Most actors bring their kids to a premiere. Chris Hemsworth brought his whole family into the film itself and then, four years later, had to talk his teenager into coming back. India Rose Hemsworth was Love, the little girl who gives Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) half its title. In Avengers: Doomsday, out December 18, 2026, Love is back, and so is the girl who plays her, if not entirely willingly.
Who India plays, and why it is the last word of the film
Love is the daughter of Gorr the God Butcher, the villain played by Christian Bale. At the end of Love and Thunder Gorr asks Thor to raise her, and the closing scene turns the title into a family: Love and Thunder, a girl and her new father. Taika Waititi told Marvel.com the ending was Hemsworth’s idea and called it “a really nice way of finishing the film with Chris and his daughter.”
She did not get the part by being in the house. Hemsworth filmed a self-tape with her, and Waititi’s verdict was short: “She was really good.” I have read a lot of directors being polite about stars’ children. This one sounds like he meant it.
The sticky head and other notes from the set
The best story from the shoot is India’s. Her scene called for a kiss on the top of Gorr’s head, and Bale was wearing full prosthetic makeup. “She goes, ‘No, his head’s all sticky,'” Hemsworth told Marvel.com. “So she did a kiss and did it, like, a couple of inches away from his head. I was like, you can’t use that! Christian was laughing, we were laughing, it was great.”
Bale remembered the harder takes, the sad ones, and still called her “absolutely magnificent.” He also gave her father a review most parents would frame: “Chris was a wonderfully attentive dad, just off-camera all the time, just checking she was all right.” My view is that the air-kiss is the better performance note. A child who will not fake it is a child with an actor’s instinct, or at least an excellent sense of hygiene.
A family business for one film
India was not the only Hemsworth on the call sheet. Her brother Tristan played young Thor in the montage Korg narrates, and his twin Sasha appeared as one of the Asgardian children. Elsa Pataky, Hemsworth’s wife since 2010, is the wolf woman who kisses Thor in the same flashback, which must be the only time a Marvel romance was cast by the person it actually happened to.
Hemsworth called the whole thing a one-off at the time and said he did not want his kids to become child stars. I believe him, and the casting backs him up: nobody built a franchise role around the twins.
Avengers: Doomsday and the teenage negotiation
The one-off is now a two-off. Marvel’s Thor teaser for Doomsday, released in December 2025, shows Thor kissing Love goodnight before he goes into the woods and kneels to pray to Odin for strength to fight once more. Variety identified the girl as India, and it is the plainest statement of what the character is now: a father first, a god second.
Getting her there was another matter. On The View in February 2026 Hemsworth explained that India was “now 13, so she’s a teenager, so a bit different to when we shot the other one.” She walked on set and asked, “Ugh, how long is this gonna take?” He told her, “We haven’t even started!” Then she objected that she was not even being paid. She was; the money is set aside until she turns 18, and, he said, “in the end, I had to bribe her to come onto set.” A conversation about a motorbike was involved (“a slight negotiation”), as was a Billie Eilish concert she did not intend to miss.
Every parent of a teenager knows this exact call sheet, only with a lower budget.
The Hemsworths at home
India was born in May 2012 and is 14 now; Tristan and Sasha are 12. Hemsworth is 43, Pataky is 50, and they married in December 2010, which makes them one of the more durable marriages in the superhero business. Home is Byron Bay in Australia, and the family’s Instagram tends to look like the reel below: Pataky climbing onto her husband’s shoulders to put the star on the Christmas tree. His caption: “After 12 months of preparation we finally figured it out. A star is born!!”
@chrishemsworth Last year we tried this but with me on Elsa’s shoulders… nor the tree or @elsapataky’s knees made it. After 12 months of preparation we finally figured it out. A star is born!!
My take
The Hemsworths have done something rare with a famous child: they let her be in the movie and then let her be bored by it. India has two Marvel credits and, by her father’s own account, the attitude of a girl who would rather be at a concert. That is exactly the right amount of interest in Hollywood at 14. In 2022 she refused to kiss a sticky head; in 2026 she negotiated her fee. A star is born, as her father likes to say, just not the kind the studio had in mind.
Sources
- Marvel Entertainment: “Thor Will Return | Avengers: Doomsday” (YouTube)
- Chris Hemsworth on Instagram (@chrishemsworth), December 2022
- Marvel.com: Meet Gorr’s Daughter, Chris Hemsworth’s Real-Life Daughter India
- Variety Australia: Thor stars in second Avengers: Doomsday teaser
- WEAR-TV: Chris Hemsworth had to bribe his daughter to appear in Avengers: Doomsday (The View, February 2026)
- ET Online: Chris Hemsworth shares photos of daughter India on the Thor set
- GamesRadar: Every Thor: Love and Thunder cameo explained
