Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Liam Hemsworth

Episode Date: February 17, 2019

Liam Hemsworth is the youngest of the famous Hemsworth brothers, best known for starring with Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” movies and for his recent marriage to Miley Cyrus. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist chats with the Australian actor about the legendary brother fights in his household growing up, and later fighting his brother Chris for the role of “Thor.” Liam also discusses trying his hand at comedy in the new movie “Isn’t it Romantic.” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks so much for clicking and for subscribing. My guest this week is Liam Hemsworth. I'm guessing you know one or all of three things about Liam Hemsworth. Number one, he's one of the Hemsworth brothers. There are three of them. His brother Chris, of course, is the star of Thor. You know that Liam starred with Jennifer Lawrence in all the Hunger Games movies.

And you probably know that Liam was married in December after about 10 years of dating to Miley Scyon. Liam and I got together, sit down to talk about growing up in that household in a remote part of Australia where three boys from one house all grew up to become Hollywood stars. He talked about, believe it or not, fighting his brother Chris for the role of Thor. I did not know that. They were both up for that part. Chris got it. He didn't get it, but that was a twist of fate for Liam because it moved him into the movie where he met his wife, Miley Cyrus. Liam and I got together here in New York, and we started things off by talking about his latest movie, Isn't It Romantic? Where he jumps into comedy for the very first time with a co-star Rebel Wilson. Our conversation with Liam Hemsworth right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Liam, thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it. Thank you.

I told you. I just got finished watching the movie a couple hours ago. Such a good time. Such a fun movie. What did you think when it came your way, when you got this script? Did you get it right away, what they were going for, a little sense? end up of romantic comedies? At first, I loved it. And I was like, oh, this is really cool.

And then I kind of do this with a lot of scripts I get. I read it, and, you know, I'll have a first impression that I think it's either really great or it's really bad. This time I thought it was really good. But then a couple weeks later, after I'd sort of gone through the process of meeting the director and the director was great, I love him. I don't know. Then I started getting cold feet about it.

I was like, I don't know, guys. I'm not sure if this is what I want to go. do. I'm not sure if, you know, this is the next thing for me. And then had about seven different phone calls with all my agents saying that, no, you should do it. I think this is going to be really good. And for me, it was just a chance to go do something, you know, a little bit lighter. Sure. And be more fun and playful and just sort of get out of the serious world for a little bit. To where did that doubt come from when you went back and the sort of the peaks and valleys of what we're doing? It's just part of my process. Oh, is it? I think, yeah, every time I read a script, I'll sort of, I go through

this up and down period of liking it and not liking it and doubting it and then thinking it's great and it's I think it's just my crazy mind. So your agents know that and they're like just ride out he's going to doubt it for a little bit. He'll come back around. I know how I handle it now. Like often like I won't even like I'll read something. I'm like no I don't want to meet the director. I'm really not into it. I don't want to waste their time. And then they'll be like just sit down with the director. I'm like okay I will and then I'll meet the director. I'm like I actually really like it now. I really like the director. I really like the script. Character seems great. I think we should do it. Just blowing with the wind.

Yeah. It's great. It's great. mentioned you haven't really done comedy like this before. We know you from The Hunger Games movies and Independence Day and all those kind of films. Did that feel like a leap for you to now, okay, maybe this is the time of my career to show this side? Let's see how it goes. It felt like a time to do something different, definitely. I think, you know, I'm probably closer to, you know, in my real life, I'm not very serious most of the time. So, you know, I grew up with my brothers. We're always talking to shit and all that kind of stuff. So I wasn't nervous about doing comedy.

I think I just, you know, I just wanted to sort of hold my own with people like Adam and Rebel who are, you know, comedians. Yeah. Extremely funny. Yeah. I just wanted to keep up with them and do my best. I think you'll probably surprise some of your fans who maybe don't know that side of you. Yeah. Don't get to hang out with you.

