Chris Hemsworth drops in for a virtual visit to the Queensland Children’s Hospital

Hollywood superstar Chris Hemsworth brought plenty of smiles when he dropped into the Queensland Children’s Hospital via video this morning and paid tribute to Queensland’s health workers.

ARMED with Thor’s hammer, homegrown Hollywood superstar Chris Hemsworth has lifted spirits at the Queensland Children’s Hospital during a special virtual visit.

Appearing via video from his Byron Bay home, the Thor actor chatted with excited patients from around the hospital for more than an hour on Tuesday morning, answering questions about his family and acting career, swapping jokes and playing guessing games.

Four patients appeared via video, including budding comedian and superhero fan Tyler, who was about to head off to surgery. The 11-year-old, who was diagnosed with high risk leukaemia in 2017, relapsed last month, almost a year after finishing his treatment.

Chris Hemsworth chatted with Tyler at the Queensland Children's Hospital as part of Juiced TV's Virtual Visits series on Tuesday. Picture: Juiced TV/ Facebook

Organised by the Children’s Hospital Foundation, Hemsworth was originally due to attend the Brisbane hospital in person before lockdown restrictions made that impossible.

He instead appeared as part of Juiced TV’s weekly Virtual Visits series, following Margot Robbie and singer Dean Lewis, in a bid to raise spirits at the hospital during a time of restricted visitations.

“I play a superhero in the movies but everybody within that hospital who works with children and all the kids in there you guys are all the superheroes and you are an absolute inspiration to me,” Hemsworth said during the video visit. “You are incredible people and we’d be lost without you”.

Hemsworth, who had Thor’s hammer Mjölnir with him, recalled that his only hospital visit as a child was when he dislocated his shoulder, and the nurses had to tear off his football jumper to pop it back in place.

Chris Hemsworth showed off Thor’s hammer on Juiced TV's Virtual Visits series at the Queensland Children's Hospital

“I passed out and dad just said ‘let’s just cut it off and mum can sew it back together’,” he said.

But Hemsworth said it was his childhood spent sword fighting in the backyard with actor brothers Luke and Liam Hemsworth that he draws on when he’s acting out action sequences with fake weapons and invisible monsters.

“It’s probably one of the most challenging things especially the older I get. You have to use your childlike vivid imagination, that as you get older you kind of put aside,” Hemsworth told patient, Elana, later recalling how his father, Craig, read him The Hobbit as a child and The Lord of the Rings became “one of the reasons I wanted to become an actor”.

“My imagination would just be enlightened and taken to another world. I have such vivid memories.”

Imagination clearly runs in his family, with Hemsworth saying his daughter, India, is “obsessed with dragons” and “the most upset she’s ever been is when she found out she couldn’t be a dragon”.

Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston last visited the hospital in 2016 and shared an image on Instagram.

Hemsworth last surprised patients at the Queensland Children’s Hospital by dropping in straight off the set of Thor: Ragnarok in 2016 after an entire day of filming in Brisbane’s CBD.

Hemsworth and co-star Tom Hiddleston arrived still dressed as their respective Marvel superhero characters, Thor and Loki.

He was due to begin filming the fourth Thor film, Love and Thunder, in Sydney this year but the production has been pushed back due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Hemsworth said he wasn’t sure when production would begin.

“You can expect plenty more of that humour and that wonderful imaginary insane world he (director Taika Waititi) brings to life, you can be sure he’ll be in there playing Korg,” he said.

“When I read it, it was one of the best scripts I’ve read, so I’m very excited.”