Skarsgård, Del Toro Talk About Almost Making ‘Thor’

Published by Jeff Leins on: June 15th, 2009

A few months ago, speculation was in full swing as to who was going to land the prime lead in Marvel’s adaptation of Thor.  The studio and its director, Kenneth Branagh, were narrowing down choices for months to pick the title role.  One of the names that surfaced was Alexander Skarsgård, a vampire in the recently resumed HBO show “True Blood.”

It was a rumor stemming from eyewitness sightings of a dinner meeting between the actor and director coupled with the physical likeness to the character, so there obviously wasn’t much to go on at the time.  Apparently he was closer than we thought.

“There was definitely some truth in that, yeah.” Skarsgård told MTV he met with Marvel Studio chief Kevin Feige a few times and was close enough to film an audition in full costume, wielding the hammer and everything.  As for any future roles he said, “I think it’s every little boy’s dream; it would be a person’s dream to play an action hero.” Skarsgård was one of the last choices cut before the part eventually went to Chris Hemsworth.

Guillermo del Toro also claims to have been in the running for the director’s chair.  Again MTV was talking Thor, this time with The Hobbit filmmaker, who says he came very close to adapting the comic book series.  “They approached me for Thor.  And for a long time we talked about that, because the mythology and the images were very attractive to me.  This was before Hellboy II.”