Natalie Portman underwent a significant transformation in her appearance in order to portray the role of Mighty Thor in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder‘. In a recent interview, the 41-year-old actress revealed that in order to prepare for her role, she worked with a personal trainer for a period of ten months.
However, because Natalie’s character is roughly 10 inches higher than she is in real life, she had to increase her height for the film, which was a difficult process for her. So, how did she manage to do it?
Natalie Portman Grew 9 Inches Taller For ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’
The role of Thor required Natalie Portman to undergo a considerable physical makeover. Portman’s Mighty Thor is 6 feet tall, approximately 10 inches taller than Portman’s real height. “I definitely got as big as I’ve ever been,” she told Variety. “You realize, ‘Oh, this must be so different, to walk through the world like this.’”
She added, “As a 5-foot-3 woman, I don’t know that I’m ever going to be cast again as a 6-foot character. I really relished people seeing me as big.”
Taika Waititi and his crew had to figure out how to bring Portman to the correct height for sequences in which she walked with her co-stars because no one had found out how an actress could safely extend her body. Their approach was as low-tech as a Marvel movie could possibly be. “We’d rehearse the scene, they’d see the path, and then they’d build a path that was like one foot off the ground or whatever, and I would just walk on that,” Portman stated.
When Natalie’s Co-Stars laughing at her predicament
“They would call it a deck, but depending on the accent, sometimes it sounded like something else,” the actress said. “Because we’re all children.” In a light-hearted manner, she continued, “It was actually one of our running gags.”
Chris Hemsworth would apparently bend his body to go over the deck without halting his pace during the shoot. Then, Portman would try to take a broad step while keeping her head level like Chris. “They’d all have to negotiate my deck!” she added.
Portman gained a new appreciation for what Hemsworth has had to endure over the past decade in order to preserve his Asgardian body as a result of his time as a Marvel superhero.
“It’s a quite intense and quite disciplined lifestyle to get to that appearance,” she said. “Chris works so, so hard. Just constantly, every time he has a break, he has to be doing some sort of training. … It’s also the eating and saunas and ice baths and sleep, all this stuff to get everything looking right. It’s a full-time job!”
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