In March, Hemsworth, 32, hosted Saturday Night Live. The best bit was a send-up of those American Express commercials that feature famous people presenting themselves in modest, no-frills, this-is-the-real-me ways that are actually self-congratulatory and carefully contrived. Hemsworth is the most movie-starrish of his movie-star peers, by which I mean he’s the best-looking. Channing Tatum’s a hot young hunk, he however, has a beefcake quality. (He knows it, too, and uses it; it’s part of what makes him such a sly—and amusing—presence on-screen.) Bradley Cooper is the guy who was out of your league in college. Not that out of […]

Chris Hemsworth grew up scrapping with two brothers (the actors Liam, younger, and Luke, elder) and guided by a father who once raced motorbikes and wrangled buffalo. He surfs and boxess and knows Muay Thai. And so I wondered, is Hemsworth the rare Hollywood leading man who is actually more robust, more manly in reality than the characters he plays? Normally he’d be out surfing—and I’d ask to tag along for this piece—but since the Malibu coastline is glass-flat this week, he has another suggestion: What if we go mountain biking instead? This is an excellent idea that frightens the hell out […]