You might not yet know too much about rising Hollywood star Jaimie Alexander, but you will do soon. Currently filling cinemas around the world as sexy warrior lady Sif in Thor, which hit Aussie screens this week, Jaimie dropped into Sydney for the world premiere, so we went along to say hello…
Hi Jaimie, how’s the jetlag? It’s still like there are two of you right now! It was so funny at the premiere yesterday, walking down the carpet going “please don’t trip, please don’t trip”, I was so tired. But it’s pure adrenalin because I’m so excited to be here.
How’s the reponse from comic fans? So far it’s been pretty positive. I know that the movie doesn’t follow the comic books to a tee, like with the Thor and Sif love interest thing, but we definitely pay tribute to different comic book storylines, so they’ll be times when Sif has these moments when she’s staring at Thor because she starts to have these feelings, especially when he starts to have this transformation to a better human being, or God. We definitely left the door open for lots of possibilities if there is a sequel. Fingers crossed!
Your role’s very action-packed. Did you do the stunts yourself? I keep reading about how you wrestled at high school… Ha, that’s going to follow me forever! Yeah, I did most of my own stunts and all of the fighting. They would film Kylie, my stuntwoman, doing it first and then we’d jump in and do a take. But yes, I definitely suffered! I really busted my arm open, plus dislocated two ribs. We were fighting people over 6ft 8in and in head to toe prosphetics, it was incredible. Those poor guys had to sit in make-up for six hours or so every morning and then we would just beat them. I was like, “you guys have the worst job on the the planet, I’m sorry!”
Did you have to do a lot of training? Yeah, but it was a lot of fun. Me and the five guys. It was always funny watching Chris [Hemsworth, who plays Thor] trying to do yoga because he can probably benchpress like an entire house, but ask him to do some sort of weird yoga pose and he’s like, “I don’t understand”.
Was it weird hanging out between takes in your outfits? Yeah, they made us have black hooded cloaks so nobody could photograph our costumes! Walking around inside Marvel HQ was fine though. Sometimes we’d go up a level to the offices because they had better soda or something. I’d be in the kitchen making a sandwich or something with my massive costume on, then I’d go back down to work. It was so funny. People were just like, “what is that?”
So what were fellow cast members Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins like to work with? I was like, am I here, for real? I remember Anthony showed up to rehearsal, and Tom [Hiddlestone, who plays Loki] and I were sitting together, I just looked at him and immediately stopped in my tracks. Tom said my face went really red like a little kid! We were both so giddy are hands were shaking. We were like, “it’s Hannibal Lector!” He was so cool. He was like an eight-year-old boy, he was so excited, but in an older man’s body. He had these funny yellow sunglasses and like a top hat and scarf but then shiny blue shoes. I was like, you’re just the most interesting person I have seen in my life. And Natalie was really sweet. She would bake vegan cookies and brownies and all these crazy things and bring them to set every day.
Could you resist doing a Hannibal impression? We actually made him do his stare. He’d do it, then laugh and walk off and we’d be like, did he really just do that? Luckily in the film his costume sort of obscures his face a little bit so it wasn’t as scary. He’s so funny because he plays these tough villain characters but he’s the nicest, funniest older man that I’ve ever met. But he’s not old. Even though he’s in his 70s, he’s up every day and in the gym, he made me feel his biceps one day!
How was working with director Kenneth Brannagh? He wasn’t super intimidating. I was nervous, but he was so nice. It was so funny because he was so excited to work with Anthony, and Anthony would tell me he was so excited to work with Ken, so it was like, why don’t you guys just have a conversation! Ken was always really funny, he’d make really crude jokes.
What will we see you in next? I have a post civil war drama, Savannah, coming out with Chiwetel Ejiofor. It’s kind of a Scarlet O’Hara character, very different! I also have an indie flick, Loosies, with Peter Facinelli from Twilight.
