Chris Hemsworth says 'sibling rivalry' with younger brother Liam helped him land Thor

Thor and Loki isn’t the only sibling rivalry that has played a huge role in the Marvel franchise.

In an interview with W Magazine, Chris Hemsworth discussed how almost losing out to his brother, Liam, motivated him to land the role of the Norse God. The Avengers star recalled how excited he was to find something that was “up my alley,” only to seemingly fall out of the running as the younger Hemsworth jumped ahead of him.

“I came into the audition with [Thor director] Kenneth Branagh and thought I nailed it and then never heard anything back,” he shared. “Months went by and then my brother, my little brother, Liam, was in Australia and sent a tape across and he got a call back, then another call back and then was down to the last kind of four or five people for it. I remember sitting in Vancouver, shooting Cabin in the Woods with Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon. Both of them were looking at the trades at this sort of top five guys for Thor and saying, ‘Why aren’t you in the mix here? What happened?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I blew my audition I guess.’ None of those guys got it.”

With Branagh and Marvel still on the market for their hammer-wielding superhero, the elder Hemsworth was able to get back in the mix, eventually landing the gig with the help of his mom and a little extra motivation.

“My manager then called up and said, ‘You know, he’s got an older brother. Can we bring him back in?'” he continued. “So I did an audition in Vancouver in this hotel room with my mum reading Anthony Hopkins’ part. She must have nailed it because it got me back in the room and that second audition was a lot different than my first one. I came in kind of with a little, I guess, motivation and maybe frustration that my little brother had gotten further than me. It’s a little family, sibling rivalry sort of kicked up in me.”

Hemsworth returns to the role in Thor: Ragnarok, which hits theaters on Nov. 3.