Posted on Tuesday, 3rd May 2011 by Declan Palazzi
When Kenneth Branagh, the 50-year-old actor and director best known for Shakespearean roles, took to the road with his new film “Thor,” he found that the hammer-wielding superhero has a fan base far beyond the kid crowd.
“At least that’s the consistent response we’ve heard around the world, which is where we’ve traveled the last two weeks,” Branagh said last week on a stopover in Manhattan.
“People are saying, ‘Frankly I was surprised how much I liked it!’ The really satisfying thing is people say, ‘It’s fun. I laughed.’
“The combination of not taking itself too seriously but having a few layers of stuff is nice.”
Director Branagh picked a stellar cast for his tale of the exiled Norse god, including Anthony Hopkins as Odin, Natalie Portman and Stellan Skarsgard.
“You get a great performance from Tony Hopkins,” he added, “and frankly, this star emerging in Chris Hemsworth.”
How did 27-year-old Hemsworth, whom Branagh calls “The Australian Viking,” nail the role?
“The certainty that he would put in the hours and eat all the chickens to get that physical body honed,” Branagh answered.
“But also in this story this superhero from beginning to end will change. He starts off arrogant and entitled and we need somebody who’s almost prepared to lose the audience’s sympathy, (Thor’s) so kind of bullish. But by the end he’s so sort of naked and direct and simple with her (Portman, his mortal love interest), it represents a quite big character journey. Can you do that? He showed that he could.”
Branagh has spent three years on “Thor,” taking a break to act in the award-winning miniseries of Henning Mankell’s Swedish detective Kurt Wallander.
“It takes a long time to get something dead-simple,” he figured.
He returns to “Wallander” with three new installments this summer, further steeping himself in Scandinavian life.
“And also having done half my life with Hamlet, the mad Danish person,” he said with a laugh. “The Danes, the Swedes and now definitely the Norsemen, I don’t know, there must be something about those frozen northern lands that gets me going. The whole thing about Scandinavian literature, ‘Dragon Tattoo’ et cetera, somehow these very personal stories set against these big empty landscapes catches something in the imagination. It’s captured mine and now I’m an honorary Scandinavian.”
(“Thor” opens Friday.)
Tags: Kenneth Branagh, Thor
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