Chris Hemsworth finds a rich groove in Spiderhead | Entertainment

Pandemic factors aside, Spiderhead is especially unlikely given its source material. Few people have ever read a Saunders story and thought it would transition seamlessly into a movie, but screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick expanded on the authors’ story in 2010.Escape from Spiderhead,a wacky but moving first-person account of a prisoner (played by Miles Teller in the film) undergoing lab tests. They greatly expanded the role played by Hemsworth, Dr. Steve Abnesti, who runs the establishment enthusiastically with few rules and mysterious intentions. He’s kind of the nicest Bond villain you’ve ever met.

Kosinski sent the script to Hemsworth hoping he would respond to the role.

In his performances, I’ve always seen glimpses of a wide range of availability that is perhaps sometimes obscured by the action movies and his lead appearance, Kosinski said.

There’s a precision to his physique that really lends itself to this role, adds the director. He also has this ability that I saw in Tom (Cruise), to really understand the setting and the goal and where to be in it. It’s something not everyone has. He’s just very aware of the medium and how to use it effectively.

In Spiderhead, Hemsworth uses the accuracy and charisma he normally relies on in more conventional leading performances for darker manipulation purposes.

There was a kind of nervous energy underneath, seething even in the quietest moments, Hemsworth says. I was trying to tap into that feeling when you’re about to break down and you’re laughing or crying, but you’re on a tightrope. Whatever that feeling was, I wanted the character to be in it and hopefully give some idea of: which direction is he going to turn next? What will be the next reaction?

Spiderhead was shot largely in sequence on a soundstage, and Hemsworth seems visibly liberated by the production’s lack of costumed or other constraints.

I’m so grateful for the movies I’ve played but they haven’t given me the range and the opportunity to explore in that way, says Hemsworth.

Hemsworth, 38, was inspired in part by CEOs and technocrats who exude a hyper-intelligent and obsessive focus, but who might, in their certainty of technological potential, lack empathy. Still, the characters’ high-level narcissism isn’t entirely alien to Hemsworth either.

There was a cheekiness to the character that reminded me of myself in school, allowing my thoughts to race over each other, not really caring what I’m doing or what I’m saying, a- he said. This enthusiasm and excitement is me at my most inventive and creative. Catch me one day when I’m exhausted and not in this space, then that’s not the character. But this part of me that I wanted to highlight.

Spiderhead arrives between its director and star’s biggest blockbusters, on the heels of Top Gun: Maverick, a film that played the savior role in theaters and on the eve of Thor: Love and Thunder. Both are likely to rank among the biggest ticket sellers of the year. Kosinski, speaking as the big Mavericks continued to roll in, always realizes how successful movies are and, as he says, how many people react to a movie that was shot in a very traditional, live, live, camera.

It’s the kind of film I grew up with, says Kosinski.

For Hemsworth and Kosinski, the variation between projects and the ability to make a weird, hard-to-describe sci-fi movie for mass audiences is part of Spiderhead’s special charm. Kosinski set up his next project last week, a Formula 1 racing movie starring Brad Pitt and Apple TV+, with plans for a wide exclusive theatrical release before airing.

It is a very interesting hybrid. It kind of covers those two movies that I just did, Kosinski said. Everyone is trying to figure out: what does the future of cinema look like? We thought it was an interesting model to try.

For Hemsworth, whose Extraction is one of Netflix’s most-watched films, Spiderhead was a diversion that only buoyed him when he readjusted to bigger films.

Both serve the other, says Hemsworth. Every time I venture out and do something different and then go back to, say, Thor, I find I have a different appreciation of the character and also a different opinion about him.