Marvel Studios often keeps its projects under lock and key in hopes of withholding any potential spoilers about its films and television shows. As the Marvel machine continually turns, this means that sometimes actors are cast in roles immediately prior to filming. In the case of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s debut of Hercules, actor Brett Goldstein got two weeks to prepare for the role.
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As the actor recently recalled, his management team contacted him out of the blue one night asking if he would hop on a Zoom chat with Marvel moments later. Before the night was over, Goldstein was offered the role of the Greek god.
“No, I didn’t know what it was for. I was told that some Marvel people would like to have a Zoom with you, and I met with them and it was just so surreal because…it was literally out of the blue one night and I was very busy and it was like, ‘Can you make time for a Zoom?’ ‘Yes, sure,’” the Ted Lasso star said in a recent chat with The Playlist.
He added, “And they go on Zoom and they just told me what you see in the film, which is they sort of opened with, ‘So Russell Crowe is Zeus,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, go on.’ And blah, blah, blah. And then they turn around and they reveal ‘It’s Hercules; it’s you.’ And I went, ‘What?’ Just like, ‘Are you serious? Are you f**king with me? Is this a wind-up?’ So yeah, it was as surprising to me as I think it has been to other people.”
According to the actor, he then had a chat with Taika Waititi and had two weeks to prepare for the role before shooting his single post-credits scene.
“Yeah, when I spoke to Taika, I said, ‘You know I’m basically like a skinny comedian?’ I said, ‘When is this filming?’ It was like in two weeks, and I was like, “‘I mean, I’ll do my best, but two weeks feels …’ I said, ‘He doesn’t have to be as big as Thor, does he?’ And look, on the day, I mean, I’m doing 400 pushups that day. I was fit to explode. I did the best I could on that day.”
Taika Waititi, who directed Thor: Ragnarok, returns to direct Thor: Love and Thunder. He also co-wrote the film’s screenplay with Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Chris Pratt, Jaimie Alexander, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Sean Gunn, and Vin Diesel.
Thor: Love and Thunder is now in theaters.
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