Chris Hemsworth is not just one of our most talented and successful Aussie exports, but he’s also one of the world’s biggest stars.
It’s almost hard to imagine what the astronomical jump from the small set of Home And Away‘s Summer Bay to the Marvel Universe was like for the Melbourne-born actor.
“You need to have an obsessive approach,” he told GQ Magazine in a new interview, explaining what it takes to make it in the film industry.
“It’s a one-in-a-million chance that you’re going to get your foot in the door.”
Not only did Chris get a foot in the door, it’s safe to say he pried it wide open with a little help from Thor’s hammer, and is now a bona fide superstar.
Despite being the second highest paid actor of 2019, voted sexiest man alive, becoming a super hero, and earning over $100 million last year alone, Chris admitted he’s terrified he could lose what he’s worked hardest for at any moment.
“Once you are on that train, not a day goes by where you don’t think it’s going to be taken away, all of a sudden,” Chris said.
“You still have this fear and anxiety programmed in you that it’s all going to slip away.”
The 36-year-old told GQ once he “paid off my parents’ house and taken care of my family, I had a moment where I thought: what now?”
Married to Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, and with three kids at home, the toll of his job and constantly being away from his family started to become clear – and it ignited a different fear in the actor.
“For a little while you don’t think the kids notice and then you realise they do. I’d hate to look back in 20 years and go, ‘Right, let’s get to work as a parent’ and I’ve missed it all,” he said.
It has Chris contemplating a small step back, at least out of Hollywood and into Byron Bay, Australia, where he now calls home full time.
“I absolutely want to continue to make films that I’m proud of, but that can also wait. Now what’s more important is my kids are at an age I don’t want to miss,” he explained.
“You’re a little bit too much in the eye of the storm when you’re living in Hollywood,” he says. “Living in Australia, it’s also easier to detach myself from work.”