Natalie Portman Had To Undergo A Physical Transformation For This Flick!

It's opening weekend for the highly-anticipated sequel, "Thor: Love and Thunder" and many fans are hopeful.

The fourth sequel to Marvel's "Thor" franchise is like none other, putting a female superhero — astrophysicist Jane Foster played by the iconic Natalie Portman— at the center.

For those familiar with the franchise, astrophysicist Foster isn't a newcomer on the scene. She was right there from the start in 2011's "Thor" and its subsequent sequel, 2013's "Thor: The Dark World."

However, she took a break, skipping 2017's "Thor: Ragnarok," and now she's back with a bang! Nevertheless, for actress Portman who has always played the role of Foster, returning after almost a decade wasn't so easy, especially when it came down to her relationship with her co-stars.

During a recent interview with Vogue Australia, Portman opened up about her eventful return to the franchise and how it has been relating with her co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, as well as director Taika Waititi.

The trio was quite a force, working successfully on “Thor: Ragnarok,” but with Portman now joining them now on “Love and Thunder,” she didn’t particularly feel like she belonged.

“It was incredible to get to come back, and also kind of surreal,” Portman revealed. “It’s so strange when something is very familiar but also, you’re kind of the new kid.”

She continued, “Because Chris and Tessa and Taika had worked together on Ragnarok, and so successfully and so it was like they were all reuniting and I was this newbie in there trying to figure out how to fit in.”

Regardless, the “Black Swan” star had a swell time with her “Thor” family, lauding them as the “nicest people.” She also recalled working with Hemsworth and Thompson on previous separate projects.

“So there was a lot of familiarity and comfort in that world too, but it was this weird mix of being the veteran and the newbie at the same time, she confessed.

When the interviewer insisted that she was in no way a newbie, Portman responded, “I was there at the beginning! But at the same time, you’re the outsider to this group.”

Touching on her reconnection with Thompson, whom she worked with on “Annihilation,” the Jerusalem native mentioned that it was great to have a reunion.

In her words, “Those are my favorite scenes of mine in the movie too, when I get to work with her. There’s this love and partnership that we have in real life that I think comes into our scenes together.”

She praised Thompson’s character Valkyrie and the sisterhood reflected on screen with their roles.

Indeed, their real-life bond was put on display during a recent press junket where Portman and Thompson channeled Cher and Dionne from the 1995 cult flick, “Clueless.”

Apart from having to reintegrate herself into the “Thor” family, Portman also had to reinvent herself physically.

As seen in the trailer, Portman looked bulky and stronger, a physique befitting of the superhero who now wields the Mjölnir.

As The Blast reported, the 41-year-old opened up about the intense strength training and diet she underwent to achieve such weight.

”We did a lot of weight training and a lot of protein shakes — heavyweight training that I haven’t ever done before. It was a lot of both agility work and also strength work.”

Although Portman readily participated in the intense bulking routine, it came as a shock to her that she was asked to get bigger.

In her almost three-decade career which boasts of several fan-favorite movies such as “Star Wars,” “V for Vendetta,” and “No Strings Attached,” Portman has never been asked to get bigger.

She explained, “on ‘Black Swan,’ I was asked to get as small as possible. Here [Love and Thunder], I was asked to get as big as possible. That’s an amazing challenge, even for my state of mind as a woman.”

Portman noted that it felt “different” to navigate life as a big person given that she has been petite all her life.