Movie Talk‘Thor’ Star Chris Hemsworth’s Secret ‘Dancing’ Past
If you saw "Star Trek," you know that Chris Hemsworth -- who played Captain Kirk's father in the opening scene -- can pilot a spaceship. And if you've seen the ads for this weekend's "Thor," you know he can swing a hammer as the title character from Marvel's long-running comic books. So what can't he do? If you were watching Australian television in 2006, you know the answer: the samba.
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That's right, before he became the god of thunder on movie screens Hemsworth appeared on his native Australia's version of "Dancing With the Stars." And now that he's doing the talk-show circuit to promote the film, footage of Hemsworth shaking his stuff has been resurfacing. Check out Hemsworth and his partner Abbey Ross in a performance from the show's fifth season.
At the time, Chris Hemsworth was starring in the long-running Australian soap opera "Home and Away." He spent three years on the show playing the role of personal trainer Kim Hyde. Hemsworth became extremely popular from the series, as evidenced by how long he lasted on "Dancing With the Stars."
Hemsworth and his partner came in fifth place in the competition, lasting for seven of the show's ten weeks. This was despite them receiving the lowest scores from the judges for all but two episodes they competed in. That seems to indicate there were lots of fans calling in to save him week after week, no matter how he performed.
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MTV interviewed Chris Hemsworth this week and forced him to watch an unearthed video of his performance. When asked why he agreed to do the show in the first place, he answered, "You know, I thought I could dance. I thought it would be good for my life experience." Of course, once he got on the show, he realized "I couldn't dance, so it wasn't quite as good as it could have been."
As he watched himself from five years ago, Hemsworth did note one move he was proud of: "That's a good shot, that's a knee slide, straight out of 'Dirty Dancing.'" Appropriately, Hemsworth will later be seen in the upcoming remake of "Red Dawn," where he plays the same character Patrick Swayze portrayed in the original.
Hemsworth confessed that he was hoping his ballroom dancing past would stay forgotten now that he's becoming a movie star. He told MTV, "I thought 'I'll do this in Australia, no one will know," only to later realize, "the internet, I forgot about that big beast."
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Luckily for Hemsworth, though, audiences will surely forget about his two left feet when they seem don the cape, armor and winged helmet of Thor. He landed the role after producers held an exhaustive search for potential stars, which included his own younger brother, Liam. In an exclusive interview with Yahoo!, the film's director Kenneth Branagh said that Hemsworth was right for the role because he "caught the arrogance of the character; he wasn't afraid to be almost unappealing." And Anthony Hopkins, who plays Thor's father Odin, called Hemsworth "a really tough, good actor. And, apart from anything else, he looks like [a] god."
See what else the cast of the movie had to say in the video below. "Thor" is in theaters now.
