By Gill Pringle
When FilmInk met with Chris Hemsworth on the set of the fantasy adventure sequel, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, he was a week out from wrapping, and was then heading directly onto the set of the reboot of the 1984 supernatural comedy smash, Ghostbusters, starring comic powerhouses, Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones.
An apparently unlikely career move, Hemsworth scored the role of the team’s not-so-bright receptionist after he delivered the comedic goods as guest host on the famed sketch show, Saturday Night Live. “[Ghostbusters director] Paul Feig called me up and said, ‘That was great! I didn’t know that you could do that! Do you have a bigger interest in doing more of that?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve always wanted to do comedy.’ And he said, ‘I’ve got this role. There’s not much at the moment. Just read the script. We work by throwing suggestions around and just trying things.’ I loved the script, and I loved all the girls involved, so I thought, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ I still don’t have a whole shooting script. I’ll just turn up in a week and go, ‘Okay, give me something funny to say, please!’”
It obviously worked out. When FilmInk spoke to director, Paul Feig, during the Ghostbusters post-production process, he was more than happy to shower Hemsworth with all kinds of praise. “I’m a big fan of Chris as a dramatic actor and just as a presence,” he says. “And plus, he’s the most beautiful man in the world. You just stare at him like, ‘Oh my God, how are you so handsome?’ We’d been wondering if we should cast one our comedy guy friends in the Kevin role. But when I heard that Chris was interested, I thought that it’d be really funny if we gave them the most handsome guy in the world as their receptionist! I thought that he could be the foil or whatever, and that we could play with him. Chris has a sense of humour about himself, and that’s what drew me to him. If somebody can laugh at themselves who looks like that, it’s a good mix. [Bridesmaids cameo star] Jon Hamm is the same.”
Paul Feig was more than happy with what Hemsworth brought to the set too. “The end result is that it turns out that Chris Hemsworth is an amazingly funny comedian,” the director says. “For me, it was important to let him keep his Australian accent because I always worry that anybody who doesn’t do comedy all the time could be hampered by having to put on an accent, so I thought that giving him that would put him in his comfort zone where he could just play this dopey version of his actual very smart self. We were at least six weeks into shooting before we could get him because he was on other movies. And he came in the night before and pulled me aside. He was nervous and said, ‘I don’t know if I can improv. These are brilliant improvisational actors and comedians.’ I said, ‘Chris, don’t worry. We’ve got jokes, and we’ll write you jokes…we’ll be doing them on the set, and you’ll be taken care of.’”
Happily, for the Byron Bay-based actor (who is currently in Australia shooting Thor: Ragnarok), playing Kevin in Ghostbusters took him back to his childhood. “I haven’t seen the original Ghostbusters films in years, but they’re very still prominent and vivid in my mind,” Hemsworth tells FilmInk. “I watched them so much as a kid, and I loved them. I love the films of the eighties. I don’t know if films were different in the eighties, or if it’s just a nostalgic thing because of who I was, or that period of my life watching them, but they defined so many things: my own sense of humour, the way that I acted and interacted with people, and how I saw the world. So it’s cool to be a part of that and to revisit it without it being just a remake. There’s a whole new spin on it now.”
What other eighties films does Chris Hemsworth love? “The Indiana Jones movies, Willow, Ghostbusters, the Star Wars sequels, Stand By Me, The Breakfast Club…all those classics,” the actor replies. “They’re the eighties films that we all grew up on – and that I certainly grew up on – and they certainly shaped my taste in film. I have quite a broad sense or feel for what I want to be a part of, or what I like [partly based on those films].”
Ghostbusters is released in cinemas on July 14.
