ACTRESS Natalie Portman will continue her role as Jane Foster, the ex-girlfriend of Asgardian warrior Thor (Chris Hemsworth), but she will also take on the superhuman persona of the Mighty Thor, Jane’s superhero alter ego, when she gets her hands on Mjolnir in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder.
In the plot to the alternate universe-set film, when Thor’s hammer Mjolnir is no longer capable of being wielded by the former, Jane Foster is deemed worthy to take its place. As a result of her time as Thor, she becomes a member of the Avengers.
Portman had to work with a trainer for 10 months before and throughout filming in order to build up her muscle mass in a way that she had never been asked to do before in order to play the role of a Marvel Studios hero.
In addition to getting her arms and shoulders as ripped as possible, Portman’s Mighty Thor is 6 feet tall, nearly 10 inches taller than Portman’s actual height.
Director Taika Waititi and his crew were faced with the challenge of getting Natalie Portman to the correct height for scenes in which she walked alongside her co-stars. Their solution turned out to be as low-tech as it gets in a Marvel film.
“We’d rehearse the scene, they’d see the path, and then they’d build a path that was like one foot off the ground or whatever, and I’d just walk on that,” Portman explained, according to Variety.