Cate Blanchett is brilliant as Hela: Chris Hemsworth

Actor Chris Hemsworth has praised actress Cate Blanchett for giving an interesting twist to "Thor: Ragnarok", saying she adds "insane off-kilter attitude" to the role of Hela, female villain.

"Cate Blanchett is just brilliant as Hela. She is one of the greatest actors that has ever been. I was so excited to see what she was going to do with Hela. I had ideas of what she might do but I was completely blindsided by the outcome. She just has this insane off-kilter attitude or look or kind of movement to her character," Hemsworth said in a statement.

"At times you find yourself empathising with Hela and then you remember that she is slaughtering people and destroying everything. That kind of conflict within an audience makes for a far more interesting film and journey to watch," he added.

In "Thor: Ragnarok", Hemsworth sports a modern buzz cut with dark hair instead of Thor's signature shoulder length blonde locks.

Talking about his look, the actor said: "There are a few physical changes with the character in this film. The first one is he loses his hair. He's in a gladiator world where part of their processing is to chop the hair off, which happens off screen.

"And he turns up with his hair hacked off. It certainly gave me a different attitude. Different costumes, different weapons, different cast of characters to work off give you a different energy. And so as simple as having a different haircut can affect the way you move.

"Then he also loses his hammer. It's destroyed by Hela, the villain in this film. That forces him to question everything in existence and his own strength and his own history and past, and sends him again on a different journey.

"It was about stripping him back physically, but also emotionally, in order to rebuild him in some way or have him have to rediscover something. So that is a great way to break him down."

Marvel Studios' "Thor: Ragnarok" is directed by Taika Waititi and also stars Mark Ruffalo, Idris Elba, Anthony Hopkins and Jeff Goldblum among others. The movie will release in India on November 3.

--IANS

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