Meet The Manliest Man In Hollywood
We have a theory that Chris Hemsworth is Hollywood's leading man, literally. Maybe it's his Australian-ness. Maybe it's his hobbies (surfing, boxing). Maybe it's that he plays a Norse god, complete with godlike biceps. So we put him through a barrage of questions and challenges designed to ascertain exactly how manly Hemsworth really is. And it turns out we were right—but not for all the reasons we thought
Hollywood likes to build up its leading men as paragons of badass virility. But let's be honest: Playing manly and being manly are hardly the same thing. We've seen Johnny Depp infiltrate the Mafia and handle a tommy gun, but I wouldn't trust the guy to jump my car. And then you have Chris Hemsworth.
We all know the Flaxen-Haired One came to fame as a stoic alpha-god in
Thor. Even in his
artistic breakout—in
Rush—he was a hard-drinking, model-shagging Formula One racer. And with a packed slate of starring roles in 2015, from playing the world's toughest hacker in this month's
Blackhat to reprising his role as the God of Hair and Hammer in
Avengers: Age of Ultron this May, Hemsworth isn't letting off the gas.
But he might be more rugged in real life. He grew up scrapping with two brothers (the actors Liam, younger, and Luke, elder) and guided by a father who once raced motorbikes and wrangled buffalo. He surfs and boxes and knows Muay Thai. Plus he's from Australia, birthplace of Paul Hogan and a billion deadly animals and a version of football that makes ours look like a cuddle puddle.
And so we wondered, is Hemsworth the rare Hollywood leading man who is actually more robust, more
manly in reality than the characters he plays? That's why, when I meet him in Los Angeles, I arrive armed with the JUST HOW MANLY ARE YOU, CHRIS HEMSWORTH, QUIZ-CHALLENGE ™, a series of questions and physical trials that Hemsworth has no clue he's about to be put through. Let's begin.
- WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE MANLY HOBBY? PLEASE DEMONSTRATE
Hemsworth is an outdoorsy guy. Normally he'd be out surfing—and I'd ask to tag along for this piece—but since the Malibu coastline is glass-flat this week, he has another suggestion: What if we go mountain biking instead?
This is an excellent idea that frightens the hell out of me. I realize that mountain biking with Thor is a good story, one that very possibly ends with "...and that's how Chris Hemsworth set my shattered fibula." Nevertheless, I meet Hemsworth at 8:30 A.M. on a Saturday at his friend Matt's place so we can borrow some bikes.
It's nice—a large wood-and-stone house in Pacific Palisades. Hemsworth greets me enthusiastically at the door like I'm a friend: casual, quick to laugh, welcoming. Australian, basically. He fills the doorway. I had hoped he'd be one of these made-by-Marvel guys who come out of a six-month gym overhaul jacked for the camera, only to deflate to human size afterward (until the sequel, anyway). But I can see why six-foot-three Hemsworth, even in sneakers, shorts, and a loose white V-neck, was tapped to play a Norse god.
I follow Hemsworth inside, through the living room, into the kitchen, and it's only then that I realize I'm standing in Matt Damon's house. The giveaway is Matt Damon, perched on a countertop in his kitchen, sipping coffee as his family buzzes around. Despite the thirteen-year age difference, Hemsworth and Damon are tight—like, annual-family-trip-to-Costa-Rica tight. "We became friends around the time I started to work, and I've really benefited from watching how he handles himself," says Hemsworth. "Matt's just a normal guy who has the movie-star thing figured out." And now Matt is our bike guy.
Damon leads us out to the garage and starts gearing us up—checking brakes, squeezing tires, inspecting helmets for structural integrity. When I mention I forgot my shades, Damon bounds upstairs and comes back with two pairs, just so I have options. When I voice my fears about keeping up with Hemsworth, he tells me not to worry. "I'm not sending you guys on anything too crazy," he says. "Obviously, be a little careful up there. I broke my clavicle on the same trail a few months ago." Thanks for the reassurance, Matt Damon.
- SO, CHRIS HEMSWORTH: WHAT'S THE COOLEST SCAR YOU'VE GOT AND HOW'D YOU GET IT?
He ticks off a few from a life spent surfing, dirt biking, and roughhousing with his brothers. "All pretty boring," says Hemsworth with manly modesty. Then he remembers one that's not so boring, flipping over his left palm. "See this tiny little scar?" he asks, grinning. "I got this when I was 6 or 7, living in the Northern Territory."
Hemsworth spent most of his childhood in Melbourne, where his mom taught school and his dad worked in child-protection services. But on a couple of separate occasions, his father moved the whole family up to the Northern Territory—the Outback—so he could work the cattle ranches, culling buffalo from grazing land. "It was a way for the family to save money," says Hemsworth, who went to a largely Aboriginal school. "Remote as you can get, the nearest town a five- or six-hour drive over dirt roads."
On one such sojourn, young Hemsworth decided to buy a knife. A big knife. An unnecessarily, absurdly large knife. "I remember the sales guy asking, 'Well, what're you gonna use that for?' I said, 'Fishing?' And that was the security test. Later, I went snorkeling in this swimming hole. Thought I stabbed a fish, but I stabbed myself in the hand instead. I still have a vivid memory of what that felt like. It wasn't alarmingly bad, but it was like, 'Oh, wow. I've just done something here.' "
- WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU DID THAT SCARED THE HELL OUT OF YOU?
