Desde Hollywood was invited to be part of the THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER press conference featuring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Taika Waititi, Christian Bale, and Kevin Feige.

Read below some highlights of the interesting and funny discussion among actors and filmmakers.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Chris Hemsworth on the evolution of the character and the way they bring him to life.

Since Taika got involved, he brought out the immature, young, adolescent quality that I embody. And so does Thor now, which he didn’t in the original films, which was exciting, new and fresh.
And that’s, you know, always the sort of North Star is about having fun, you know. Embodying this space as a child would and enjoying all of it and being caught up in the wonder and the fascination of all of it. And not getting bogged down in the serious sort of nature that we can when making films, you know. Personally, with these kinds of films, it’s got to be fun, and that’s what we’ve done. That’s what I’ve related to. That’s what Taika kind of insisted upon, and it’s been fun.

Portman on transforming into the Mighty Thor.

It was pretty wild, of course. After seeing Chris wear the costume for so many years, and then to try the version on myself and getting fitted for all the arm cuffs and the boots and everything was pretty surreal for the first time.
I was especially grateful to everyone’s imagination to cast a five-three actress in a six-foot role. I think that takes a real leap of possibility in your mind and probably not something I will, you know, get the opportunity to do, to be imagined as, by any other group.
So, it was a great challenge. Tessa and Chris obviously had a lot of experience in that world, so I got to learn a lot from them.

Bale on portraying Gorr the God Butcher.

I think in Gorr, they look for an actor polar opposite [of Thor]. Someone not relatable, a bit of a loner, creepy, someone no one wants to be around, and nobody wants to see his ass. And so, I think they went, “Yeah, we found it in Bale.” [Laughs]
Of course, there’s a great pleasure in playing a villain. It’s a lot easier to play a villain than it is to play a hero. Chris had a much tougher job, you know. Everyone is fascinated with bad guys immediately. And then, the beauty of it is that Taika can make it bloody hilarious and then really moving in this story.
And then, you know, I don’t know if it’s pushing it too much to say sympathy, but certainly, you sort of understand maybe why this guy is making awful decisions, you know. And he is a monster, and he is a butcher, but yeah.

Tessa Thompson on embodying King Valkyrie in this new chapter.

It’s been really fun. I mean, the thing that I’ve really enjoyed about these films, and certainly I think something that Stan Lee talked a lot about, whether it’s a villain or a hero, the thing sometimes that connects them to their power, whether it’s used for good or bad, is actually their trauma. And so, when we first met Valkyrie, she had a tremendous amount of it, and she was dealing with that by drinking a lot.
And for Taika and I, we talked a lot about, like, upending what a female superhero looks like. That you sort of have this moment where she comes out, and you think it’s going to be sort of that badass thing. And then, she immediately falls over [in Thor: Ragnarok].
And that was really fun to both try to inhabit the spirit and the kind of physicality that it takes to be a hero, which is its own skill. Chris is so tremendous at it. It’s not an easy thing to do. And that also, to allow her to be fun and sort of goofy.
With this one, we also talked about the idea of someone that has a job that they really love, but they’re also kind of disgruntled. She, you know, was a professional soldier for thousands of years and now finds herself kind of stuck in bureaucracy. So, she’s really missing being on the battlefield and missing her sisters. And so, it’s been great fun to get to have that again, with Natalie in particular as Mighty Thor.

Waititi on the music influencing the film’s energy and aesthetics.

We just wanted to spend as much money as we possibly could on some songs. It’s always been a dream of mine. The whole aesthetic around the film, we wanted it to be this bombastic, loud, colorful palette, which kind of reflected, like, spray-painted panel vans in the eighties and rock album covers. And, even the title treatment, you know, for the film, it’s the kind of thing I would’ve drawn on my school book in class when I wasn’t listening.
Guns N’ Roses was one of my all-time favorite bands. And to be able to use that stuff to reflect the sort of crazy adventure that we’re presenting visually was another one of my dreams that came true.

Feige on how Thor has been shaped by Hemsworth and Waititi.

I think they respond to Chris Hemsworth, and I think they respond to everything that he can do. And Taika certainly brought another dimension that was always there within Chris. There were moments, even going back to interviews between the two of them on our New Mexico set, I was like, “Is he trying to be funny? Or is it? No, he is being funny.” He’s, like, hilarious.
And Taika was like, “What are you guys doing with him just, you know, holding a hammer up with lightning? Let’s do that and tap into everything Chris can do.” So, I think the audience responds to that.
And for so long, we said, “Well, he’s a Norse god. How do we make him relatable?” and spent so much time, I think, making sure that the audience connected with him, that they are so with him now that yes, we could go to a part four.

THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER is now playing in theaters nationwide.

Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced — a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods. To combat the threat, Thor enlists the help of King Valkyrie, Korg and ex-girlfriend Jane Foster, who — to his surprise — inexplicably wields his magical hammer. Together, they set out on a harrowing cosmic adventure to uncover the mystery of the God Butcher’s vengeance.