About Chris Hemsworth:
"He is physically impressive. Once my wife and her friends started seeing the clips where his extremely impressive torso is on view, it became something of a talking point! There's been a fairly vocalised reaction from the girls, and a rather admiring one from the boys.
"For Thor, you need a six foot blonde who can fight like a beast and act like a god, and who is also sexy. We needed a charismatic actor, and Chris is that.
"He's terrifically impressive and scary. I wouldn't want to be in an argument with Chris - especially with his hammer in his hand."
About Natalie Portman:
"Natalie is incredibly sexy but her sexiness is also from her intelligence and her sense of herself. She is someone who knows who she is and she brings passion and fun into this character."
Branagh explains he wasn't familiar with American comics:
"I wasn't terribly familiar with the American characters like Batman and Superman. It all seemed a bit far away and a bit exotic. But Thor was one of the few I did know as a kid."
Marvel movies:
"I see a wide range of movies and always have done, so being asked to direct Thor was less of a surprise for me than it was for other people. Maybe it gave me that extra bit of motivation to surprise people."
"Because Thor lives in Asgard, the home of the gods, it involves space travel and journeys to other worlds. It's also being presented in 3D, so I hope we give the audience a sense of travelling through space and a feeling that they are in the midst of the various battles involved."
And he adds: "We have some impressive villains including a huge metal beast with terrifying power called The Destroyer who cannot be beaten - or can he?
"And we have Laufey, the terrifying king of the Frost Giants and Thor's evil brother Loki, who is possessed of tricks of light and shadow."
Branagh promises: "We try to give it as much reality as possible and not make it feel as if it is too synthetic. We wanted a grittiness to it that makes you think, 'I can definitely suspend disbelief for a couple of hours and believe these people can all exist in the same universe."
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