Chris Hemsworth thinks about the lost role.
On Thursday, ET chatted with the Australian actor and his Transformers One co-star Brian Tyree Henry after Paramount’s studio presentation at CinemaCon, where Hemsworth recalled a script for a Kevin Costner Project he didn’t get.
“There was a movie, a script, that I read and loved and thought, ‘I want that,’ and then someone said, ‘Kevin Costner has that.’ [role]”‘” Hemsworth told ET’s Kevin Frazier. “I would like that [to have] him as a director. I thought, ‘Damn!’ [I spent] The other day I tried to convince him for an hour and he said, “I’ll do it, boy.” Didn’t work. I didn’t get the role.
Hemsworth explained that the “abstract and interesting” film is “a little story about a man and a woman.”
“Certainly in his wheelhouse you can see it better as far as the type of western environment. There are horses involved, he’s a horse fighter, and my wife read it and loves horses,” Hemsworth added. “We have 10 or 11 horses at home and so she says, ‘You have to do this.'”
When ET spoke with Costner at CinemaCon on TuesdayThe Yellowstone alum joked that Hemsworth had to “wait his turn” because “as long as I’m still young enough to play it, I’ll play it.”
But Costner only had good things to say about the Marvel actor. “He’s so good looking and he’s so good,” he added. “He has to find his [own] love story. [But] I’m glad he likes this. When I reach a moment where I [don’t] I think I could do that, I would do that [reach out]. He is certainly one of our great leaders at the moment.
But until Hemsworth brings his grand love story to the big screen, fans can take a look Transformers One, in which Hemsworth voices Orion Pax, a young Optimus Prime, along with Henry voicing D-16, a young Megatron.
“The big appeal for both of us, as fans of this universe, is the opportunity to tell a different story,” Hemsworth said of the franchise’s first animated film in nearly four decades. The film serves as an origin story for Transformers‘ most popular characters.
Hemsworth continued, “We know her from the past.” [as] Mortal enemies, but here they start out as friends. It’s a great connection and bond, and it’s two individuals who have something to prove. Then the development of the characters that we either love or hate is an interesting journey, but the film has a lot of heart and a lot of comedic elements. So it was a great adventure.
“Yeah, me and Chris figured out that the best way to bring reality into the movie was to live together for the first three months of the movie,” Henry joked. “Just to do a lot of vocal exercises. You know, we even tried to do some of our own choreography that made it into the film.”
“It’s really the juice,” Hemsworth chimed in.
The star-studded voice cast includes Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1 and Keegan-Michael Key as B-127. Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm round out the cast. Oscar winner Josh Cooley directs the film, with a screenplay by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari.
According to Paramount, the film is “the long-awaited origin story of how the world’s most famous characters come to be.” Transformers Universe, Orion Pax and D-16, went from brothers in arms to sworn enemies, Optimus Prime and Megatron.
“It was nice to have the opportunity to revisit it and direct it with Josh [at] “It’s different than a film experience where you take a single shot. “Occasionally there may be repetition, but not to this extent.”
“I really joined in because I knew Chris would be my Optimus Prime and that you just play like that because you can feel the essence of who they are and then sometimes you get a chance to see what they do , and then you go, “Oh, I have to do this completely differently,” Henry told ET. “It really is [us] We lived out our imaginary selves when we were about 10 or 11 years old and saw these things on Saturday mornings. These characters are iconic to me and it’s just a great adventure, especially doing it with this guy. It is wonderful.”
Transformers One hits theaters on September 13th.
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