Spiderhead Director Explains Why Chris Hemsworth Was the Perfect Choice to Lead Netflix’s Hit Thriller

Spiderhead has been a dominant force on Netflix since its release this past Friday, and that success shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given who is involved. The film is directed by Top Gun: Maverick‘s Joseph Kosinski with a script from Deadpool scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. And of course, Spiderhead stars Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth, whose inclusion probably led to a lot of the film’s early views. What fans may not realize when they first turn on Spiderhead, however, is that Hemsworth’s role in the movie is unlike any other in his career.

Hemsworth plays Steve Absenti in Spiderhead, a pharmaceutical genius and absolute sociopath, who is running an experimental prison that tests new drugs on its inmates. Steve is a character that’s both hilarious and deeply troubled, which is something we’re not used to seeing from Hemsworth. During an interview with ComicBook.com, Kosinski explained why Hemsworth was the perfect choice to bring Steve to life.

“Well that was exactly the criteria we had, which is the most exciting casting for this role is someone where we haven’t seen him or her do it before,” Kosinski told us. “Chris, I think, everyone knows he has great comedic timing because we’ve seen that in film, we’ve seen that in Saturday Night Live. We know he has that. But the charisma, the humor, the darkness, the complexity, the damage, all the stuff that Steve needs to have in this story.”

“You just don’t know, when you send it to someone, if they’re going to respond to all that, and Chris responded right away when we sent him the script,” the director continued. “He just saw it exactly the way we did, the challenge of it, the fun in it, the complexity of it. But at the same time making sure there’s a real human being there and that you do feel for him because you understand where this all comes from. And you understand that he does truly believe he’s doing the right thing, as twisted as it is. We were thrilled to have Chris come in and he just really crushed it.”

Spiderhead also stars Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett, and it is currently available to stream on Netflix. You can watch the full interview with Kosinski and producer Eric Newman in the video at the top of the page.