Chris Hemsworth Opens Up About Anxiety: ‘The Chatter in My Head Got So Intense’

Chris Hemsworth got candid about struggling with anxious thoughts and overthinking in a new interview.

The Australian actor is known for playing Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and will soon be seen as Dementus, the deranged leader of a biker horde, in George Miller’s upcoming Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

But since his career exploded in 2011 with the first Thor film, he’s struggled with overthinking about his place in Hollywood.

Coming off of 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, he felt exhausted.

Chris Hemsworth on Anxiety in Hollywood

“I’d been trying to muscle and beat things into existence for so long, out of obsession and desperation to build this career, and I was just exhausted,” he told Vanity Fair. “I was worried about everything.”

“Nothing was as enjoyable as it once was, or I had imagined it was. I was making back-to-back movies and doing the press tours, and I was married and had three young kids, and it was all happening at the same time in a very short window,” he added.

“You’re sort of just running on fumes, and then you’re showing up to something with little in the tank and you start to pick things apart: Why am I doing this film? Why isn’t this script better? Why didn’t that director call me for that or why didn’t I get considered for this role? Why don’t I get the call-up from Scorsese or Tarantino? I had begun to take it all too serious and too personal.”

Also Read: Furiosa: George Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth on Madness and Medicine

Of Love and Thunder, he admitted that he’s not pleased by his performance: “I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness, and I became a parody of myself,” he said. “I didn’t stick the landing.”

But the anxious thoughts were present long before Love and Thunder, his eighth Marvel movie. All that overthinking was part of why he left Hollywood and moved with his wife and three kids to Australia’s Byron Bay in 2015 to be near his parents.

He remembers thinking at the time: “I’m sick of my face. Why isn’t it on a billboard? I’m too famous. Why are there paparazzi here? Wait, why aren’t there any paparazzi here?”

Hemsworth’s family is familiar with his propensity for overthinking. His brother, the actor Luke Hemsworth, said, “His mind is a crystal, but it can also be a prison… he can be so focused and self-critical. He has real anxiety about making a decision. And he can spiral, there’s no doubt about that.” 

Chris Hemsworth himself recalls his mother commenting on his anxiety as well.

“My mum would come over for a cup of coffee and she would have to snap her fingers, and go, ‘Chris, where are ya? Come on, I’m here.’ The chatter in my head got so intense — and then the sense of guilt that every time I’d leave a dinner with parents or a friend, I’d say, ‘God, I wasn’t even there. I just spent the time bitching or complaining.’” he said. “There’s a narcissism to it. How many more years are we going to have this conversation? Like, just shut up, Chris.”

Hemsworth is also known for movies including 2022’s Spiderhead, 2020’s Extraction, 2018’s Bad Times at the El Royale, 2013’s Rush, 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsman and Red Dawn, 2011’s The Cabin in the Woods, and 2009’s Star Trek.

But in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, he’s gets to shine in a character with the type of darkness and depth he’s been craving.

“It’s been a long wait,” he said.

Having turned 40 last year, he’s still thinking about his future in the movies — but he’s feeling more optimistic as well.

“I have a great sense of nostalgia for how life is changing. But I don’t look at any of this like, Oh no, time is running out, what a tragedy. I feel like, Well, then, get going!” he said. Be involved and stay present and don’t get caught up in all the rubbish that I may have spent a large chunk of my adult life doing. What a gift it is to be able to love so deeply and be loved. What else is there really that we’re here for?”

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga arrives in theaters on May 24.

Main Image: Chris Hemsworth speaking at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Photo by Gage Skidmore. Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0