Whether you love them or hate them, Marvel movies are undeniably some of the biggest films across the world. While their popularity is nearly unmatched, they have garnered their share of critics since they’ve become box office hits, like Martin Scorsese. Even some of the stars of the movies have started to share some of their problems with the movies, including Anthony Hopkins, who didn’t have the most glowing review of his performance in a New Yorker story, published on Monday, June 5.
The wide-ranging piece focused on how huge Marvel Studios’ impact has been on the movie industry, and the writer discussed the process of working on the movies with some stars, including Anthony, who played Odin in the Thor series. The Oscar-winner said that acting in the films was simple and silly. “They put me in armor; they shoved a beard on me,” he said. “Sit on the throne, shout a bit. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it.”
Anthony made his debut in the first Thor film in 2011. He reprised the role again in 2013’s Thor: The Dark World and 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. He did not return for the 2022 sequel Thor: Love And Thunder. He also didn’t appear in any other MCU films.
While he may have found some of his acting as Odin to be “pointless,” Anthony did admit that working with Kenneth Branagh on the first Thor helped inspire him to continue acting in the book The Story of Marvel Studios. “Branagh gave me back the chops to work. I was gonna give it up, really. But you see, he won’t let you do that,” he said, per DailyMail. “Working with Ken was quite an injection of new energy into my life. He seems to have that same infectious quality on everybody in the crew.” Unfortunately, Kenneth didn’t direct the two sequels to Thor that Anthony appeared in.
The Silence of the Lambs star’s comments are similar to ones that Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese made in 2019, where he said that they were “not cinema” in an interview with Empire magazine. He later clarified his comments in a New York Times op-ed. “In many places around this country and around the world, franchise films are now your primary choice if you want to see something on the big screen. It’s a perilous time in film exhibition, and there are fewer independent theaters than ever,” he said. “For anyone who dreams of making movies or who is just starting out, the situation at this moment is brutal and inhospitable to art.”