By the time the 2016 Ghostbusters was landing in theaters, Chris Hemsworth was largely known for his superhero and drama roles, but it was his flexing of comedic muscle in that outing that made him one of the most endearing elements of that adventure, though the actor recently recalled how he thought the project would ruin his career. With director Paul Feig encouraging Hemsworth to improvise, while also sharing the screen with comedic heavyweights like Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy, Hemsworth thought his days were numbered in Hollywood, only for the experience to change his entire approach to movies for the better.
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“I said to Paul, ‘There’s not a whole lot on the page, like, what do you want me doing?’ He said, ‘Oh, we’ll figure it out when you get here,’” Hemsworth revealed to GQ of the experience. “So I said, ‘Okay, why not? Let’s go.’ And I got there, turned up to the studio the day before we started shooting and he handed me the script. I read the script and I said, ‘There’s still nothing in here. Like, what am I doing?’”
He added, “He said, ‘It’s okay, we’re going to improvise and have fun.’ And my immediate reaction was, this is not only the end of my career but I’m going to ruin this film. I’m gonna let everyone down, I haven’t done this before. What am I doing?”
The actor wasn’t entirely devoid of comedic sensibilities, having hosted Saturday Night Live and having a small role in the Vacation revival, but the project clearly put his sense of humor to the test.
“And then I met Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, the whole crew, the cast and I just became a whole lot more comfortable because there was such a sense of camaraderie and collaboration there at play. They took me under their wing and we just went on this adventure, this wacky adventure of discovering who this character was,” the actor explained. “It just became so much fun. It became about trying to not laugh, about trying to make the other person laugh. It reminded me of drama class or being back in high school. I thought, ‘I want to take that into everything I do.’”
The next installment in the series, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, landed in theaters last year and is confirmed to be getting a sequel.
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