While Marvel Studios is making major strides toward expanding the MCU in Phase 4, there's always time to look back on how the franchise got to be the cinematic juggernaut that it is today. Much of that success came with 2012's The Avengers, which brought heroes from individual stories like Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man and Chris Hemsworth's Thor and threw them into one movie together, which turned into a massive hit.
The Avengers became the third-highest-grossing movie ever at the box office at the time of its release, cementing the MCU's place as a staple in Hollywood storytelling.
Specifically for someone like Hemsworth, this movie came as the project of a lifetime, one where Marvel Studios and its team had its doubts but ended up making something truly special in the end. It also propelled Hemsworth into the upper echelon of Hollywood actors, setting the stage for his run as the God of Thunder that's still going strong a full decade later.
While most of The Avengers' biggest stars had been involved with comparably big American movies before, Hemsworth felt the most like a newcomer even as he played such an important role on the team. Apparently, according to a recent interview, this led to the movie's biggest star having some...choice words about his newest colleague from Down Under.
Downey Gets Blunt about Chris Hemsworth
In a sitdown with actor Dax Shephard on the Armchair Expert podcast, MCU star Jeremy Renner recounted his experience with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Hemsworth on the set of 2012's The Avengers.
Renner remembered being familiar with Downey and other stars like Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), but it was the first time any of them had worked with Hemsworth, and none of them really knew him off-camera either. The Hawkeye actor specifically compared it to being on a new sports team:
“If you ever played any sports, it was like joining a new team. I knew Robert Downey Jr. I knew Scarlett Johansson. I just didn’t know Hemsworth."
Renner still confirmed that Hemsworth was "amazing" with Shepard calling him "a pretty great guy," leading Renner to think back to how cool it was seeing the entire squad in their MCU costumes for The Avengers.
However, Hemsworth seemed to make too good of an impression being "the tallest" and "the most good-looking" of the group, which led Downey to say that enough was enough quickly. Renner recounted how the Iron Man actor bluntly and unashamedly said "f--- this guy" when seeing Hemsworth wow the group as the God of Thunder:
Shepard: “From what I hear, he’s a pretty great guy,."
Renner: “Yeah, he’s amazing, but we didn’t know of him, right? On the first day, we’re all parading around in our costumes. So It looks like it’s Halloween. We’re excited, but equally feeling ridiculous. I feel like we all knew each other somehow, someway, except we didn't know this Hemsworth guy, because he comes from Australia. And he’s the tallest, he's the most good-looking… Downey was like, ‘We gotta break his knee. We gotta take him out. This guy’s too good-looking. He’s too tall, he’s too charming, f--- this guy.'"
Downey Unleasing NSFW Language about Hemsworth
Both in the MCU story and in the real world, Robert Downey Jr. has a way with words, particularly of the NSFW variety.
The Iron Man actor also offered the same exact sentiment to Scarlett Johansson during a recent awards ceremony presentation, and fans vividly remember the opening scene from Avengers: Age of Ultron where Tony Stark lamented Captain America for saying "Language." Looking back to the group's first team-up movie, it appears that Downey was simply being Downey upon his first interaction with Hemsworth.
The Australian megastar is well-known as one of the most attractive stars in Hollywood, and his physique has only gotten more impressive as he's continued to play Thor in the MCU. Whether Downey and the group were threatened or jealous by that physique is unknown, but it surely brings some hilarious stories from the set of The Avengers nonetheless.
This memory that Renner shared simply reinforces how close the original Avengers stars are with each other, after their exploits changed the superhero genre with that first team-up movie. Even though Downey may have put his MCU days behind him, here's hoping that he'll never leave his NSFW playful insults in the rearview mirror.
The Avengers is streaming on Disney+.
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