Chris Hemsworth comes from the wrong side of the world to play a god rooted in Norse mythology.

Physically though the Australian actor, who plays the eponymous Thor in the latest movie in the Marvel universe, ticked the right boxes.

The six-foot-three inch star of Home and Away embodies the vision that the director Kenneth Branagh had of the character which was essentially the first picture he saw of Thor “with arms wrapped round a tree-trunk and them being almost thicker than the truck.”

Twenty seven-year-old Chris, who hails from Melbourne, was familiar with the legend but knew little about the comic book character.

“When I got the part, six months before we started filming I received a stack of comic books, so it was all about educating myself.”

He also received some more heavyweight reference material on Viking and Norse mythology, as well as a number of novels including Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.

“It was like a college course – I got books about people finding themselves and then coming to terms with the reality of their existence. Ken knew that these were relevant to the story we were going to tell.”

That story involved Thor being banished from the mystical realm of Asgard by his father, Odin (played by Anthony Hopkins) for arrogantly and impetuously re-igniting an ancient war.

Stripped of his super human powers, including the hammer that allows him to fly, he is literally the mighty fallen, landing on earth at the feet of work-obsessed astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who thinks he is a somewhat deluded vagrant.

“It is all about Thor learning humility,” says Chris. “He comes across as a brash young guy with a ton of power at his fingertips. When he goes against his father, he’s punished by being sent to Earth to learn a lesson, as a mortal, on equal terms with other earthlings.”

With two actor brothers, Chris was able to find a very human connection with the role of the god of thunder. That was in his relationship with his sibling, and later nemesis, Loki.