Superhero to the rescue for arts, charity

Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth has been honoured with the Member of the Order of Australia for service to the arts.

Australia’s Hollywood action star Chris Hemsworth is recognised for his decades-long service to the arts and charities. Picture: Justin Lloyd.

Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth has been honoured with the Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to the performing arts and to charitable organisations.

The Byron Bay actor – best known for his starring roles in superhero blockbusters Thor and the Avengers – has received the award as a nod to his decades-long service to the arts.

Almost 20 years after his first appearance on Neighbours, the 37-year-old has become one of the world’s highest-paid actors, earning an estimated $US76.4m ($99.1m) in 2019 alone.

Hemsworth, the breakout star of the hit American superhero franchise Thor, is currently filming the latest instalment, Love and Thunder, in Sydney.

He has also starred in the four highest-grossing superhero films of all time, including Infinity War and Endgame – the only two superhero films to surpass a $2bn worldwide gross.

In April, a clearly starstruck Gladys Berejiklian appeared alongside Hemsworth in Sydney to announce that the latest instalment in the Mad Max franchise would be filmed in NSW, a $350m powerhouse that promises to be the biggest movie production ever filmed in Australia.

For the fifth instalment – a prequel to the 2015 Mad Max: Fury Road – Hemsworth will play an as yet ­unspecified role alongside Anya Taylor-Joy (The Queen’s Gambit) as a younger version of Imperator Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron in the earlier film.

Ms Berejiklian said the post-apocalyptic action film would ­create at least 850 jobs and “reinforce” the state’s position as the economic and “cultural capital” of Australia.

She described Hemsworth as “a global superstar”, adding: “I couldn’t be prouder of him and his generation of actors who are really continuing to put Australia on the map.”

After leaving Australia more than a decade ago to launch his Hollywood career, the star said the opportunity to come home to undertake such an iconic project was “a dream come true”.

“It’s such an incredible country, the diversity in the landscape, the amount of talent that is here,” Hemsworth said.

“Filmmakers and cast and crew that have gone overseas in the past are now able to stay here and hopefully that continues.”

Mad Max: Fury Road, released in 2015, was widely acclaimed and later won six Oscars as well as being nominated for best picture and director.

“I’d grown up watching Mad Max, like most Australians, and to be here so many years later and to be part of it is a huge honour,” Hemsworth said.

“Out of everything I have done, it really is the first big ‘pinch ­myself’ moment.”

Hemsworth married Spanish model and actor Elsa Pataky in December 2010 and the couple have three children. The family moved from Los Angeles to Byron Bay in 2014.

Hemsworth is also a supporter of a range of charities, including the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial in the US, and Baby2Baby, a non-profit that provides children living in poverty with basic necessities.