Natalie Portman Pumped Iron To Bulk Up For 'Thor: Love And Thunder'

Natalie Portman's return wasn't the only thing that shocked fans when the trailer of "Thor: Love and Thunder" was released. Along with Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Karen Gillian, and Cris Pratt, the actress appeared in the trailer of "Thor: Love and Thunder" to reprise her role as Jane Foster, albeit with a little twist.

With almost a decade between her last appearance on Thor, the actress has taken up a more active role from her previous one as an astrophysicist and Thor's love interest. Now Portman as Jane wields Mjölnir as a superhero in her own right.

Besides her new role, fans of the franchise noticed a more physical change in Portman. In an interview last year, the actress revealed how much weight training she had to go through for the role and the change in her vegan diet. Her noticeable physical difference in the released trailer showed that the months of work paid off.

Portman showed up in the "Thor: Love and Thunder" trailer, all bulked up and ready to go. The actress finally reprised her role as Jane Foster after almost a decade away from the Marvel franchise.

In an interview with Vanity Fair dated last August, Portman talked about all she had to do to get the muscles required for the role. According to her, the training was "really fun," and she had to lift a lot of heavyweights. The vegan actress included fitness supplements in her protein shakes for her meals.

The 40-year-old recalled, "We did a lot of weight training and a lot of protein shakes — heavyweight training that I haven't ever done before." The "Black Swan" actress added that the aim was to "get bulky," so everything done was mostly physical. "It was a lot of both agility work and also strength work," she said.

Portman revealed that building up the muscles took four months with a trainer. This was before the shooting of the film started. According to an expert, women who just took up strength training weren't expected to become muscular overnight. In the first year, they would at most, gain around a pound of muscle every month.

Talking about her trainer, she said, "It was really fun. I worked with a trainer, Naomi Pendergast, for, I think, four months before shooting, and then obviously all the way through filming." "The Dark World" actress also mentioned how it helped her "get into character."

"It definitely helps you get into character, and it's definitely changed the way I move," she admitted in the August interview. "You can walk differently; you feel different. I mean, it's so wild to feel strong for the first time in my life."

Fans were unsurprisingly excited and shocked when Portman was revealed in the trailer of "Thor: Love and Thunder." The last time the actress appeared in a Marvel movie was in 2013 for "The Dark World." This excludes her brief appearance in "Avengers: Endgame" in 2019.

Several viewers wasted no time trooping to social media to share their shock. Some even compared the Portman's new look to her previous role in "Star Wars" as Padmé Amidala. A fan gushed, "Swole Natalie Portman is potentially one of the greatest things ever."

Another joked, "After seeing Natalie Portman in the new Thor trailer, I'm on my way to go work on my arms at the gym." "I think my crush for Natalie Portman has comeback tenfold from her days in 'Phantom Menace,'" someone said.

The long-awaited Marvel movie "Thor: Love and Thunder" is finally set to be released in theatres this summer. In this installment, Thor, played by Hemsworth, embarks on a journey to find out "exactly who I am."

The movie's official synopsis read, "The film finds Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a journey unlike anything he's ever faced – a quest for inner peace. But his retirement is interrupted by a galactic killer known as Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), who seeks the extinction of the gods."

In order to stop the "God Butcher," Thor asks for help from a few people, including King Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson, Korg by Taika Waititi, and his old flame Jane. She now wields the superhero's mighty hammer, Mjolnir, as the female God of Thunder, The Mighty Thor.