The huge and finely chiselled physique he revealed in Thor – and will show off again in the sequel, which is currently shooting – created such a global buzz that there is now an entire workout program named after him. But there is a lot more to Aussie actor Chris Hemsworth than his bulk and deep, bedroom voice.

Marriage and kids
It has been a busy couple of years for the former Home And Away actor. At the end of 2010, the 29-year-old married his long-term girlfriend, actress Elsa Pataky, and in May this year the couple welcomed baby daughter India Rose.

He seems to be relishing his new roles as husband and father.

“Despite everything that’s going on with work, it all paled into the background as soon as we had a baby,” Hemsworth told the press while publicising his movie, Snow White And The Huntsman, in July this year.

“[India Rose] has taken up all of my attention in the best way. It is strange how normal it feels [being a dad] – she’s always with us and it’s a lot of fun.”

Becoming super
He admits his starring role in last year’s Thor was a career breakthrough for him. But becoming the buff and built-up superhero didn’t happen overnight. And he is back doing it again in preparation for the sequel, Thor: The Dark World.

“At the moment, I’m big again because we’re filming [the Thor sequel],” the muscular actor says in the December issue of GQ Australia.

“It’s a lot of work to keep [the bulk] on. I have to do a workout for an hour or two every day and eat ridiculous amounts of protein. I’m pretty much carb free at the moment. It’s so boring.

“You start to feel like people think that’s really you. I suppose it’s fair enough if that’s all they’ve seen of you.”

For the sequel he has ditched the long, blond, “uncomfortable” wigs he wore in the first instalment and The Avengers and has grown his own locks. “But I’d love to shave it off,” he tells GQ.

The Thor diet
Unlike many diets that seem to focus on less being more, to beef up for Thor, Hemsworth had to just keep eating.

“I was eating a lot of clean protein, fruit, vegetables and some carbs, as well as drinking four to five litres of water a day,” he told his fans at a recent comic book convention.

“It was purely eating, eating, eating, working out and working out, trying to sleep as much as you can – that’s the other third of the equation.”

Man of the year
GQ editor Ceri David says Hemsworth was an obvious choice for the magazine’s Man of the Year award because he is a winner on so many fronts. “Of all the guys we’ve raised a glass to this year, Chris has had the most amazing 12 months,” she says.

“He’s barely been out of cinemas, thanks to Snow White And The Huntsman, The Avengers and The Cabin In The Woods. And he’s got five more movies lined up, including Thor: The Dark World, which he’s filming in Europe at the moment.

“If that weren’t a big enough year, his wife gave birth to their little girl in May. Add that to the fact that he looks like a superhero even in real life, and it would be easy to hate him, were it not that he’s also really nice.”

Fitness Hemsworth-style
To get that ripped-looking body, Chris Hemsworth had to do more than build up – once that muscle was in place, he had to get lean or “shrink wrap” his skin around his bulk.

Personal trainer Michael Knight, who whipped Chris Hemsworth into shape for the first Thor film, has revealed his two-step regimen.

“Once Chris put on the muscle, I needed to get him lean, which meant stripping away any fat he had accumulated during the first phase while maintaining all his newly built muscle,” Knight has said.

“I did this by having him do a total-body circuit based around classic strongman moves such as log presses, tyre flips, sledgehammers and circuits with kettlebells. This got him down to his fighting weight of 99 kilos.”