Yeah. See movies and you'll come on screen. I actually thought it's funny you mentioned your brother. when I saw Chris in Ghostbusters. It was almost the same effect of seeing this and that where I said, oh, here's this big sort of superhero movie guy being funny. And I think sort of one of the things that both of us,

I won't speak for him, but I think he did kind of do this. He's just trying to make, you know, trying to find as many moments as possible to make fun of yourself and make the characters sort of self-deprecating. And I think it's easier to side with that character and it to be more likable, you know, if it's, if you're kind of playing off yourself, you know, you're making fun of the whole thing and yourself. I don't know, I think audiences just, they buy into that more than if, you know,

on page for this particular script, my character was kind of, you know, the typical sort of nice guy, charismatic, rich billionaire that she's supposed to fall in love with, you know, it's actually the opposite way around. but I wanted him to just be kind of wacky and self-deprecating. Oh, that's interesting. So you added that in? That wasn't the original design. Yeah, I mean, there was an element of it in the script,

but I think it was a little bit more down the middle. And I just wanted to sort of, you know, expand that a little more and really have fun with it. Most of the stuff that's in the background was just me doing shit that I thought I wasn't on camera and then it was on camera. Well, you said you just saw it for the first time last night. I was surprised by some of the stuff. up that made it in the movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A few of those background moments were just stuff. I was like, hey, just put a camera over here real quick. I'm going to do something. But, yeah, it looked like it worked. So now does this mean we're going to see more comedy from you? Obviously, people are going to see this and go, oh, he's funny. Is this where you're headed now? I definitely really enjoyed it.

I came away from it feeling sort of, you know, uplifted and just kind of motivated to explore that path a little more. It's really fun. And comedians are the best people to work with. It's just hilarious being on set at all times. That must be. I mean, Rebel is such a force of nature. And she's so physical in her comedy.

And she's just big and loud and everything she does. She's great. It's hysterical. Was that daunting at all to try to play in her sandbox a little bit? We've sort of known each other for a few years. It always kind of bump into each other everywhere. And we've had a couple scripts over the years that we've been trying to do together. And then this one came around.

And, you know, in real life, she's super down to earth and very sweet and calm and I guess not what you'd sort of expect from the role she's played. So, no, I wasn't nervous about working with her. I just wanted to keep up with everyone and make sure I didn't mess up anything. I don't want to give too much away, but you do a nice little musical number too, my friend. Thanks, yeah, yeah. The man can move a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, that was probably, that was one of the scarier parts of this project was.

It wasn't in the script originally the whole dance number at the end of the film. And when we did some reshoots, about six months ago, I think, they were like, yeah, we're going to do this big song and dance. I was like, oh, really? And then it was just basically about trying to come up with as many, you know, reasons as to why I shouldn't do it and why it's a bad idea. Here we go again. Yeah.

But then it actually turned out, it was really fun. And I think it's a nice way to end the film, you know. So without giving too much away, for people who are thinking about going to see this, how do you explain this movie that's sort of a movie within a movie that's sending up another kind of movie? Yeah, it's, you know, it is,

it's called, isn't it romantic? It is a romantic film, but it's not in the typical sense. You kind of think that, you know, it's about falling in love with someone else. But as the story goes on, you realize it's about Rebel's character, learning to love herself

and empowering herself. and, you know, and then she can love other people. But it's, yeah, it's a personal journey, I think, with herself. So are you a romantic comedy fan? Do you watch romantic comedy movies? A little bit, yeah. Yeah? You got a favorite? Probably ten things I hate about you.

Oh, love that movie. Nice choice. Heath Ledger, love him. Yeah, that's got to be up there. I've got to stop bringing up Clueless, but Clueless is up there, too. Never stop bringing up Clueless. Classic. That's for the age.

I've said it so many times over the years, I think it's starting to get a little weird. Is that your favorite? If you had to watch one movie, is that to go to your Clueless? Really? No. No, well, maybe. I don't know. Depends if my mom was there or not.

I used to watch Clueless with my mom when I was a kid, so that's what sort of holds it. That's interesting. When did you guys first learn about movies? When we first exposed to movies growing up? I always loved movies at a pretty young age. I honestly, I could sit inside and watch movies all day, but I wasn't allowed to, if I had the choice, I would have. But I grew up on movies like Ghostbusters and the Goonies and Sandlock Kids and the Never

Ending Story and Kids films that I think were a little more intelligent than they're often made these days, you know, that I think they, I think these days we kind of undermine how intelligent kids are. So we kind of make, you know, often kids' films are a little bit more light and fluffy. But I think back then there was a, I don't know, there was just a bit more depth to them. I think, you know, never-ending story and the Goonies and things like that were dark films. I was going to say, Goonies has a little edge to it. I have a nine-year-old son.

Yeah. And we watched it again. I was like, oh, I forgot, this is a little dark. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But now I've always loved films. Yeah. It wasn't until, so at the end of high school that I'd started watching my brothers do TV shows in Australia. and then I sort of made the decision that I was like, I'm going to go give it a shot. Was your early childhood, talking about eight, nine, ten years old, as sort of wild as it's been made out to be,

living on this island? Well, yeah, we moved down to the island when I started high school. So when I was born in a place called Sassafras, which is sort of out in the middle of the forest, about an hour outside of Melbourne. And yeah, I think from, up until the age of about 10, things were pretty wild around the house with three boys.

