Chris Hemsworth Said He Got Bored Of Playing Thor

Thor: Ragnarok will shake up the Asgardian God of Thunder’s world, and just in time: after playing his best-known role across five movies, star Chris Hemsworth says he got “bored” with the hammer-wielding Avenger. Speaking with Jimmy Kimmel, Hemsworth recalled an early meeting with director Taika Waititi, who said, “Let’s just break everything we know and destroy it and rebuild it,” leading to a new take on the golden-haired god.

“Every day was about exploring the unknown and trying something different,” Hemsworth said. “I had got pretty bored of myself as that character and so did he, maybe a few people out there, so we thought, ‘Let’s do something different.’ And every day was improvised and a journey into somewhere we hadn’t been before.”

Thor’s new ‘do was part of the transformation, Hemsworth says, and part of the actor not wanting to “spend two hours in hair and makeup putting the wig on.” Another change was Ragnarok shooting in Hemsworth’s native Australia, a Marvel Studios first. “I felt like I had kind of done my time,” Hemsworth joked, saying he called up Marvel Studios president and producer Kevin Feige with a recommendation to shoot on the Gold Coast.

Hemsworth was an unknown when he won the role for 2011’s Thor, reprising the role of the lightning-slinging superhero in 2012’s The Avengers, 2013’s Thor: The Dark World, 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and again briefly in the mid-credits scene of 2016’s Doctor Strange.

Despite Ragnarok‘s serious subject matter — the potential destruction of all of Asgard — the film has a lighter, more irreverent tone than past Thor outings thanks to director Waititi, and Hemsworth leans closer into the more comedic and high-praised turns he took in Vacation and Ghostbusters: this time around, the mighty Thor has undergone a makeover and a bit of a personality revamp, as seen in the “Team Thor” short “mockumentaries” (also directed by Waititi). The change is a welcome one, as Thor: Ragnarok is getting a glowing response from the first critics and audiences to see the latest Marvel Studios blockbuster.

Thor: Ragnarok opens November 3.