Luke Hemsworth on brotherly bonds, dashed footy dreams and living the dream in Byron

Luke Hemsworth reveals how he found his best life in Byron Bay with his brothers, the ocean and an Aussie indie film.

For all their fame, accolades and wealth, the Hemsworth brothers – Luke, Chris and Liam – are always careful to remember where they came from.

Their Hollywood successes thanks in part to hit TV and film franchises Westworld (Luke), Thor (Chris) and The Hunger Games (Liam) have brought with them opportunities that the three brothers could barely have dreamt of when they were growing up in Melbourne and surfing the beaches of Phillip Island.

“We all try not to take it for granted,” says Luke, who at 41 is the oldest of the three.

“We always have a saying when we’re in those moments, where we are somewhere beautiful and we’ve been flown somewhere amazing, we all look at each other and go ‘how good is this’. It’s always very important to remember that we grew up … we weren’t poor but our parents lived week to week and cheque to cheque.”

The eldest Hemsworth is now living his best life, having achieved a lifelong dream with a house within walking distance of the beach when he relocated his family – wife Samantha and their four children – from Los Angeles to Bryon Bay in late 2019, to join his brothers and parents, Leonie and Craig.

Luke Hemsworth as the petty criminal and dope dealer Bosch, in Bosch and Rockit.

And after seeing how hard their parents worked in the difficult and sometimes confronting area of child protection while raising them, the brothers resolved to pay them back.

“I saw my parents doing jobs that were tough,” Luke says.

“They were doing great things and obviously they were trying to help as many kids as they can but you’re dealing with a subject matter usually that is incredibly confronting and the stories that came out of that were heartbreaking and you could see the stress on them.

“I think for both of us, me and Chris, it was always about giving back to mum and dad and making sure that they had enough to enjoy the rest of their life without having to grind away.”

Luke now says the best lesson his parents taught him and his brothers was a sense of justice, a strong dislike of bullies and to always “fight for what is right”.

“They also taught us a huge sense of connection to family, all of us enjoying those moments together and supporting each other,” Luke says.

“And as much as we fought growing up, we are best friends and we always have been. We always have each other’s back no matter what.”

Family is also a strong theme in Luke’s new Australian indie drama, Bosch and Rockit, in which he plays a petty criminal and dope dealer trying his best to raise his surfing mad son while on the run in the gorgeous Bryon Bay area.

Written and directed by Tyler Atkins (and loosely based on his own experiences) it was one of the first films shot in the Covid era, with the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales largely untouched by many of the restrictions and shutdowns that took hold in many other parts of the country.

For Luke, the chance to work – and surf both onscreen and off – in his new adopted home capped off what he slightly guiltily admits was a “a great year in 2020”.

Luke Hemsworth and Bosch and Rockit director Tyler Atkins and co-star Rasmus King, at the Golf Coast Film Festival Closing night. Picture; Adam Shaw

“I was so lucky that year,” he admits.

“We moved back to Byron at the end of 2019 and then obviously the world imploded and we got shut down in paradise. And it just happened to be a year where the surf was as good as it gets for a very, very long time.

“It was tough to see what Melbourne and everyone was going through and at the same time I couldn’t help but laugh at all my buddies and rub it in a little bit. But the bros and my mum and dad were all here and you my girls were in a new school for what little school there was but it felt like we were in a little bit of a bubble.”

Luke says he was initially wary of signing up for the role of Bosch with a first-time director in Atkins and novice actor Rasmus King, who makes his film debut as his son Rockit. But after a few hours of talking, Luke says that Atkins felt like an “old friend” and sharing their mutual love of surfing helped forge a bond with his young co-star.

“It felt like I knew him and everything was easy,” Luke says of King.

“We felt like we were just hanging out as buddies and we really did become really great friends and spent a lot of time outside of the set surfing.”

Luke says that when he was a teenager, he was nowhere near as good a surfer – or actor – as King.

In fact, his initial ambition was to be an AFL footballer, having played for Melbourne suburban team Ringwood, before fate – and reality – intervened.

Samantha Hemsworth, Luke Hemsworth, Elsa Pataky, Chris Hemsworth, Leonie Hemsworth and Craig Hemsworth at the Thor: Love And Thunder world premiere in Los Angeles in June. Picture: AFP

“We were back-to-back premiers in the Under-18s first division,” he says.

“I really wanted to do something in that sporting world and I hurt my shoulder really badly in year 12 – I dislocated it and did a bunch of things. That’s my excuse. I probably wasn’t good enough to go any further to be honest – or tall enough. I didn’t seem to get the height that my brothers did.”

For all of the time they spend together in Bryon, the three Hemsworth brothers have yet to all appear on screen together.

Luke has had a piss-taking cameo alongside Matt Damon as “actor Thor” in Chris’ last two Marvel extravaganzas (“sure, a spin-off would be great!”) and he is planning to shoot a film with Liam and Russell Crowe later this year.

But both Luke and Chris have hinted at a coming project for Netflix that will finally rectify that – although both are sworn to secrecy.

“I don’t think we’re allowed to say anything about that yet,” Luke says, coyly.

“But it’s very cool.”

Bosch and Rockit is in cinemas from Thursday

Originally published as Luke Hemsworth on brotherly bonds, dashed footy dreams and living the dream in Byron