor bod may be coming back down to Earth.

"The moment we stopped shooting I had a couple of weeks to break from the gym and it disappeared rather quickly," Hemsworth revealed. "My body didn't sit naturaly at that weight."

Whatever his pounds add up to, we give this humble hottie two hammers up!