We're pretty, you know, very boisterous. Fights. Yeah, there was all, yeah, all that kind of stuff. Never with, I never fought with my oldest brother, Luke. We were always fine. I think I can probably count twice in my whole life where I've had serious fights with Luke. But me and Chris, when we're kids, it was just always, we just, we're very headstrong. And I think it had similar ideas about things, but also very different ideas.

about things. And often it ended up in some sort of knife fight. A knife fight. A knife fight. Yeah. The switch blade comes out. Yeah, pretty much. That's an intense backyard.

It's your place. You guys also live, as you moved, I guess, in high school, sort of rural, right? With, you know, crocs and everything else. Yeah, so we started out there. And then when I turned 11 and started high school, we moved down to a place called Phillip Island, which is, you know, farmland.

farmland by the ocean. We started surfing before we moved down there when we were kids and we just ended up, we got, we had a holiday house down at Phillip Island this place and we ended up kind of spending more time there than we were in Sassafras. So we decided to move down to Phillip Island. And by that point, Chris and Luke had both finished high school and I was just starting high school. But it was, it was great. I loved growing up down there. I was able to surf every day and, you know, It was a small community, a small town, it was safe. It was a really, really cool place to go up. And then so when does acting come into your life as an actual viable, perhaps even a career down the road?

Is it from watching your brothers? Yeah, I think it was when I was about 16. And I went up to, we had like work experience week where you go and work with your parents or your brothers or something. So I decided to go up to Sydney where Chris was shooting a show called Homeman. away at the time. And I spent a week there kind of, you know, in the background, just watching him do his thing. And the whole time, like, you know, not in an arrogant way, but I was like, I feel like I can do this better than some of these people, if not all of them. And, you know, I just, I had like, this inner feeling that that was what I wanted to do and I felt confident

about it, you know. And so then I basically, I went, I went back to Victoria after that. and Chris set me up with an agent and then I started doing some acting classes outside of school for about a year and just trying to get as much experience as I could before I actually, you know, got a job. And then in my last year of school, I got my first job about probably two months into my last year of school. I got my first job and it was only three or four days on a TV show called McLeod's daughters in Australia. And when I came back from that, I was kind of sitting in the Year 12 Common Room and people were doing homework and things like that. And at that time, I ended up only doing about three or four subjects because English was the only one that you had to do mandatory.

And then I did like art, woodwork. and I was doing drama up until my last year and then I quit drama just because I felt that it wasn't going to help me in any way, that the curriculum was wrong for if you actually are a young kid and you want to explore acting as a career in television, that it really wasn't going to help me in any way. It was all about Greek sort of theater mythology and all this other stuff and not a lot of practical kind of things that would help a young actor. get the experience I need to go and, you know, do it as a career. So I actually quit drama in my last year, but we're still doing these other acting

classes that were in Melbourne, which was an hour and a half away from Phillip Island. So two nights a week, my mum would drive me from Phillip Island after school, and I'd do these acting classes for about four hours a night. Were your parents always supportive? Yeah. Yeah, they were. They were extremely supportive, but at the same time, you know, always made sure that we at least had a plan B, you know, of an idea if this didn't work of what we would do and what we could do.

What would that have been for you? Yeah, some form of trade. Yeah, I mean, I was, I was, when I left school right after that first job and I was auditioning, you know, three or four times a week, when I wasn't auditioning, I was laying floors with my oldest brother, Luke. So I was doing that. So, you know, probably would have gone into that or building houses or some form of tried.

Maybe. Or something else. We were talking about Neighbors, the show, and what a sort of gateway it is to Hollywood for Aussie actors. I was telling you, we talked to Margot Robbie a couple weeks ago. She said, that's where I learned how to act, the neighbors and Russell Crowe and your brother, obviously. It's an incredible list.

What is it about that show that is such a stop along the way for actors who come out of Australia? I think Australians, young Australian actors are so lucky to have those kinds of shows because you get to spend, you know, about. a year or a couple months or a couple years on these TV shows that are basically, I mean, they're shown in Australia and I think maybe 47 other countries, but not America. So they're kind of a good platform to just get experience and learn the ropes. And, you know, those soaps, you shoot 10 scenes a day or something.

