Chris Hemsworth, along with German-Spanish actor Daniel Bruhl, will star in Ron Howard's Rush, a period piece recounting the rivalry between British bad boy James Hunt and exacting Austrian Niki Lauda for the 1976 F1 championship.
‘Rush’ Audition
Hemsworth was shooting The Avengers in 2011 when he made his audition tape for Rush. “It came at the perfect time for me as far as the hunger and desire for what I wanted to do,” says Hemsworth. “The story spoke to me on a few levels. However outrageous Hunt was, his willingness to stay true to himself and not conform to some standard or be packaged in a neat little box by the sponsors was intriguing. His message was, ‘If I’m not having fun, what the hell is the point?’ It’s not a bad rule to live by.”
Driving ‘Beasts of Speed’
Howard is exact and demanding in his ambition, and Rush — shot in England and Germany in the spring and early summer of 2012 — was at times a difficult four-month shoot for Hemsworth and Bruhl, who both had to drive what are described as "beasts of speed."
“They are tricky things,” says Hemsworth, “like go-karts on steroids.”
Rigid Cardio Workout, Low-Fat Diet
There have been a few F1 drivers as tall as Hunt, but for the most part, the racers are like astronauts, measuring between 5-foot-8 and 5-foot-11 and weighing 150 to 160 pounds. (Hemsworth got to less than 190.)
To drop the weight, Hemsworth embarked on a rigid cardio workout program and low-fat diet. He says it was brutal: “I understood addiction for the first time, to be honest. I immediately knew what it is like to be truly at the mercy of something. Literally, food was the last thing I thought about before I went to bed and the first thing I thought about when I woke up.”
Feeling the ‘Rush’
“Rush is the best experience I’ve had on set, and I’ve had great experiences,” says Hemsworth, on the phone from Malaysia, where he’s shooting Michael Mann’s Cyber. “Ron is the sweetest human being you will ever meet. It does not matter what department you are in — everyone on the set feels involved. If you want to spend three or four months with someone, this is the kind of guy I want do it with. If he says, ‘Let’s go the extra mile,’ you’re right there with him.”
Up Next
Hemsworth just wrapped Michael Mann’s Cyber and will shoot Howard’s The Heart of the Sea before heading to the set of The Avengers: Age of Ultron in early 2014. And on Nov. 8, Thor: The Dark World opens.