Being Thor lookalike is a pretty hard thing to do. For Bobby Holland Hanton, it’s a full-time job.
Bobby Holland Hanton has been working with the Aussie actor for more than five years and has performed some of the most dangerous stunts of the god of thunder across two Thor movies and a trio of Avengers films, as well as Hemsworth’s lesser-known roles like The Huntsman: Winter’s War and In The Heart of the Sea.
However, doing his stunts makes Hanton to be just like the Hollywood star, and that’s where the problems appear.
“Thor is definitely the most difficult character that we have to get in shape for,” Hanton told news.com.au.
“Chris is already huge, he’s much bigger than me naturally so I have to train twice a day.”
What is more, Hanton and Hemsworth even eat the same meals to when getting in shape to play Thor.
“It’s a job in itself,” Hanton said about maintaining the physique required to play the character.
“We might train first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. We try and eat every two-and-a-half hours. For breakfast, we might have something like scrambled eggs with steak and spinach. No carbs in the morning. Then two hours later we might have a chicken breast and salad.”
“After our first training session, we’d introduce the carbs, usually brown rice, sweet potato or quinoa and then we’d continue to eat carbs up until the last meal. It’s pretty intense.”
Stunt double also revealed some facts about Chris’ personality: “We’re the same age, have the same kind of personality and we laugh at the same things,” Hanton said.
“He’s very loyal and keeps a really strong team around him and takes them around on each movie.”
Hanton’s has also appeared in Wonder Woman, The Dark Knight and Star Wars. He was also Daniel Craig’s stuntman on the 2008 Bond movie, Quantum Of Solace, and had to do a stunt during the shooting of that movie that he still considers his most daunting to date.
“It was my first movie, and I was just 23 years old, covering Daniel Craig as James Bond. For my first ever stunt on camera, I had to do a balcony jump at two in the morning in the slums of Panama,” Hanton told news.com.au.
“There was no safety below, no cables or anything, it was a completely free jump in the dark. That is a standout one for me, even ten years on.”
And as you’d expect, he’s had his fair share of injuries over the years.
“I sustained a pretty bad back injury on Green Lantern back in 2010,” Hanton recalled.
“I ruptured and herniated my discs, and that affected my sciatic nerve, so that was pretty full-on.”
“You get a lot of grazes and bruises, cuts and wounds all the time. Obviously, I used Band-Aid Advanced Healing to combat that [seamless plug] and make sure I can get back to jumping around like a crazed idiot as quick as possible.” We wouldn’t be surprised if they kept a first aid kit on hand everywhere they go, this useful reference may be able to help them out in this instance.
“We might do a fight scene 10 times when shooting and if you’ve got a cut, wearig a Band-Aid with the advanced cushioning almost acts like a pain barrier so you can carry on.”