When I think of Chris Hemsworth and his best movies, the first character that comes to mind is the charming God of Thunder, Thor. For years now, thanks to that part and more, the actor has become well known for playing charismatic characters. However, he doesn’t do that in his project on the 2025 movie schedule, Crime 101. So, with that in mind, he got candid with CinemaBlend about feeling like “a fraud” when he does play those charming characters we know and love him for.
In Crime 101, Hemsworth plays a quiet and reserved American jewel thief named Mike Davis. It’s a departure from the roles we’re used to seeing him play, and when CinemaBlend’s Hannah Saulic spoke to him, she asked if it was “difficult” to “play someone who’s not overtly charming.” While his co-star, Halle Berry, said he was “overtly charming,” Saulic clarified that she was talking about the character specifically. In response, the Thor actor said:
I’ll be honest, playing someone who's supposed to be charming and charismatic and confident is— I find the most difficult thing to do because it's, you know, I don't care who you are, you step onto a set and all that energy's pointing directly at you, and it's just sort of, you know, there's a lot of anxiety. There's a lot of questions. And you prep, you know, every angle of the script and everything the same. But you've always got that sort of in the back of your head. If you're allowed to exploit that insecurity or those questions and put it on camera, then it feels very authentic.
Considering how subjective movie-making and acting are, I totally see where Chris Hemsworth is coming from. Actors have to be very vulnerable on a set, and there’s a lot of attention on them and the emotional choices they make. It must be a lot to take in, and I can see why it wouldn’t exactly invoke confidence.
Further explaining why he feels like “a fraud” sometimes, Hemsworth said:
I find the scenes where I've had to play charming and confident, the whole time I'm like, ‘Yeah, you're a fraud. This looks ridiculous.’ You know? So they all have their challenges for different reasons, each character. But I sort of find it's a little easier to inhabit someone who's a little more uncomfortable, because I find it a little uncomfortable—and exciting, you know, and thrilling and all that.
While he might feel that way inside, it doesn’t come off that way at all on screen. I mean, there’s a reason he’s been playing Thor for so long, and we’ll get to see that charisma and charm jump off the screen again when he returns for the upcoming Marvel movie, Avengers: Doomsday (which will be released in December). However, it's also worth noting that this candid side also adds to his charisma.
To that point, it was fun to see him tap into the quieter side of himself for Crime 101. According to director and writer Bart Layton, this more reserved side of Hemsworth helped him understand his character better. Explaining why that’s the case, he said:
Interestingly, I think people think of Chris as being kind of close to some of those kind of action heroes or the superheroes that he plays. Because he looks the way he does, and he's obviously like a super kind of alpha, confident guy, but he's also like a very— He's insecure in the way we all are. He's a very lovely, grounded person. He grew up, you know, his parents were social workers. You know, he grew up in fairly modest home with not a huge income or anything. So he understands more of what this character is about than probably people realize.
In Crime 101, Hemsworth’s character comes from a poor family, and he works his way up to becoming a really fantastic thief. However, he’s anxious, quiet and very reserved. There are a lot of layers to him, and according to the director, the actor helped bring those out, as he said:
I guess I'd never seen him do anything close to what I wanted him to do in this film, which was a very layered character who has pain and who has loneliness and has issues, but he's still incredibly captivating and good at what he does. He's a like, jewel thief with a very specific code. And the more we got talking about it and the more research we did, the more Chris sort of brought these layers to these characters. And I think that will be one of the things that perhaps people are most surprised by, how brilliant his performance is.
I know I was certainly surprised by Hemsworth’s performance in the well-reviewed Crime 101, and it was a highlight of the film for me. His candid response about feeling the way his character feels at times makes it even better, too, because it adds a more personal and emotional layer to his character.
In the end, like all of us, Chris Hemsworth is human. He might play a god and radiate charm. However, he can feel insecure and reserved at times, too. Clearly, he knows how to harness all of this and more, because whether he’s playing a captivating superhero or a reserved jewel thief, his presence always jumps right off the screen in an irresistible way.
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