Thor: Love and Thunder not only saw the long-awaited return of Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster to the Marvel Cinematic Universe film franchise but had the character achieve the powerful comic-inspired realization of becoming Mighty Thor. However, it seems that the actor’s lack of height required on-set adjustments for her character’s superhero upgrade.
While the Thor films have seen Portman share plenty of screen time with the muscle-bound 6′ 3″ star Chris Hemsworth, the arc of Jane Foster’s Mjolnir-wielding transformation into Mighty Thor presented unique challenges in terms of cinematography. That’s because the character, as inspired by the pages of Marvel Comics, is supposed to stand around 6 feet tall, a mark that the actor is not even close to reaching. However, as Portman revealed on the D23 Insider Disney Podcast, a lengthy platform was constructed, which allowed Portman to walk slightly taller during scenes — particularly alongside taller co-stars like Hemsworth and Valkyrie actress Tessa Thompson — that would have clearly exposed any height deficiencies.
“So I’m 5’3, and my character’s 6 foot, which I don’t know if that has ever happened before in history, that someone has imagined a character for an actor that can’t physically fill those shoes,” Portman said. “And I’m so grateful for all the movie magic that Marvel can provide to make that possible. But a lot of the practical solution for that on set was putting me on a deck. So we do a rehearsal, we figure out a path that I would be walking in the scene, and they’d build this platform. This is a very long platform, which I’m so grateful to our crew for being so generous about. And then poor Chris [Hemsworth] and Tessa [Thompson] would constantly be having to walk over it to get to their paths, and… [they’d] have to pretend like they weren’t leaping over a platform. It provided a lot of comedy. But it allowed me to look tall, so that was helpful.”
Portman debuted the role of Jane Foster in 2011 in the Kenneth Branagh-directed original Thor, initially depicted as a beleaguered astrophysicist who encounters the Norse god title character upon his banishment to Earth, eventually becoming his mortal love interest. While she would reprise the role in the 2013 sequel Thor: The Dark World, the film, while still successful at the box office, was not as critically praised as its predecessor, and was the product of behind-the-scenes shake-ups such as the creatively-motivated exit of director Patty Jenkins, which led to a replacement in Christopher Yost.
Indeed, Portman’s initial role reprisal in The Dark World seemed to sour the actor on further MCU appearances. This led her to sit out director Taika Waititi’s franchise debut in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok and even the story-connected Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame in 2018 and 2019, respectively. However, she eventually returned to voice the role of Jane in 2021 for an episode of the animated Disney+ series What If…?. Thus, returning director Waititi’s Love and Thunder marks Portman’s first onscreen MCU appearance in nearly a decade, providing what appears to be a spectacular sendoff.
Thor: Love and Thunder is playing at theaters now.
Source: D23 Insider Disney Podcast via The Direct