You know, it's just you're churning it out all day long. So you get, once you've done that, going and shooting at feature films a lot easier because you're generally shooting, you know, two or three or four scenes a day on a feature film, if not less than it. So if you can go do those sort of TV shows for a couple of years and just become comfortable with set life and everything that goes with it, I think we're, you know,

we're so lucky to have those shows in Australia. That's a big leap, though, to leave home and move to Hollywood. It's when you made still a teenager, I think, 18, 19 years old, something like that. Tell me about that decision. What was the conversation at home about that? So I'd sort of, you know, it was always the goal to end up, you know,

in America and doing films here. I'd spent maybe two years doing different TV shows in Australia kind of bouncing around from various projects and then shot a feature film in Australia called Triangle, which Melissa George was in, and it was this decent budgeted film for an Australian film. But it was a thriller. And Chris called me from America when I was shooting that.

Um, you know, he's like, how's it going? I was like, yeah, it's all good. It's all good. And he's like, you feeling nervous? I'm like, no, not really. He's like, he's like, that's great. It took me three years to get comfortable being on a set. Three years of doing a home and away where before he felt really comfortable on a set.

I'm like, no, I'm fine. It's going well. Did you mean it or did you just not want to show home or build of your brother? It was a mixture of bluffing it for him and just my own mind, you know? I'll just bluff it. I'm like, everything's fine. It's all good. I'm okay.

I'm fine. But inside. I was like, oh, my God. Could have talking yourself into it, working up some courage. Yeah. And so he had been over there and he said, it's okay over here. Come on over. Let's see what happens.

Yeah, he'd been over there for not that long, probably six months or so at that time, maybe a year. And then, what was it? I shot Triangle and then came back to Melbourne. And I started, that's right, I started sort of sending tapes over to the States. Sorry, while I'll just quickly have a sip. Hit the tea. Hit some cruise hay if you need to. Crunchy chips.

Yeah, so I started sending tapes over to the States for different projects. And one of them was for the expendables and one of them was for Thor. And I got called back, got flown over to the States for both of those. So I got called in for Thor to do a screen test for it. Chris had auditioned over here but didn't even get called back for it. You know, a second audition or a screen test or anything like that. They were just like, no, he's not right. We know how it ends, obviously.

But so there was that, and then there was expendables. And then so I got flown over it. And I was literally going to shoot expendables. I was going to fly to the States and then get my visa issued and then go to Brazil or something where they were going to shoot the first one. And then when I, right before, the day before I was about to fly to the States, but I was still in Australia. My Australian agent calls me.

And he goes, hey, mate, take a seat. I was like, oh, sick. I was sitting down. He's like, yeah. They've rewritten the script and the part's not in there anymore. I'm like, oh, okay, good. That's good news. Thanks for that.

But luckily, and the most embarrassing thing about it all was like I'd spent, you know, a couple weeks telling all my friends. You know, I'm going over to shoot with Sylvester Salone and Dolf Lundran and, you know, all those guys, Ranikkut. And then all of a sudden it wasn't happening. And some people didn't really even believe me, I think. They're like, yeah, bull-h-h-dud. You're going to go shoot with the best action heroes in the world.

Like, sorry, I can't speak. You can't. You can't. You know, and so it was just, it was this moment of like, oh, God, what am I going to tell people? I've told everyone that was happening and now it's not. So it didn't happen. Luckily, my flight was the next day.

And so I just didn't tell any of my friends. I was like, well, I'm not going to admit that to anyone. I'm just going to fly over there. I've still got this screen test for Thor. Right. Which hopefully, you know, something comes out of that. And that didn't happen. Then Chris got called back in and then he got the job.

So it was kind of like I had these two jobs, you know, almost had these two jobs. And then nothing again. And then I was just basically on a holiday visa in L.A. for three months and just auditioning pretty much every day until I got something. Is that a bizarre thing to be up for the same job as your brother, the guy? You were beating up around the house, your whole childhood? Yeah. Yeah. There hasn't been too many of those sorts of things.

You know, Thor was the biggest thing we've been up for together. But I always felt too young for it. I mean, that was the problem. I was 18 at the time or something. So you're hanging around L.A. Hanging around L.A. You're missing. You're going to miss those two jobs.

