Thor: Love and Thunder star Chris Hemsworth has revealed that Gorr the God Butcher is his "favourite villain" in the MCU.
Hemsworth will reprise his role as the titular God of Thunder in the fourth Thor film and, despite having faced off against many a villain since his Marvel debut in 2011, Christian Bale's Gorr is apparently one to watch out for.
"He's my favourite villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I love everyone I've worked with, but this was particularly special," he told Digital Spy at a recent press conference.
"And a lot to do with what Christian said before, there's this empathic quality there, there's a vulnerability," he continued. "You kind of find yourself going, 'Oh what he's doing is wrong, but I get the sort of motivation behind it.'"
The Spiderhead actor went on to praise Bale's performance and credits him for bringing out a different side of his own as the Norse hero.
"And every time you work with someone different, different characters bring different things out of you, and that was the case here. And yeah, he did an incredible job," Hemsworth added.
As his name indicates, Gorr the God Butcher's villainy is motivated by the desire to kill all gods, whom he blames for the tragedies that occurred on his home planet.
When speaking about how he approached the character, Bale said: "Of course, look, there’s a great pleasure in playing a villain. It’s a lot easier to play a villain than it is to play a hero. Chris had a much tougher job, you know. Everyone is fascinated with bad guys, right, immediately.
"The beauty of it is that Taika [director] can make it bloody hilarious and then really moving as well in this story. I don’t know if it’s pushing it too much to say sympathy, but certainly you sort of understand maybe why this guy is making awful decisions.
"He is a monster, and he is a butcher, but yeah, there's possibly a little understanding of why he came to be that way."
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
Content Production Intern, Digital Spy
After completing her joint honours degree in Journalism and English Literature at Cardiff University, Iona joined Digital Spy as a Content Production Intern in 2022. In this role, Iona writes across both news and features, specialising in TV and movies. During her time at Digital Spy, she has interviewed multiple Love Island stars, reported from the Black Adam red carpet and, most recently, interviewed the cast of Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid.
