Why Chris Hemsworth Nearly Quit The Ghostbusters Remake

If there's something weird, and it don't look good, who ya gonna call? Well, Chris Hemsworth wishes he knew. 

Speaking in an interview with Variety for the outlet's most recent issue, Hemsworth admitted that he almost quit the Ghostbusters remake at the very last minute.

Hemsworth portrayed the handsome but empty-headed receptionist Kevin Beckman in the 2016 refresh — which starred Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones as a new team of Ghostbusters — and was initially quite hesitant about how thinly his character was written. The movie's director, Paul Feig, apparently promised Hemsworth about a month before filming began that Kevin would be more fleshed out by the time the cameras started rolling. According to Hemsworth, that didn't happen, and it resulted in the actor nearly dropping out in the 11th hour.

"The night before I was shooting, I almost pulled out. Three or four weeks prior, Paul said to me, 'I'm going to write up the character. Don't worry.' And then I got the script and nothing had changed," explained Hemsworth. 

Mid-panic, Hemsworth had his agent, Bryan Lourd, meet with Feig to address the situation. The director reportedly indicated that there was plenty of room for the character to grow — but in order for that to happen, Hemsworth would have to improvise a great deal. Hemsworth admitted that he was terrified to film Ghostbusters without a real plan set in place for his character. However, he made the best of an uncomfortable situation by channeling his fear and uncertainty into the character's goofiness. 

"I was really scared walking onto that set. I had no real plan, so I was just feeding off of them, and I just felt ridiculous. So I used that," said Hemsworth, who clarified that he loved working with the group of ladies who led Ghostbusters.

Though he may have considered quitting Ghostbusters on the eve of principal photography kicking off, Hemsworth sticking with the remake was a wise decision. Hemsworth's Kevin wound up being one of the best parts of Ghostbusters by fans' estimations, and his time working on the film actually informed his effortlessly funny performances in Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame — two films that allowed Hemsworth to show off his comedic chops in a way that past Marvel movies featuring Thor never did. In a roundabout sort of way, without Ghostbusters, fans may never have gotten to see the God of Thunder get silly in Thor: Ragnarok, or watch him embrace a plumper physique in Endgame. We don't know about you, friends, but that's not the kind of world we want to live in.