Natalie Portman is planning on getting jacked for Thor: Love and Thunder. The actress elaborated on her fitness plans for the upcoming movie in a recent Instagram chat with Serena Williams, saying that filming hasn’t started yet, giving her more time to make the gains she wants to make.
“She’s actually The Mighty Thor. The comics had the female Thor when Jane becomes Thor, and she’s The Mighty Thor. We haven’t started. More time to get jacked. Which I have not. I’ve got the carbo-loading down, but not the exercise part. Obviously everything is weird because of pandemic time, who knows what’s happening. It will be exciting and I’m interested to see if I can gain muscle.”
Love and Thunder isn’t due to release until 2022 at the earliest, so that ought to give her the necessary regime run-up. It’s become a staple of the superhero genre, after all. If you’re going to be a superhero, you better look the part. Going down the list of actors who’ve been pulling their weight, we’ve got Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt (was there also a requirement they had to be called Chris?), Henry Cavill (thank god), Zachary Levi, Chris-tian Bale (stop it). Even Paul Rudd got in shape. Sorry, Paul.
The point is, buffing up has almost become a constitutional requirement for would-be supes. It sounds like Portman wants to give as good as she’s got, which given she’ll be starring alongside Chris Hemsworth, it’ll have to be pretty good. May the best hero win.
This is not a conversation I expected to be reading about a few years ago given Portman’s relationship with the franchise prior to the release of Thor: Ragnarok – a film she decided to sit out. In the end, though, it worked out well, with the threequel emphasizing a clean break from the awkwardly restrained mood of its predecessors.
Evidently, Portman has been impressed with Taika Waititi’s direction. We all were, frankly. Thor has been reinvigorated, though how exactly they reintegrate Jane Foster – so confidently swept aside in Ragnorak – remains to be seen. She has to go from binned supporting character to fully-fledged Marvel superhero in one movie. Thor: Love and Thunder’s going to be spinning some interesting plates, that’s for sure.