Chris Hemsworth fought to have Fat Thor through all of Avengers: Endgame

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Of all the secrets kept during the promotional run-up to AVENGERS: ENDGAME perhaps the most secret was the inclusion of what the internet has dubbed "Fat Thor". Audiences were expecting the mighty Thor to be muscular as always come this new outing, but they got a huge surprise when we see him with a few extra pounds and drinking his sorrows away. This was the new Thor, and he wasn’t going away anytime soon, and in large part that’s thanks to actor Chris Hemsworth, who liked the character arc so much that he fought to keep in the script for the entirety of the movie.

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The actor was speaking with Variety about his rise to movie stardom thanks to his roles in the Marvel movies. When it came time for AVENGERS: ENDGAME the actor said that in the original script the character was supposed to revert back to his normal, lean physique in the middle of the movie, but Hemsworth wanted to keep him in his new look.

“I enjoyed that version of Thor,” he told Variety. “It was so different than any other way I played the character. And then it took on a life of its own.”

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While people praised the character’s turn and Hemsworth’s performance as what the actor called “Lebowski Thor” one of the best aspects of the movie, others accused those involved of fat shaming, feeling they were just using Thor’s weight gain for the sake of comedic purposes. While that’s true at first, and in the case when Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes jokes that there’s “Cheese Whiz” flowing through his blood, writer Christopher Markus defended the choice saying at the end its not the weight that matters, but the advancement of his emotional growth (via Vulture).

“We didn’t go, like, ‘Let’s chunk him up, it’ll be hilarious.’ And we leave him in that state at the end of the movie. Even though he’s emotionally resolved … We fix his problem, and it’s not his weight. I know some people are sensitive about some of the humor that comes from it, which I understand. But our issue that we wanted him to deal with was his emotional state that his mom addresses. And I think he is the ideal Thor at the end of the movie, and he’s carrying some weight.”

At the end of the day, Hemsworth also liked being put into the whole get up for the transformation. “Physically, it was a good three hours in hair and makeup,” he said. “Then the prosthetic suit, particularly for the shirt-off scene, that was a big silicone that weighed about 90 pounds. It was certainly exhausting. I had weights on my hands and ankles just to have my arms and legs swing differently when I shuffled along through the set.”

He continued, saying that the cast would even get in on the fun and mess with the suit and rub his fake belly. “People just kept coming up and cuddling me like a big bear or rubbing my belly like I was pregnant. Or trying to sit on my lap like I was Santa Claus,” he said. “You get a lot of affection. I felt like an old man, an old grandpa, with a bunch of kids around. And then you get sick of it when people come up and grab your belly.”

The decision to keep the character’s new look in place for the duration of the movie, and we can presume future movies, is a smart one. While it's easy to look at this bigger Thor and see a comedic prop, it would be a worse move to suggest that when he’s back in a peaceful and content state of mind that means going back to his muscular look, as if to imply that being thin is to be happy. Thor is happy at the end of the movie, and he’s still got a few extra pounds.