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Chris Hemsworth (born August 11, 1983, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) is an Australian actor best known internationally for playing Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Ghostbusters franchise he portrayed Kevin Beckman, the Ghostbusters' spectacularly inept receptionist, in Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016).
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| Project | Role |
|---|---|
| Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016) | Kevin Beckman |
Director Paul Feig and Hemsworth share the same talent agent, Bryan Lourd. Feig learned through Lourd that Hemsworth was interested in a role in the film and pursued him from there.
Feig told Hemsworth that Kevin would be written as Australian, matching Hemsworth's own nationality, if he accepted the role so he could simply be himself. Despite the offer, Hemsworth nearly quit the production the night before his first scheduled shoot day. A new draft of the script had not incorporated the changes Feig had discussed with him a month earlier, and Hemsworth was ready to walk. Lourd arranged a last-minute meeting with Feig, who promised Hemsworth there would be substantial room for improvisation throughout filming. That assurance brought Hemsworth back.
On set, Hemsworth found the whole situation ridiculous, and he deliberately channeled that feeling into Kevin's oblivious, cheerful performance. Several moments in the finished film came directly from that approach: Kevin's habit of covering his eyes with his hands instead of his ears when answering the phone (a detail named "Mike Hat") was invented by Hemsworth during filming. When Kevin trips just after being hired, that stumble is Hemsworth actually tripping on the day, kept in the cut. For the sequence in which possessed Kevin drives away on Ecto-2, a digital head replacement was required because the stunt double did not sufficiently resemble Hemsworth, and the texture of the double's hair differed enough to be noticeable; Hemsworth's head was composited over the double's in post-production.
Some scenes involving Hemsworth were filmed in stages due to his schedule. The Mercado Hotel sequence, in which characters throw food and water to Kevin outside the building, was initially shot with Hemsworth present and then completed weeks later without him. His end-credits tag scenes were filmed entirely alone on a one-walled set; Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy returned to the same set weeks later to record their reactions to his lines without him present.
Hemsworth announced the completion of his filming via Twitter on August 21, 2015, at 2:26 p.m.
In Ghostbusters 101 #3, Erin Gilbert's extended tirade about Kevin Beckman is written as a low-level nod to Thor, the character Hemsworth portrays in the Marvel films.
Hemsworth began his screen career in Australian television, appearing in two episodes of the children's series Guinevere Jones in 2002, then spending three years as Kim Hyde in the long-running soap opera Home and Away (189 episodes, 2004-2007). He broke into Hollywood with a supporting role in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009), followed by the title role in Thor (2011) and the first ensemble appearance of that character in The Avengers (2012). He has continued in the Thor and Avengers productions across multiple subsequent MCU releases.
Hemsworth is also thanked by name in the acknowledgments section of Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal (Three Rivers Press), the in-universe companion book tied to the 2016 film (page 215).
