Lightning strikes twice in “Thor: Love and Thunder” — thanks to Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson.
The actresses feel the power of portraying formidable female superheroes with complex and very different stories in the new Marvel movie, which hits theaters Friday.
“What you’re offering audiences is just a wider variety of what women can be,” Portman told the Daily News. “Different personalities. Different superpowers. For kids watching it, they have a choice of who they can relate to, who they identify with, based on many, many choices of different personalities, as opposed to, ‘Oh, that’s the girl. That’s the person I’m supposed to be connected to.’”
Portman, 41, returns with her first major role in a Marvel film in nearly a decade, reprising the character of astrophysicist Jane Foster, who this time obtains the superhuman abilities of her ex-boyfriend Thor and becomes a new hero known as the Mighty Thor.
The journey unites her with Thompson’s spear-wielding warrior, Valkyrie, who is now grappling with unfamiliar responsibilities as the new king of Asgard.
“She’s sort of cleaned up her act enough at least to represent her kingdom,” Thompson, 38, told The News. “She’s a little disenchanted, not with her people ... but with the amount of bureaucracy she has to deal with. She was a career soldier, essentially, so she really misses being active and having a mission, and certainly her sistren. I think she’s very excited to have the Mighty Thor come along to have a sister in arms.”
Directed by Taika Waititi, the film sees Portman and Thompson’s characters team up with Chris Hemsworth’s Thor on an epic quest to defeat the revenge-driven Gorr the God Butcher, portrayed by Christian Bale, who seeks to slaughter every god in the universe.
Embodying a strapping superhero meant packing on muscle for Portman, who says she leaned on her co-stars to help with her physical transformation.
“I was really lucky to have Tessa and Chris having gone through it before as mentors and guides, because I didn’t realize how much of the training was also about eating,” Portman said. “I think that was probably the hardest part, lots of protein shakes and stuff like that, but it was fun.
“It’s so uncommon for anyone to ask a 5-foot-3 actress to play a 6-foot character, and of course I couldn’t do that on my own,” she added with a laugh. “There’s some movie magic involved there, but I did my best to help the process.”
The movie marked a reunion for Portman and Thompson, who previously starred in the 2018 science-fiction flick “Annihilation.”
Thompson praises “Thor: Love and Thunder” for hammering home electric moments of humor and emotion.
“It’s a film that really explores love, and all kinds of love, and those dynamics,” Thompson said. “Surely, that is always embedded into Marvel movies in a way because there’s a love of teammates, but I haven’t seen a film dive headfirst into that in a really unashamed way that our film does.
“It really does feel like there’s moments where you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a proper rom-com.’”
The film is the fourth standalone “Thor” movie, and the first since 2017′s “Ragnarok,” also directed by Waititi.
Portman, who won the best actress Oscar in 2011 for the psychological ballet thriller “Black Swan,” originated the role of Jane in 2011′s “Thor” and also starred in 2013′s “Thor: The Dark World.” She loved Waititi’s vision for her character in her return to the franchise.
“His approach to these movies is so radical and incredible that I feel lucky to have gotten to experience it,” Portman said of the New Zealand filmmaker, who also directed 2019′s Oscar-nominated “Jojo Rabbit.”
“He has this ability to mix together and mash together things that shouldn’t work, that shouldn’t go together. You shouldn’t be able to have this genuine, heartfelt emotion alongside wacky, outlandish, extreme comedy. He makes it all possible, and the process is very spontaneous and creative, and just a surprising way to work on something of this scale.”
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