Roughly a year after the film premiered and presented the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a new all-time low, Thor: Love and Thunder star Chris Hemsworth is ready to admit that the God of Thunder’s third solo outing was a less-than-thunderous adventure.
The Australian native reflected on his last Marvel outing during a recent ‘career retrospect’ interview given to the British edition of GQ.
After being asked by the outlet’s Hannah-Rose Yee for his thoughts on the now infamous criticisms of Marvel films leveled by Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino – responding, “I’m thankful that I have been a part of something that kept people in cinemas. Now, whether or not those films were to the detriment of other films, I don’t know.” – Hemsworth recalled how even his child’s friends had, in recent years, become highly critical of the MCU.
“It’s a bunch of eight-year-olds critiquing my film,” Hemsworth told Yee. “‘We thought this one had too much humour, the action was cool but the VFX weren’t as good.’”
Having raised the topic of Marvel criticism, Hemsworth then confessed that, in terms of his thoughts on Love and Thunder, “I cringe and laugh equally at it.”
“I think we just had too much fun. It just became too silly,” reflects Hemsworth. He pauses. “It’s always hard being in the centre of it and having any real perspective… I love the process, it’s always a ride. But you just don’t know how people are going to respond.”
(In a slightly humorous aside undoubtedly related at least in part to Love and Thunder, at one point during the interview, Hemsworth tells Yee that as he ages, “Everything has more importance now. Because of the realisation that this isn’t going to last forever.”
To this end, Hemsworth notes, “I don’t want to leave a pile of rubbish behind. And I’m aware that there’s a few misses there.” Pressed by Yee for specific examples, Hemsworth joked, “The internet will tell you”.)
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Yet despite this admission of Love and Thunder’s less-than-impressive quality, Hemsworth would admit that he would still be open to returning as the Son of Odin, albeit with one condition: Marvel has to do something new with the character.
“I love the experience,” said the actor. “I love the fact that I’ve been able to do something fairly different throughout the process. Thor 1 and 2 were their own thing, Thor 3 and 4 were a very different feel… and then even Avengers, the Lebowski Thor, the Infinity War Thor, due to different directors and I think mostly my own need to do something different.”
“You know, I got sick of the character pretty quick every couple of years,” he admitted. ” “If I was going to do something again it would have to be tonally different. And we’d have to do something very drastic to keep people on their toes. Otherwise it’s just the fatigue of those characters and those films, where people are like, ‘I’ve seen it.’”
Speaking to one of the broader issues currently infecting the MCU, Hemsworth pointed to the ‘End of the Multiverse’ premise of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, and opined, “That’s the trick: you have to separate all those stories.”
“The moment it’s like, ‘Your world is in danger, the entire universe!’ It’s like, ‘Yeah, so [like it] was the last 24 films,’” he added. “It has to become a bit more personal and grounded.”
Concluding his thoughts on Marvel by returning to Thor, Hemsworth ultimately stated that while he was open to ” “seeing what [Marvel] have to offer creatively, if there is something new,” at present, “I really wanna do some other stuff for a while.”
