Chris Hemsworth’s Hollywood slump: ‘I was about to quit’

One rumour has dogged Chris and Liam Hemsworth for years, getting blown out of proportion. Now Chris sets the record straight.

He’s an Australian success story and one of Hollywood’s most in-demand leading men — but it wasn’t always so easy for Chris Hemsworth.

A decade ago, the handsome star had just landed his first film role and what should have been his big break in 2009’s rebooted Star Trek movie.

And then? Nothing. Two long years without another role.

“I was about to quit,” Hemsworth reveals in the new issue of Men’s Health.

Hemsworth in Star Trek.

As Thor. Picture: Jasin Boland.

“I always wanted to act, and one of the first things I wanted to do when I got any money was

pay my parents’ house off. I’d asked Dad once when he thought he’d pay it off and he said, ‘Honestly, probably never.’ I wanted to change that.

“So I was super active with auditions. And then my mentality changed, which came from being at a point where I was like, ‘I’m going to go back to Australia.’ I had one more audition where I was like, ‘Do this for his house. Think about reasons other than yourself.’

“That was for The Cabin in the Woods, and I got that job, and from there I got Red Dawn. And then I got Thor.”

Picture: Steven Chee for Men’s Health Australia

The rest, as they say, is history — with a string of box office successes under his belt, Hemsworth is today worth an estimated $AU120 million. But with huge success comes intense scrutiny: For the super-fit Hemsworth, there’s pressure to maintain that incredible body of his.

“It comes hand-in-hand with the roles I play, but look, occasionally you’ll see paparazzi poking out of the bushes and you’re like, ‘How’s my rig look? Am I on point, or have I slacked off lately?’ I maintain my fitness because it makes me feel better.”

With that in mind, Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky — who appears on the cover of the March issue of Women’s Health — have developed a new health and fitness app called Centr.

“The whole thing was about not becoming stagnant. That’s when your emotional and physical problems occur,” he says of the app, which is available for pre-order on the Apple App store ahead of a February launch.

How has it taken this long for Chris Hemsworth to launch a fitness app? Picture: Steven Chee for Women’s Health / Men’s Health Australia

And while Thor ended up being the 35-year-old’s big Hollywood break, there’s one story about the film that he says has been twisted over the years.

Yes, his little brother Liam also auditioned for the role. No, it wasn’t a source of intense sibling rivalry.

“For a while, that was the go-to story. I had a conversation with Liam about it recently, because it makes us sound like we’re these macho b**tards who are battling all the time …” he told Men’s Health.

“This was the process with Thor: I auditioned but I didn’t get it at first; Liam was auditioning, so I helped him out. Somehow, there emerged this story of intense rivalry, but none of that was true.”

Speaking to news.com.au at the annual G’Day USA awards in Los Angeles this week, Liam said that after auditioning for Thor, he was flown over to the states from Australia while his brother Chris didn’t even get a call back.

“I said, ‘Well, you’re probably just not enough of a man’,” newly married Liam told news.com.au with a laugh. “He ended up getting it anyway,” he added.