Chris Hemsworth wanted to go “mad” years ago, before his Marvel reign had gotten off the ground.
The “Thor” actor revealed to Entertainment Weekly that he actually auditioned to play Mad Max in 2015’s “Fury Road.” Now, he stars in the upcoming prequel film “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” playing villain Dementus.
Hemsworth tried to audition for George Miller‘s “Fury Road” shortly after parting ways with Australian soap series “Home and Away” but he”couldn’t even get a call or a meeting or anything” about playing Mad Max.
“I just hadn’t done enough to warrant that,” Hemsworth said. And while Tom Hardy landed the part, Hemsworth was even more determined to work with director Miller after watching the completed film…and having had his own career soar thanks to the MCU.
“I was completely absorbed and taken for the adventure and the ride. I said, ‘I’ve got to work with this guy, he’s a genius,’” Hemsworth recalled telling his agent at the time. “And then, the rest is history.”
Yet taking on the role of Dementus for “Furiosa” definitely “scared the shit out of me,” the actor admitted. Hemsworth spent two years studying the script before “Furiosa” began shooting, but he realized two weeks before production that he didn’t “really have a handle on the character.”
Hemsworth said, “I don’t quite have all the confidence that I would normally have walking into this.” Instead, Miller suggested Hemsworth spend time journaling in character as Dementus, which unlocked the role for Hemsworth.
“It was about the why of the character more,” he said. “I think I was focusing too much on what he’s doing in the script rather than why he was doing it and why he’d become that. […] I found a wonderful departure to it — to play the villain, transform, and inhabit a completely different physicality was a lot of fun. I loved it. And it was the real attraction.”
The “departure” from Hemsworth’s Marvel role as Thor was also a key to “reinvigorating” his own love of acting. Hemsworth recently told Vanity Fair that he felt like he “became a parody” of himself in the later “Thor” and “Avengers” films onscreen. Now, “Furiosa” is a turning point for him.
“This is the first film in years where I felt 100 percent involved in the experience as a true fan,” Hemsworth said. “I just got reinvigorated. Suffering without a purpose is awful. Suffering with purpose can be rejuvenating and replenishing. I’d grown so tired of myself, and now I had to lose myself in a character.”
