Chris Hemsworth has played an actual god, and so you might think that when it comes to the physical transformation, he's been to the absolute extreme, but the actor says that for an upcoming film, he's going to have to make himself even bigger than he ever has before. It seems that Hulk Hogan is even more physically imposing than Thor.
Chris Hemsworth is set to play the former WWF/E champion for a biopic and the actor tells Total Film that while he expects the new movie to be a lot of fun, it's going to require a massive transformation for him. He's going to put on more muscle than he even has to play Thor, and he's also going to have to recreate other aspects of the professional wrestler that are going to be very new for him. According to Hemsworth...
This movie is going to be a really fun project. As you can imagine, the preparation for the role will be insanely physical. I will have to put on more size than I ever have before, even more than I put on for Thor. There is the accent as well as the physicality and the attitude.
In his own way, Hulk Hogan was the superhero of the World Wrestling Federation throughout the 1980s and '90s, and so the fact that to get in that kind of shape will require even more than Chris Hemsworth does to be Thor maybe isn't quite all that surprising. On-screen, one is able to enhance and hide physical elements as necessary, but in professional wrestling you're live and in person and so if the muscles aren't real everybody is going to be able to tell.
Of course, the physical transformation likely won't be the hardest part of the change that Chris Hemsworth is going to need to make. Even if the actor wasn't going to need to hide his Australian accent, Hulk Hogan has a very unique sound that would likely be difficult for anybody to imitate, and that voice is really just an element of the attitude which is going to be the real challenge.
Even serious professional wrestling fans will tell you that Hulk Hogan, despite becoming the first person to truly transcend professional wrestling and become a household name outside the industry, wasn't that great a wrestler. His star power came from his ability to play to the crowd both inside in the ring and out of it. That Hulk Hogan attitude is going to be key to any movie that tries to portray him. It's certainly unlike anything we've seen Chris Hemsworth do before.
It's not to say it can't be done. In fact, I can't wait to see the end result just because it's going to see so impressive to see Chris Hemsworth go full Hulk Hogan.
