One of the biggest surprises to be announced at San Diego Comic-Con was that Natalie Portman would not only be returning for Thor: Love and Thunder, but that she would be playing Mighty Thor in the film.
The actress apparently had a three-movie deal with Marvel, but only appeared in the first two Thor films.
It was then rumoured for years that Portman had a falling out with Marvel after they fired Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins from Thor: The Dark World. She even refused to return for reshoots, forcing production to use Chris Hemsworth’s wife Elsa Pataky as a stand-in.
Last year, however, Portman told ScreenRant she was open to reprising her role as Jane Foster in the MCU, “I’m completely open to everything, but I have no news about that.”
So, how exactly did director Taika Waititi get the actress to agree to star in Thor: Love and Thunder?
In an interview with Variety at Disney’s D23 Expo, Waititi said he pitched the idea as something totally different to what she’d been doing previously.
“I just said to her ‘Are you interested in coming back to this thing, but doing something really different?’”
“No one wants to keep repeating themselves, and no one wants to play the same characters all the time. And I think for her, just coming back, reprising that character in a whole fresh new way was really what would interest anyone.
“Especially in most of these films, if you’re not a superhero… do you really wanna keep doing that? I mean, I wouldn’t. I’d want to come back and change things up.”
It makes sense, the people having the most fun in a superhero movie are the ones actually playing the superheroes, so the hammer undoubtedly had something the do with it.
Sadly, we have a long time to wait before seeing exactly how Jane gets her powers as the script for the film hasn’t even been written.