Chris Hemsworth: 'Thor' winner

Chris Hemsworth was almost a Thor loser. That's because the titular star of the new Marvel Comics movie "Thor" went through a six-month auditioning process that included going up against his actor brother Liam Hemsworth ("The Last Song").

Obviously it all worked out for the former Australian soap-opera star, who moved to the United States and made his mark as George Kirk, father of young James T. Kirk, in "Star Trek" (2009). Two small releases followed, as well as co-writer Joss Whedon's "The Cabin in the Woods" and the remake of 1984's "Red Dawn" -- both completed and awaiting release, almost certainly to capitalize on the 27-year-old actor's newfound stardom.

Hemsworth spoke with Newsday contributor Frank Lovece by phone from Australia, where "Thor," opening in the United States May 6, premiered April 21 -- to good reviews that augur well for the upcoming Marvel film "The Avengers," in which Hemsworth reprises his role as the Norse-god superhero.

You and your younger brother, Liam, were both up for the part of Thor, and I gather it took forever to get you cast.

Yeah. I auditioned very early on, and then I was out of the mix and he was in the mix, and then I got a second chance to come back in. I guess I sort of messed it up for whatever reason. Then, I was asked to send in another tape toward the end of the casting process, and my mum was visiting me at the time in Vancouver, so she read Anthony Hopkins' lines and held the camera and helped me with the audition. So she kind of got me back in there, I guess, as well.

A boy needs his mom.

That's right. And Liam and I would run together and try to work out what we thought Ken wanted or what we thought of the character. We're pretty competitive in everything else we do, as brothers are, but this tended to be a bit of a team effort.

Were you and Liam living together at the time?

No, we weren't. He'd just moved to the States, and I'd been there for a couple of years, so it was great having him around.

You come from a soap-opera background, and in this movie you're working with RADA-trained Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston, Oscar winner Natalie Portman, Ray Stevenson from the Bristol Old Vic. . . . How do you psych yourself up to play the central role around those kind of people?

People like that just elevate your game, and if you leave yourself open to learn from them and walk in with humility, I guess then it becomes back-and-forth. . . . It's about feeling comfortable in navigating your way around a set. And whether it's a soap or whether it's classic theater, it's all about your attitude: Just sort of work hard and be open to exploring different ideas and taking risks and going with the spontaneity of it all.

So you're at Comic-Con last summer on the "Thor" panel, and all of a sudden Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson, your co-stars in "The Avengers," pop up onstage with you. You're a young actor, now they're your peers -- what goes through your mind?

I was just waiting for security to pull me off the stage at that point, you know? There's a big part of me going, "What am I doing up here? I don't belong here in amongst these guys." It was so exciting. I didn't actually know that we were going to do that -- they sort of kept it a big secret from us as well.

Did you get to chat with them backstage?

I did a little bit. I don't know how much I said that was of any great interest. It was all filtered by my brain going, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, what is this?"

"Mr. Downey, I've always liked your work."

Yeah, it was a bit like that.

So how does one play a god?

It became about humanizing it, in a sense. The sets and the story and the costumes tell us the larger-than-life elements, and for us [actors] Ken just kept saying: "Just make this personal. It's a scene between a father and son or two brothers. Find the truth in it."

Someone said to me a long time ago: "If you're ever playing a king, it's more about how the other actors relate to that character as opposed to what that character does.