Furiosa’s Chris Hemsworth Felt Rejuvenated By Playing Dementus

Chris Hemsworth has played the heroic Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2011, but even he has been vocal about the shortcomings of his latest MCU outing, Thor: Love and Thunder. Hemsworth’s next role is in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga as Warlord Dementus, the film’s primary villain. According to Hemsworth, getting the chance to play that part helped break him out of the creative rut that he was in.

“I felt stuck in what I had been doing,” Hemsworth told The Times. “I’d run out of things to say creatively and Furiosa reinvigorated the artistic energy that was dormant… I was bored of myself… I was not bored of the opportunities I’d been given, but it all started to feel familiar. I’d done film upon film that fell into a similar space and I wasn’t stretching myself. If you play a character again and again you owe it to the audience to bring something new and make it fresh for yourself too. We did so with Thor: Ragnarok. But for Love and Thunder, for me it got a bit jokey. Too improv.”

The end credits of Love and Thunder said that Thor will return, but Hemsworth seemed uncertain about whether it will happen. But if Hemsworth does make another Thor movie, he’s not sure how his performance would change.

“If I ever went back to [Thor], I’d wonder how we could change it again,” added Hemsworth. “But there is a superhero curse in the sense you get pigeonholed, and I’ve felt a little hamstrung with what I could do, so desperately wanted something to scare the s**t out of me. And Furiosa did.”

Additionally, Hemsworth still stands up for the Marvel movies when they are bashed by directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola.

“It felt harsh,” recalled Hemsworth. “And it bothers me, especially from heroes. It was an eye-roll for me, people bashing the superhero space. Those guys had films that didn’t work too–we all have. When they talked about what was wrong with superheroes, I thought, ‘cool, tell that to the billions who watch them. Were they all wrong?'”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will hit theaters on May 24.