Natalie Portman, 41, dedicated herself intensely to playing Mighty Thor, Jane Foster’s superhero persona, in ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’. The actress revealed in an interview with Variety that her children were on the set and that she tried to impress them with the character.
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Portman says her son Aleph, 11, and daughter Amalia, 5, from her marriage to Benjamin Millepied, encouraged her to make the film. “I feel like it’s the phase of my career where I’m really trying to just impress my kids,” she said.
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“My 5-year-old and my 10-year-old [now 11] were so enthralled by this process, getting to visit the set and see me dressed up in a cape. It made it really cool,” she added. “You know, it’s very rare that my kids are like, ‘Please go to work!’ Usually, it’s quite the opposite”.
The actress trained hard for 10 months to acquire the heroine’s physique. Naomi Pendergast, the trainer hired by Marvel Studios, told details about the workout sessions lasting from 1h30 to 2h a day, interspersed with boxing and weights.
“The goal and initial brief for working with Natalie was to develop arm and abdominal definition. However, to safely get Natalie to this goal without injury we worked to condition her body first for about four months. This meant we could safely up the load to bulk her up without negatively affecting her joints”, tells the coach. Pendergast adds that Portman already had a well-balanced and healthy diet, so there was no need to change her routine.
“Thor: Love and Thunder” is a direct sequel to “Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Thor (Chris Hemsworth tries to find inner peace, but must return to action and recruit Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), Korg (Taika Waititi) and Jane Foster (Portman) to stop Gorr, the Butcher of the Gods (Christian Bale), from eliminating all the gods. The film opens on July 6 in cinemas.