Rolling Thunder
CHRIS HEMSWORTH is sitting on the deck of his sprawling hilltop property in the Byron Bay hinterland, looking out to sea. After a week of torrential rain and flooding, the lushness of the countryside is that little bit denser, the hills a more verdant green. “I love the post-rain humidity and this freshness and energy it gives the landscape,” says Hemsworth, as birds chirp in the background.
“It’s beautiful.”
With the kids out for the morning at nearby nature reserve, Macadamia Castle, he’s excited by the hint of swell. When we’re done chatting, he says, he’ll probably jump in the ocean for a surf.
To be honest you’d be kind of disappointed if he didn’t. This is Chris Hemsworth, the man who so effortlessly embodies the Australian male aesthetic ideal – golden locks, piercing blue eyes, rippling physique, Vader-like vocal register – and one who’s carved out a modern version of the Australian dream – a house overlooking the sea in freakin’ Byron Bay. He bloody better be going for a surf.
Hemsworth created this Aussie Eden for himself – slowly, deliberately, precisely – in the process establishing an enviable template for working life. Navigate a career on your terms. Work from home. Be close to your family. Most Aussie actors – most of us full stop – don’t have the clout to pull it off. Then again, Hemsworth isn’t like most of us. He made Hollywood come to him.
He’s just wrapped filming on the Gold Coast on sci-fi thriller, (due to stream on Netflix later this year). In January he started shooting the fourth instalment of in Sydney. “That was going to be in