Having a family, Hemsworth says. Though he doesn't mean settling down. That part, getting hitched four years ago to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky (of the Fast & Furious franchise), held no anxiety. He'd already exorcised the playboy shenanigans from his system, he says. "The fame, the parties, the women—I did that stuff back home, when I was on the show," Hemsworth explains, referring to his three years on the Aussie soap Home and Away. It's huge there: been on for twenty-seven years, launched the careers of Heath Ledger and Naomi Watts. "I got away with a lot more over there," he says. "Then I came here"—to film 2010's Ca$h—"and sort of started over."
A shared dialect coach introduced Hemsworth to Pataky; nine months later, he popped the question, sort of. "We did it all backwards—agreed to get married before I actually proposed." So even that part wasn't scary. Having kids, though—he has a 2 1/2-year-old daughter and 9-monthold twins—that scared him. "Just not screwing it up," he says, revealing the first sign of being a good father: worrying about whether you're a good father.
- HOW QUICKLY CAN YOU CHANGE A DIAPER?
"I'm good, man. Depends on how messy it is. Sometimes you gotta give 'em a hose-down."
- IS IT MANLY TO BE FOLLOWED BY MATT DAMON DRIVING AN ELECTRIC CAR?
We're two minutes into the bike ride, with Damon in his Tesla sedan leading us to the trailhead, driving silently alongside as we pedal. He leans his head out the window. "You guys bring water? I totally forgot to get you some water."
"I would have been okay if you hadn't said water," replies Hemsworth. "Now I'm dying of thirst." We arrive at Will Rogers State Historic Park, and Hemsworth thanks Damon for the navigation. "If we're not back at your place in two hours, call the paramedics," he says.
We start up the trail. Quickly I realize that I'd been so worried about wiping out going downhill that I forgot to prepare for collapsing on an uphill. We're facing a big climb. I know I'm in trouble when I look to my right and see Hemsworth is already sweating. Nothing "too crazy," my ***.
- WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT: YOU OR A KANGAROO?
Hemsworth is keenly aware that his bio—the bush life, the surfing, the buffalo-hunting dad—make his upbringing sound "like I tick every box on the Crocodile Dundee form." He thinks it makes him seem more macho than he really is. That said: "Kangaroo. Absolutely. It would kick you in the face. A lot. They lean back on their tails and double-kick. That's how they fight each other in the wild."
- WHAT'S THE CRAZIEST THING YOU'VE EVER DONE TO GET INTO CHARACTER?
He's not a Method guy. His philosophy, cribbed from Anthony Hopkins on the set of Thor, is "Don't bring it home. Don't even bring it to the makeup trailer." That's not to say he hasn't endured some intense physical prep, most recently limiting himself to 500 calories a day on the set of Ron Howard's upcoming whaling saga, In the Heart of the Sea, to achieve that emaciated castaway look. But the craziest thing Hemsworth's done to get into character was sit in Michael Mann's office and learn to type. For ten weeks.
It was for this month's Blackhat, a cyber-crime thriller directed by Mann. Hemsworth plays the most ripped, ***-kicking-est hacker since, well, ever, released from jail in order to help the FBI track down a cyber-sociopath. Mann enlisted a UCLA-based hacking expert to show Hemsworth how to code. First, though, the expert had to teach him to type, since Hemsworth was strictly a hunt-and-peck guy. "It reminded me of being back in school," he says. He hated school. "But it was Mann's suggestion, so I wasn't going to not do it."
- WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU USED A HAMMER FROM THIS EARTHLY REALM?
"Two or three weeks ago," says Hemsworth. "I repaired a little tree house." This was for his daughter, on the grounds of their new home: a reported $7 million eight-bedroom seaside estate overlooking the Brita-clear waters of Byron Bay, on Australia's east coast. That's where Hemsworth tightened gaps in a tree-house rope bridge so his daughter wouldn't fall through. DIY runs in his blood—his father built several of Hemsworth's childhood houses—but it's diluted. "I'll go, 'We don't need to call anyone; I'll do it,' " says Hemsworth. "And I'll do a **** job—like, the Homer Simpson version—and then I'll call someone else to redo it. My desire is more powerful than my talent."
- Rank these films from most preferred to least: The Shawshank Redemption, The Big Lebowski, Reservoir Dogs, Mad Max, the late films of Liam Neeson, The Notebook.
"Shawshank, Mad Max, Reservoir Dogs, Big Lebowski, The Notebook, then Liam," says Hemsworth. "Nothing against Liam. I love Liam—I just haven't seen his late films." He didn't hate The Notebook, either. "It was solid. I need to do a romance, something where I'm not swinging a weapon and beating someone up." Hemsworth did just finish his first comedy, with a small part as a "Texas weatherman cheeseball" in October's Vacation sequel, which stars Ed Helms as a grown-up Rusty. It's Hemsworth's first shot at improv.
"I haven't been that nervous in a long time," he says. "But very quickly I realized, this is fun. There was no ego. Every day we'd be on set, laughing. I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? Why wouldn't I do more of this?' "
- Draw a monkey wrench.
