Chris Hemsworth laments becoming "a parody of myself" on Thor: Love And Thunder

Thor: Love And Thunder just wasn’t the home run that Thor: Ragnarok was, and Chris Hemsworth knows it. In fact, he sounds a little embarrassed by how his fourth solo outing as a Marvel hero turned out. “I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” he says in a new profile for Vanity Fair. “I didn’t stick the landing.”

Love And Thunder was a collaboration with director Taika Waititi, who nurtured the improv and wackiness on Ragnarok. That movie was a departure from the more serious, Shakespearean tone established by Kenneth Branagh in 2011’s Thor. It also established more of an identity for the character, whom Hemsworth felt didn’t have his own “thing” amongst the Avengers. “Sometimes I felt like a security guard for the team,” he reflects in Vanity Fair. “I would read everyone else’s lines, and go, Oh, they got way cooler stuff. They’re having more fun. What’s my character doing? It was always about, ‘You’ve got the wig on. You’ve got the muscles. You’ve got the costume. Where’s the lighting?’ Yeah, I’m part of this big thing, but I’m probably pretty replaceable.”

Surely his Avengers mates would disagree—Robert Downey Jr., for one, has nothing but praise for his pal in the profile—but Waititi’s entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe obviously changed things for Thor. It’s clear to anyone who saw Ragnarok that the comedic take on the character revitalized Hemsworth’s passion, powering him through Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. But Love And Thunder was perhaps an overcorrection. Hemsworth previously revealed that even his kids’ friends thought there was “too much humor.” Speaking with GQ, the actor admitted. “I think we just had too much fun. It just became too silly.”

Now, Hemsworth tells VF that he’d like to do a broader range of projects with more interesting directors (next he’s in George Miller’s Furiosa), less beefy action star roles and more serious dramas or romantic comedies. However, Marvel fans will be happy to hear that he feels he owes the audience at least one more Thor after the misstep of Love And Thunder. That said, whatever they do with the character next will have to be another reinvention. “I think it would have to be a drastically different version in tone, everything,” Hemsworth previously said of returning, “just for my own sanity….”