Acting opposite Chris Hemsworth is a gift. But acting opposite Chris Hemsworth’s abs is a curse.
The actor, the most Australian of the Hollywood Chrises, will soon appear in a new thriller, Bad Times at the El Royale, a bizarre but satisfying film that also stars Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cynthia Ervio, Jeff Bridges, and six of Hemsworths' abs. These abs are ruining the lives of commoners, as well as his famous co-stars. In fact, they nearly cost them the entire movie!
"It’s such a distraction," Johnson told Vogue Australia of Hemsworth. "I was like, guys, you’ve made a huge mistake getting him to do this, because everyone is going to forget everything that happened [in the film] until this point. Chris is going to come onto the screen, and his body is outrageous, it’s unbelievable, like a crazy, crazy thing to look at, and his shirt’s completely unbuttoned."
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To Ellen DeGeneres, Johnson again criticized the directorial choice to have such a distraction on set, but praised Hemsworth on this fitness accomplishment. "It's so remarkable and truly such an accomplishment for him," Johnson joked. In another video, Johnson, again, repeated that it was a mistake to allow Hemsworth to traipse around the set without a shirt on, noting the danger that lurks when an audience can only focus on Hemsworth and no one else on screen.
Even though Hemsworth's "unreal" (DeGeneres' word) abs very nearly ruined the movie (according to Johnson), they did give the film one of its most memorable moments. Hemsworth, as Billy Lee, shows up unannounced at the hotel and does a sinister, but sexy, dance. "It certainly wasn't meant to be what it is," the director, Drew Goddard, tells The Hollywood Reporter of the ab-centric moment. "And that morning on set, Chris showed up and said, "Let's just play around with this." We put the music on and that's the first thing he did. What's amazing about it is it's somehow both delightful and the scariest part of the movie."