Did Chris Hemsworth Return As Thor For His Deadpool & Wolverine Cameo?

For a movie that marks Deadpool’s Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, there’s actually not a whole lot of MCU in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” If you don’t count Ant Man’s skull or a Hulk that may or may not be Mark Ruffalo’s version, the only two MCU cameos in “Deadpool & Wolverine” are Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan and Chris Hemsworth’s Thor.

This is a movie that, as /Film’s Chris Evangelista put it, can be quite accurately described as a “disappointing cameo-fest.” “Deadpool & Wolverine” is an ode to the very idea of the cameo itself, bringing in hordes of former 20th Century Fox Marvel stars alongside various “What If”-style guest appearances such as Henry Cavill’s “Cavill-rine” and Channing Tatum’s Gambit. You’d think that in such a movie, which also happens to be Deadpool’s first official MCU outing, we would have gotten more from the Marvel Studios side of things.

But it seems, for this initial go-round, studio head Kevin Feige was keeping the Merc with the Mouth on a short leash in that respect — y’know, just in case “Deadpool & Wolverine” making more than a billion dollars worldwide never actually panned out. In future, we’ll surely see more of Reynolds’ hero interacting with the MCU, but for now Happy Hogan and Thor will have to do. It’s a somewhat disappointing state of affairs when you take into account that Chris Hemsworth didn’t even know he was in the movie.

In “Deadpool & Wolverine,” Deadpool finds himself plucked from his universe’s timeline by the Time Variance Authority — the organization tasked with overseeing the various multiverses. At the TVA offices, Reynolds’ irreverent hero catches a glimpse of himself on one of the monitors, in a scene that shows Chris Hemsworth’s Thor crying over the body of a downed Deadpool. TVA agent, Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), then quickly divert’s Wade’s attention, telling him that this particular moment happens in the “distant future.”

The brief interlude became a running joke in “Deadpool & Wolverine” (that actually might not be a joke), hinting at a possible future that may or may not materialize (although now that “Deadpool & Wolverine” is the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, it almost certainly will). What’s more, it gave us the second-most significant MCU cameo in the movie, with Hemsworth seemingly reprising the role for which he’s best known just to add a few seconds of MCU magic to “Deadpool & Wolverine.” However, he didn’t really reprise anything.

Thor’s appearance in the movie apparently came as quite a surprise to the actor himself, who seemingly had no idea his character was cropping up in the cameo-fest. The Aussie star told ComicBook (via Digital Spy) “I didn’t [know]. Am I in there? It’s really cool,” adding:

“You kind of forget, and be like, ‘Oh, cool! I’m part of the team. They’re talking about me, and I’m not in [the movie]. But, I mean, that whole world is really cool to be part of. “I think what makes it all look really cool is the interconnected nature of it.”

If Chris Hemsworth didn’t even know he was in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” how did Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy manage to get their Thor cameo? Well, as it turns out, creating this brief but seemingly significant moment came down to repurposing footage from a very similar scene in “Thor: The Dark World,” where the God of Thunder cradles a similarly injured Loki (Tom Hiddleston). That, and some creative VFX. 

A photo that Reynolds posted to his Instagram account reveals how he shot this scene — not with Hemsworth, but with Wolverine stunt double Daniel Stevens standing in for Thor via a mo-cap suit.

This footage was then melded with the “Dark World” shots to create the supposed Thor cameo in “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Hemsworth himself took to Twitter/X to congratulate his new MCU cohorts, writing: “Looks like you poured your blood, sweat, and Thor tears into this one!”