‘It’s like a therapy couch,” says Chris Hemsworth, as he takes a seat on a chaise longue in the London hotel room where we’re meeting. He laughs, but it quickly becomes clear the Australian actor is more than ready to examine his life and the image he has long presented to the world.

As Thor, the God of Thunder, Hemsworth has come to embody a certain idea of masculinity: invulnerable, assured, unshakeable. The role, which spanned nine films, put him up among the world’s highest paid actors and made him a global pin-up. Yet the confidence was, in part, a construction. “The character you see in interviews,” he says, easing into the chaise longue, “and the presentation of myself over the last two decades working in Hollywood, it’s me – but it’s a creation too. It’s what I thought people wanted to see.”

In his new lead role in Crime 101, director Bart Layton’s cool procedural thriller, Hemsworth plays a different kind of character. An action figure, certainly, but one whose inner world is defined by doubt and vulnerability. “I felt quite exposed in this role,” the 42-year-old says, as Layton sits next to him. “I wasn’t able to hide behind a vocal quality or posture the way I could with Thor and these larger characters. It was about doing the opposite.”

When Hemsworth was first cast as Thor, he says he was “far more uncomfortable and goofy” than he was willing to present. Behind the scenes, he was dealing with severe performance anxiety and panic attacks, but the physical transformation helped him feel less intimidated. Training his body, lowering his voice, inhabiting a more imposing posture, he felt able to occupy the space. “I felt like, ‘OK, cool, no one can fuck with me.’ Playing a god became a safety net. It fooled people into thinking I was that confident, that certain.”

“When I met you,” Layton says. “I was expecting a very different kind of human, who was more classically alpha. And what you find is someone who’s really thoughtful and sensitive and insecure in the way we all are.”

It was these qualities that Hemsworth had to tap into for Crime 101. Based on a 2020 novella by Don Winslow, the film is about Mike Davis, a gentleman jewel thief whose string of heists along Route 101 have mystified police. When he plans the score of a lifetime, his path crosses with a disillusioned insurance broker (Halle Berry) and a dishevelled detective (Mark Ruffalo), forcing each to confront their own existential crises.

The film, which also stars Barry Keoghan as Davis’s rival and Monica Barbaro as his love interest, is a neo-noir love letter to Los Angeles, and evokes cinematic thrillers such as Michael Mann’s Thief and Heat, as well as The Thomas Crown Affair and The Getaway, both of which star Steve McQueen, Davis’s hero in the film.

“We talked about all the movies we grew up with,” says Layton, “and felt, ‘Where are they now?’” That question dovetailed with the British film-maker’s own ambivalence about LA and the status anxiety it breeds, and how easily self-worth becomes entangled with how others see you. “I was fascinated by that. How much of what we all do – even me wanting to direct a Hollywood movie – is about how others see me?”

The same preoccupation runs through Layton’s two previous films, his Bafta-winning 2012 documentary The Imposter – about a French conman who convinced a Texas family he was their missing son – and the 2018 docudrama American Animals, which dramatised a real-life heist of the library of Transylvania University in Kentucky. Both films interweave fictionalised scenes and interviews with the actual people involved, exposing how easily fantasy and self-mythology can collapse into reality. “Most of us live within a set of social expectations,” Layton says. “What about the people who step outside that?”

It makes sense then, that in Crime 101 there are no moral absolutes. The good guys aren’t purely good, the bad guys aren’t purely bad. Davis takes only what insurance can replace and ensures no one he steals from is ever hurt. He even returns his victims’ phones so they don’t lose their family photos. What unites the characters is ambiguity, a sense of being trapped in roles that no longer fit.

“They’re all at a point where a transformation needs to occur,” Hemsworth says. “They’re like, ‘I’m done wearing this mask. This personification of myself that has been created via either societal expectations, or my own assumption that if I add these things to my entity then I’ll feel fulfilled.’ But what they’re all searching for is connection, love and friendship.”

One film that particularly resonated with the actor was Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo, about a man who possessed all the visible markers of success – the Armani suits, the cars, the beautiful women – yet remained profoundly alone. “There’s such a tragedy to it. He’s still a lonely child, in a way.”

Has his own concept of success changed over the years? “Absolutely. I used to think maybe if I was nominated for something I’d feel good about myself. Or maybe if I had the biggest film of all time, or launched another franchise, then I’d feel fulfilled. It’s absurd. My self-worth doesn’t rest upon all of those exterior things any more – though I still have to remind myself.”

That recalibration has been sharpened by what he describes as a “middle passage” in life. Recent years, and particularly his father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, have prompted a slowing down. “My appetite for racing forward has really been reined in,” he says. “I’ve become more aware of the fragility of things. You start thinking, ‘My dad won’t be here for ever.’ And my kids are now 11 and 13. Those nights where they’d fight over sleeping in our bed – suddenly they’re not happening any more.”

It has reshaped how he thinks about work. Early in his career, choices were driven by a desire for financial security. “I’d think, ‘I came from nothing. Who am I to turn down that kind of money?’ Justifying things that weren’t the purest creative decision – but I’ll be able to pay for my parents’ house, or I’ll be able to help out my cousins.”

Now he’s more conscious of asking himself when enough is enough – a question that mirrors his character’s dilemma in Crime 101. “My wife [Spanish actor Elsa Pataky] jokes, ‘What’s the number?’ I still wrestle with that. But I’m getting better at relaxing, making more curated decisions, working with people I admire.”

In his 2022 documentary series Limitless, Hemsworth disclosed that his maternal grandfather had Alzheimer’s disease, and he himself is eight to 10 times likelier to develop the condition than average. The subject was explored further in a 2025 follow-up, A Road Trip to Remember, which centred on his father Craig’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

Going public, Hemsworth says, was not an easy decision. “I wondered if I was letting people too far in. Are they no longer going to believe in the action star or the Marvel character? And do I want people to know my fears and insecurities to this level?”

But he regards the documentary as one of the most important things he’s ever made. “It was so deeply personal. It was a love letter to my father. It empowered him for a period, and stimulated memories that were being taken away from him.” He even had strangers with Alzheimer’s come up to him and say they wanted their kids to see the film. “People like to pretend it’s not happening, because it’s so uncomfortable for them, so you suffer in silence. People talk to you about the footy, and the weather and stuff, and no one actually says, ‘How are you doing? Are you scared? Are you afraid?’”

Hemsworth’s father worked as a social services counsellor in child protection, which the actor drew on while researching his Crime 101 character Mike. “I’ve discussed with my dad the tragic circumstances kids face, the deep need for love and connection, and how you can go searching in all the wrong places when you don’t get it.” He also used an app to read testimonies from people on Skid Row, who “wear their heartbreak on every inch of their being”.

Layton, meanwhile, spoke to real-life counterparts to all his characters, including jewel thieves in prison. “We heard some crazy stories. One famous jeweller said he would be sending jewels through a FedEx service, and these fake FedEx guys turned up early and pulled guns on them. The stories were more outlandish than fiction.”

For Layton, the heist genre offered an opportunity to make something propulsive and thoughtful. “I wanted to deliver what you want from a really fun night out at the cinema,” he says. “It’s not IP-driven. It’s more like the films we grew up loving – while also prompting reflection. And I think people will come out feeling blown away by what Chris has done.”

• Crime 101 is released in cinemas in the UK and US on 13 February, and in Australia on 12 February