Chris Hemsworth, in full Christopher Hemsworth, (born August 11, 1983, Melbourne, Australia), Australian actor who came to fame for his role as Thor in several Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
Hemsworth’s mother was an English teacher and his father a social-services counselor; his two brothers, Luke Hemsworth and Liam Hemsworth, also became actors. The family moved back and forth between Melbourne and the Outback community of Bulman, Northern Territory, eventually settling on Phillip Island. Hemsworth’s first acting job came in 2002, when he played King Arthur in two episodes of the fantasy television series Guinevere Jones. Like many Australian actors, he cut his teeth with a role (2004–07) on the soap opera Home and Away.
Hemsworth then moved to the United States in hopes of transitioning his acting career to film. He was cast in the role of Captain Kirk’s father in J.J. Abrams’s 2009 movie Star Trek, and that same year he played a menacing hitchhiker in the thriller A Perfect Getaway. He appeared in the minor action movie Ca$h (2010) before his first outing as the title Norse god in Kenneth Branagh’s Thor (2011). The movie told the story of Thor’s arrogant breaching of a peace and being banished to 21st-century Earth to learn humility. Hemsworth’s light, self-mocking, and human touch in his portrayal of the comic superhero made the film a hit and launched a popular franchise. He later starred in Thor: Ragnarok (2017) and Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), both of which were directed by Taika Waititi. Hemsworth also played the character in other Marvel movies, including The Avengers (2012).
During this time Hemsworth appeared in numerous other films. He had a leading role in the horror movie The Cabin in the Woods, filmed in 2009 but not released until 2011. He then portrayed the Huntsman in the reimagined fairy tale Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), a character he repeated in the less-successful The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016). Other notable roles included that of Formula One race driver James Hunt in Ron Howard’s critically praised Rush (2013), a computer hacker in Michael Mann’s crime thriller Blackhat (2015), and a sexy receptionist in the gender-flipped remake Ghostbusters (2016). He gave a well-received performance as an underestimated Green Beret captain in the Afghanistan War story 12 Strong (2018), and he played a heroic mercenary in the action movie Extraction (2020).
In 2022 Hemsworth starred in the docuseries Limitless, which centres on wellness and self-improvement. Throughout the series, he undertakes various health-related challenges that test his limits.
