While Tom Cruise is one of the rare actors who truly does all his own stunts on film, many other actors attempt to do a great deal themselves. Chris Hemsworth has let himself be lit on fire for movies before, which is likely a step further than many others in Hollywood might go. However, while the Thor star has dealt with fire, apparently water is a step too far.
It wasn’t a stunt for a movie that Chris Hemsworth reveals he wasn’t allowed to do recently. He tells THR that for the new season of Limitless: Live Better Now, available with a Disney+ subscription, there had been plans for him to attempt to surf a 40 foot wave. Unfortunately, it seems the powers that be decided such a thing was too risky. Hemsworth said…
I was going to attempt to surf a 40-foot wave and train with big wave specialists, but we couldn’t get it through the ranks. The risk assessment, basically, was too far gone, so I ended up climbing a 200-meter dam wall.
Ironically the episode of Limitless where the wave stunt would have occurred is entitled “Risk.” Clearly the episode needed to let Hemsworth put himself at some amount of risk, but the wave was seen as too risky, while climbing a dam was apparently fine.
One of the major reasons stuntpeople are used in movies isn’t that stars are unwilling to put themselves art risk, it’s that the studio and/or the insurance company won’t let them. If a major film lead gets injured, it can delay movies, costing everybody involved money. Tom Cruise once fired an insurance company for not letting perform a Mission: Impossible stunt.
But the issue for Chris Hemsworth wasn’t simply that if something went wrong it would cause problems for the Disney+ series. He says it was higher ups at Disney that killed the idea, because getting hurt on Limitless could have jeopardised a his next marvel movie, a film, with a lot riding on it. Hemsworth continued…
They both have a fair amount of risk attached to them, but [the dam climb] got past the risk assessment team. So there definitely was [concern from above]: ‘No, we need him to go off and shoot Thor next. We can’t have him drown while filming a big wave episode.’
We know Chris Hemsworth is part of the Avengers: Doomsday cast, and that movie is so important to Disney it’s honestly a shock any of the cast is let out in public where they might trip and hurt themselves. While Hemsworth recently confirmed a viral video was not part of an announcement he was walking away from Thor, if the actor ever wants to surf a 40 foot wave, he might need to be done with Thor before anybody will let him.