What's the first moment? We go, okay, I've got work. Here we go. It was the last song. Right. Yeah. That was the first job I got. And it was like literally right at the end of my three-month visa

where I'd, you know, again, I'd lost these two jobs and, or didn't get these two jobs. and then basically had nothing. I'm like, I'm going to have to go home and admit to all my friends that that film didn't happen and that one didn't happen. And I'm just a lying idiot right now. Back to laying the floors. Exactly, yeah. And it was starting to kind of sink in and get sort of depressing and sad.

Chris was celebrating with my agent about getting Thor and about getting Red Dawn, another film he was doing at the time. His whole world's opening up. Mine was kind of crumbling. But then, yeah, then the last song happened and it's hard to everything. Do you ever think about the crazy twist of fate that is, given who you met on that movie, that you didn't get those two parts? Yeah, and originally another kid was cast before me.

They cast another kid and it didn't work out with him. Is that right? Yeah. And then they're like, hey, like my agent calls me, like whispering. He's like, hey, what are you doing? I was like, just sitting in your guest house, man. He's like, all right, you've got to go to Disney right now. It's not working out with the other guy.

Like, you've got to go in and, you know, read with Miley again. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Sort of rice over to Disney and I come in and everyone starts clapping. They're like, we should have gone with you first. Okay, good. Thanks. Great. That's a crazy story. Yeah. There are so many pieces that could have gone different ways. Yeah. It's sort of weird how it all kind of comes together.

And then 10 years later, I'm here, married. Yeah. You've said that the Hunger Games, the Four Hunger Games movies, which I think now have grossed together, like $3 billion or something like that. completely changed your life. Yeah. How so? I definitely opened up a lot of doors.

You know, each job's more experience. I learn more each job and get to work with great people. I think, you know, one of the best things about those movies was the friendship we all made with each other. You know, from the actors to the crew as well, they were all pretty much the same from the first film. So, you know, you establish a really strong connection with everyone. And yeah, it was just, it was a lot of fun and opened up a lot of doors for me.

Do you feel your life-changing when that movie blew up? Yeah, it was pretty quick. When the first one came out, we did the first tour, you know, and every interview is like, are you ready? Are you ready for everything to change? I guess so. I don't know. So, you know, there's no way of preparing for any of that kind of stuff.

You'd take it sort of day by day. But those tours were just, we're insane. You know, we'd go all around the world. turn out to these premieres and there'd just be thousands of kids there. Yeah, I mean, it was really scary at first. What do you do? I mean, you and your brothers have the same reputation that you remain the regular guys. You've always been, you especially in such a high-profile marriage, too, for 10 years.

People have been talking about you and the cover of tabloids and all the rest of it. How do you keep any normalcy at the center of your life or relative normalcy? I think it just comes from our upbringing, you know, just really good parents that just taught us good things and ways of looking at life and having a good sort of open heart to everything and other people's sort of feelings about things or, I don't know, I think it's just about being a good person and being nice or something. I don't know where I'm going. You're uncomfortable talking about how normal you are. Just a normal guy. I get that. It's a really normal guy.

Celebrities, they're just like us. You did also mention that 10 years later, 10 years later you're married. I see you have some new jewelry on your finger. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. How was the day? It was great.

It was a really special day. It was pretty much just immediate family. and yeah it's I you know I feel really happy and really fortunate to be with such a such a great person yeah it's I mean we've been through so much together over the last you know better part of 10 years so felt like it was time and yeah I'm just I'm really happy about it all it's a really really nice thing to go through along the same lines of how you keep your life normal with your family how do you keep your marriage and your relationship relatively normal with such a spotlight on the both of you yeah which is I mean

we just try to keep as much of it private as we can. I mean, it's hard. There's a lot of things we can't control, obviously. But I think not buying into the things that are maybe set about us. I mean, I think I was just saying in the car over here, I think I've been fake married about 9,000 times before my actual real marriage. You know, I got so many texts when it actually did happen from friends like, is it real this time or is it still fake?

I'm like, no, it's actually real this time. But no, we just, you know, try to just keep things personal and private and, I don't know, do normal stuff. I've got dogs and I shower every day most days. You do? Yep. That's the key to a good marriage. Occasionally cook some food. Daily shower.

You know, just general normal stuff. Congratulations, man. Thanks, buddy. Thank you for the time. Appreciate it. My thanks to Liam Hemsworth for sitting down with me. You can catch his new movie, isn't it romantic, in theaters now? And my thanks as always to all of you for clicking, tuning in, and subscribing to the Sunday Sitdown podcast.

To hear more of the full-length conversations with my guests every week, be sure you click that subscribe button when you get to listen for free. What kind of deal is that? That's a good deal. Don't forget to tune in as well to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.