Editors Note: This article contains spoilers for Thor: Love and Thunder.
For those of us who rushed to see Thor: Love and Thunder over the weekend, we know that children are the bookends, and even middle, of the film. The feature’s heartbreaking opening scene shows us the events leading up to the creation of Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), as his beloved daughter dies in his arms. Stricken with grief, Gorr goes to his god, Rapu (Jonny Brugh) to bring her back. When the god laughs, mocks, and even goes so far as to begin to choke the life out of the grieving father, the Necrosword chooses Gorr to be its new owner, setting him on a bloody course to slay all gods. The bulk of the film sees Gorr kidnapping and holding the children of New Asgard captive, while the end sees his daughter brought back from the afterlife in Gorr’s final moments of living. Finally, we learn the second half of the title comes from the young girl’s name, “Love,” which is given to her by her new guardian, Thor (Chris Hemsworth).
But, what fans may or may not know is that Love was portrayed by Hemsworth’s real-life daughter, India Hemsworth. In fact, she wasn’t the only Hemsworth child to appear in the film or even the only leading actor’s kid to take part in the production. During an interview with Marvel, it was revealed that all three of Hemsworth’s kids joined the feature, with Natalie Portman’s son and daughter, Christian Bale’s kiddos, and one of director, Taika Waititi’s daughter’s also holding credits. During the interview, Waititi revealed that this “was not always the plan,” adding that it all began to come together when Hemsworth expressed interest in sharing a scene with his daughter. That got the creative juices flowing for Waititi who said that he looked around the set and realized “everyone has kids. All of these actors have kids.” And just like that, the younger generation took over.
If you, like me, are thinking, ‘Working with a character like Gorr must have been so traumatizing for those youngsters,’ Bale assures readers that was not the case at all. As he put it, the kids thought that he “was just the weirdo with the strange makeup,” adding that they hadn’t “any clue about anything I’ve ever done.” In between scenes, Bale tried to stay in character, walking around the set as the God Butcher, something the kids apparently loved. “I always had bile in my mouth, which I would still dribble in front of them,” the actor said, “They were always asking me to do that, going ‘Smile,’ going, ‘Dribble,’ going ‘ahhhhh!’ They loved it, and everyone wanted to take turns with the sword.” As a child who was afraid of their own father when he donned a mask for Halloween, I gotta give props to these brave kids!
As for the star’s children, Waititi’s daughters, Matewa Kiritapu and Te Kainga O’Te Hinekahu and Portman’s kids, Amala and Aleph play Asgardian children, with Hemsworth’s son Sasha also playing an Asgardian child, and his brother, Tristan playing a younger version of his papa’s character, Thor. Meanwhile, both Bale and Waititi’s kids got in on the creation of the spooky shadow monsters. Waititi revealed that one of his daughters was looking over his shoulder as he was penning the script and asked what a shadow demon was and what it would look like. After she drew her director dad a picture of what she imagined it would be, he ran it up the ladder to the Visual Development department, who made it come to life. From there, Waititi said, “I just started asking everyone else around the office. I was like, get your kids to draw some monsters.” Bale’s children happily obliged, creating shadow demons of their own which Bale said he was able to point out in the final take.
Just like its name suggests, Love and Thunder brought a whole lot of love to the set when they chose to include the children of their leading stars. It’s also worth noting that Hemsworth’s wife was featured as the Wolf Woman who makes out with Thor in the montage surrounding the God of Thunder’s love life.
If you haven’t yet seen it, Thor: Love and Thunder is playing in theaters now!