Down-to-earth guy who worked his way to fame, says director Naveen A  Chathapuram of pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth

It is hard to believe now, but the strapping Chris Hemsworth, who has played Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's comic-book character Thor in a slew of Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbusters, was once an unknown Australian trying his luck in Hollywood. At least that's how Naveen A Chathapuram remembers him.

Now, preparing for his directorial debut, The Last Victim, Naveen was a producer on the Stephen Milburn Anderson film, Cash (2010), which marked the arrival of Hemsworth. Describing the event as 'being at the right time at the right place' he said, "The director and I had flown to London to meet with Sean Bean. We met in a pub there. We hung out, and the director gave his vision of the role. He liked it, and a couple of days later his agent called us to accept."

Hemsworth was among the dozen artistes who auditioned for the role of the lead, Sam Phelan. "At the time, we were giving offers to younger stars for a lead role of Sam. There was a little bit of a budget constraint, but we thought that since we had Sean Bean, we would look at someone who was a potential breakout. We had a video audition of 10-12 actors. One of them was Chris Hemsworth. He was relatively unknown since he had filmed a soap opera, Home and Away, in Australia."

"He had just gotten off the flight. His manager had called him and said, 'There's an audition'. So he made it straight to the audition from the Los Angeles airport," he said. It was not an easy pick though. Naveen told us, "I remember when we called Sean Bean's agents and told them about it, they went 'You're casting a soap opera guy against someone like Sean Bean'. They had no idea who Chris Hemsworth was and hadn't seen the audition videos either. They thought that was a huge risk."

Describing Hemsworth's work ethic, he said, "Look, he came from a humble background and had a great work ethic. He would rehearse lines over and over in his mind. He wanted to be a star. That's how he walked, that's how he talked, and projected himself. He would work out two times a day. He had a drama coach, a dialect coach working on his accent."

The first-time director said, "I remember, post-editing, we were sitting in this bar, and Chris walked by. He had just done Perfect Getaway (2009) and Star Trek (2009). His brother, Liam, had followed him into Hollywood. He got picked up in a Disney movie, and was auditioning for Thor (2011)."

"Kenneth Branagh, the director of Thor, had heard that Liam had a brother, who had worked with Sean Bean. Being British, Branagh got Bean's opinion and asked us to send some unreleased footage from the film. There was a climax scene and another one, we watermarked them and sent it to him." 

It was a few weeks before Naveen got a message from Hemsworth saying, "Google me". "The same weekend, the headlines were 'Chris Hemsworth is Thor'," he said.

The director added, "Having seen him at that level and seeing him where he is today, it is fantastic. It is surreal, but to me, I think what you act and focus on, becomes who you are."