High life takes a back seat for Hemsworth

High life takes a back seat for Hemsworth

In director Ron Howard's new movie Rush, Australian hunk of an actor Chris Hemsworth plays James Hunt, the high-living British driver whose close rivalry with three-time world champion Niki Lauda from Austria made the high jinks of 1970s Formula One circuits.

"It must have been the hair," the actor jokes to reporters in London about how he landed the role, tossing back slicked blonde streaks cut neater and shorter than the bad boy mop he sports in the 122-minute film.

"I loved the script, it felt like I knew what he was about, it fascinated me, the contradictions of who he was, and this strange insecurity underneath it all, underneath the gallantry and bravado and rock-star image, there's a whole another side," he says.

"The audition was a monologue about the fear of death. You can try to avoid thinking about death by distraction - it would be women and drugs and alcohol, excess of whatever. I just had an empathy for him, I liked the guy, there was a warmth."

The film, which also stars German actor Daniel Bruhl as Lauda, opens in Singapore tomorrow.

It is Hemsworth's 11th film to date, not bad for a relative newcomer whose first Hollywood role was George Kirk, brother to James, in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009).

Since then, he has climbed his way up the game on the back of beefcake characters from Curt in The Cabin In The Woods (2012) to the titular Viking god in Thor (2011) and The Avengers (2012).

It was not too long ago that he was hanging out with crocodiles in the outback and, later, bartending alongside budding-actor brothers Luke, 32, and Liam, 23.

All three of them have gone on to successful television and film careers. But Chris, the middle brother, seems to be attracting more attention of late, not least for testosterone-chugging moves in epic superhero movies.

In Rush, however, he says he is more of a cad than a hero, and much less brawny after having been made to lose 9kg of weight.

"It wasn't as punishing to get into shape as Thor than to get it off," he says. "As Thor, I lifted weights and ate a lot of food. But for this film, I over-trained and under-ate to get smaller. It's far more exhausting."

Snug in a light-blue dress-shirt with a tantalising open-neck, the actor in person looks almost the stereotypical movie-star dude. A thin silver necklace and hippie wristbands for man-jewellery circle his neck and hands.

But it is the wedding ring that he constantly fingers for reassurance, in between answering questions in his thick Australian drawl.

Hemsworth, 30, is married to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, seven years his senior. They live in Santa Monica with their new daughter India Rose, born last year.

He attests that his approach to high living could not be more different from Hunt's. If anything, he says he is closer in attitude to the real Lauda, a believer in family values.

"Certainly, I don't have Hunt's social life and exploits," he says. "I was having a baby at that time when I was filming."

But he says there are similarities between him and Hunt, the Formula One world champion in 1976.

"I do have that competitive streak against myself - to be better than myself and to achieve something. I think James' biggest competition was himself, as he was well aware. The only person who could screw up that race was himself. You have to live 110 per cent. I love that attitude," he says.

"But Niki's there also going, 'It's sometimes about the smaller things, about relationships. Don't spread your lives too thin'."

Fine advice from a movie character based on a real-life legend indeed. And yet the Australian is dead serious.

"Fatherhood is refreshing," he reveals. "It's not about you anymore. There's something that's far more important. Family is just such a solid grounding and foundation for me."

Blame it if you must on his incorrigibly sane parents, a counsellor and a schoolteacher from Melbourne, who instilled in their three boys old- fashioned mores and a good work ethic.

For this reason, Hemsworth says he has practised discipline in the face of emergent stardom and made wise choices in his career, choosing good scripts and complex characters.

Forget the technically accomplished car chases and car wrecks: In Rush, the professional tension between Hunt and Lauda makes for best nail-biting watching, not least when you know that each character's next race could very well be their last in the death-defying game.

Off-screen and on the set, Hemsworth says he could not be better colleagues with co-star Bruhl, 35.

"There was no ego there, no posturing. What you get is a very free version of something as opposed to me standing in the corner on my own with my lines. The assumption is if the actors didn't get along playing characters who didn't, that was a good thing. But that would just be too exhausting."

That is not to say he did not struggle. Acquiring a British accent, for one thing, took him a while.

"It was a lot of hard work. It was an accent and it was from a period - a very specific area, specific upbringing," he says.

"But then Hunt was constantly trying to prove he wasn't this posh public schoolboy. So there's this mix there, an attempt to be rougher round the edges. I listened to a lot of interviews and audio tapes. You train up your instincts and, by the time you arrive on the film set, you let go."

The toughest bit of the movie by far, however, was something that required possibly the least acting. The first few scenes in the movie see Hemsworth reveal his bottom in emulation of Hunt's famous playboy days.

"Taking my clothes off - that was more scary than the driving, absolutely," he admits.

"Nah, no body double. It's my a*** there."

So what, then, of learning to drive all over again?

"I'm probably a worse driver after doing the film," he reveals, rolling his eyes at his own words.

For all that rubber-burning on screen, he still swears by a tried-and-tested machine - an MDX Acura sport-utility vehicle by Honda, driven by his wife and loaded up with a babyseat plus surfboard.

"It's not a souped-up car or anything special, it's pretty standard," he says. "Cars never really interested me."

stlife@sph.com.sg

Rush opens in Singapore on Thursday, Sep 26.

Background story

"Taking my clothes off - that was more scary than the driving, absolutely."
-Chris Hemsworth, who is married to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, on exposing his bottom for the camera in Rush


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