It’s still a few months away, but we can hardly wait for Thor: Ragnarok, after seeing the poster and hilarious Team Thor shorts and trailers that inspire a new appreciation for Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” One of the best moments in those trailers arrives when Thor is ready to do battle against an unknown foe in front of Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster. The Thunder God is apprehensive, but soon breaks into a huge smile when he sees that his opponent is his old buddy Hulk: “Yes! We know each other! He’s a friend from work!,” Thor says.
As delightful as that line is, its origins may be even better. Hemsworth told Entertainment Weekly at Comic-Con that the line in question originated with a special visitor on set:
EW’s Julia Cunningham asked the Aussie-turned-Asgardian about some of his funny bits in the film’s record-breaking trailer, including a moment where Thor unexpectedly sees the Hulk. “We had a young kid, a Make-A-Wish kid on set that day,” Hemsworth told her. “He goes, ‘You know, you should say, “He’s a friend from work!”‘”
As the Make-A-Wish foundation offers “experiences described as ‘wishes’ to children with life-threatening medical conditions,” that kid not only got to visit the Ragnarok set, but as /Film puts it, “he made more of an impact on the movie than he probably thought he would. Now, he’ll stand in the lexicon of greatest Marvel lines ever.” Since Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi encouraged a looser, more improvised atmosphere on set, Hemsworth added the line to the scene, resulting in the first of what is sure to be a stream of one-liners from the unlikely source of a Thor movie. Ragnarok premieres on November 3.