SCOTS VILLAGE A HOME FROM HOME FOR THOR STAR ABBSFAB
Actor Chris on coastal spot that reminds him of childhood and how he loves to work out.. just not when he has to bulk up for Marvel superhero role
THOR star Chris Hemsworth dreams of returning to Scotland – because it reminds him of home.
The 38-year-old Australian megastar is everywhere at the moment.
His latest Thor movie Love and Thunder is, for the second week, the biggest film in the world.
He’s also in one of the most streamed films, Netflix’s Spiderhead, and has a Disney+ documentary Shark Beach.
But where he’d love to be is back in St Abbs – the small fishing village on the Berwickshire coast.
He filmed there back in 2017 when it became New Asgard for 2019 Avengers: Endgame. Chris has never forgotten it.
He said: “I always remember visiting this place in Scotland called St Abbs.
“It kind of reminded me of home – not that it was anything like it in the way it looked but it was this little village where the locals all knew each other.
“It apparently had some of the best scuba diving in the UK as well, so I would love to go back.”
Chris was born in Melbourne but moved as a child to a remote cattle farm in Bulman in Australia’s Northern Territory with his parents and brothers – Luke, 41, who plays Stubbs in Westworld and Liam, 32, who starred as Gale in The Hunger Games franchise.
Chris said it was “four-and-a-half hours from the nearest town” but the brothers enjoyed having the Australian Outback as their new playground. Then they added surfing to the mix when the family moved again, to Phillip Island.
St Abbs also calls to Chris because he has Scottish ancestry on his paternal side, with his great-great-great grandfather coming from Argyll.
While the weather and scenery may be different to what he grew up with, his love of the outdoors continues to mould him as a parent.
The father of three, who has been married to Elsa Pataky since 2010, said: “Growing up in the Outback shaped me.
“We didn’t sit in playing video games, we were out dodging crocodiles – and we wanted that sense of adventure for our kids.”
The lure of the outdoors made him decide to quit Los Angeles in 2014 and move to Byron Bay in New South Wales, where they built a $30million mansion.
He said: “Moving out of LA was the best thing we have ever done.
“I think there is this belief that if you want to work in Hollywood, you have to be in LA but we have made it work
We didn’t play video games, we dodged crocodiles CHRIS HEMSWORTH ON GROWING UP IN OUTBACK
just fine. In Byron Bay, we are just one of the locals and we can walk to the beach and surf any time we like.”
Leaving America for his homeland certainly hasn’t stopped the offers.
He has another documentary, Limitless, due to stream on Disney+ this year, with Extraction 2 for Netflix due out at the end of this year or start of 2023, and is currently filming Mad Max prequel Furiosa, with a Hulk Hogan biopic in the works.
No wonder then that he likes to switch off.
He said: “I am a huge believer in the phone being off.
“When I am away filming, of course I have it on for contact back home but as soon as shooting finished the phone got switched off and I wanted to spend time with my family in the outdoors
being happy and healthy.”
He’s certainly a poster boy for health. This week, he showed off his physique to prove his Centr health and fitness programme gets results.
Uploading photographs to Instagram, he showed off his enviable abs which he claimed were thanks to Centr’s expert team.
Chris created Centr in 2019 to help people from all walks of life achieve their fitness, health and nutritional goals.
An estimated 200,000 people use the app, which was bought by Amazon founder Jeff Bezo’s brother, Mark, in April for a reported $200million.
While working out is part of his daily life, Chris revealed getting to Thor’s size for the movies is “brutal”.
He said: “I want to be fit, to be able to play with my grandkids into old age, and be healthy. “I don’t necessarily enjoy
working out to get to Thor size though. It’s pretty brutal on the body and the amount of food I have to eat is ridiculous. “I love to eat but, like most people, I enjoy the stuff that’s not so good for you – pizza, burgers, chocolate. Sadly, that’s not what Thor eats. “For breakfast, it was eggs and rice, a couple of hours later it was chicken and rice, a couple of hours after that steak and rice, then fish and rice, I think you get the picture.” Marvel’s Thor first appeared in 1962, with Chris becoming the Norse God in 2011 before appearing in Avengers, Thor sequel The Dark World in 2013, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Thor Ragnarok in 2017, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and this year’s fourth Thor outing Love and Thunder. A fifth Thor film was teed up at the end of Love and Thunder. Chris, who has been able to step out of the red-caped character’s shadow to find success in other projects like action thriller Extraction, has nothing but good things to say about the God who has made him a global superstar. He said: “I have been playing the role 11 years now and it feels like we have evolved together. “If I look at how much I have changed and developed over the last 11 years, Thor has done the same. We have changed and grown together.”