Thor: Love and Thunder is a little over two weeks away, and that means the Mighty Thor's MCU debut is right around the corner. While Chris Hemsworth will return as the Odinson, Natalie Portman is going from scientist to superhero to take Jane Foster on what looks set to be a wild ride.
Wielding a reformed Mjolnir, Jane looks set to be every bit as powerful as the original Thor, and the actor recently spoke to Total Film about her transformation.
"It’s exciting to get to be a superhero," she tells the site. "I trained for a long time before and during, and I was doing the whole protein shakes [thing]. It really helped prepare me for the level of action that we ended up doing."
"We had incredible stunt doubles who did the really hard stuff, but there’s still a great deal of running and jumping and swords and hammer-fighting," Portman adds. "It was definitely helpful to be strong. To have that weight of the cape all day, you want to have some upper-body strength."
For those of you wondering if movie magic was involved in her transformation, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige was quick to make it clear that what we're seeing on screen is all Portman. Almost. "The only thing we assisted with was making the Mighty Thor a little bit taller," he confirms with a laugh. "Everything else was all her."
Of course, Jane's return also means getting to find out more about why her and Thor's romance fizzled out. That's something Chris Hemsworth promised fans can look forward to being addressed here. "We had a lot of fun exploring that, and answering a lot of the unanswered questions from the second film [onwards], when they parted ways," he teases.
"That was left pretty open, and up for interpretation, as far as: who dumped who? What actually happened there? Did they keep in contact? What were their feelings about how that all ended? We had some good times diving into all of that."
We're definitely intrigued to see what director Taika Waititi does with both this dynamic and Jane's new status quo. It's believed the character's cancer storyline will be adapted in some form, so whether the Mighty Thor will be a one-and-done character or a hero who sicks around beyond this blockbuster remains to be seen for now.
Thor: Love and Thunder is set to be released in theaters on July 8, 2022.