"They gave me a sticker. A first-place sticker," the actor shared excitedly with his daughter.
Actor Chris Hemsworth is quite beautiful. His physical attributes, such as his enchanting smirk, toned physique, and blue eyes, always go nicely with his stereotypical leading man roles. His devotion to his family, though, is what makes him endearing. It's not particularly rare for an actor to value his family. But an internationally recognized celebrity who expresses his emotions with the same sincerity in public and private—is not the kind of action star Hollywood has typically developed.
In 2018, Hemsworth and a large group of other fathers trained for the "dad's race" at his daughter's school. Hemsworth was sporting jeans and boots while the other dads were wearing activewear. A large audience had gathered. He gave his 6-year-old some fatherly advice hours earlier after watching his daughter compete in the egg-and-spoon race, the 100-meter, and the 200-meter dashes reported GQ. “I was like, ‘It's great, honey. It's not about winning’,” he told his daughter.
Hemsworth's heart was racing as he stood in line. For the sake of his daughter, he really wanted to win, contrary to his own advice to her moments ago! After a poor start, he managed to gather himself, his 'Thor' muscles tensing up. As the contest came to a close, he suddenly became the winner. Unfortunately, his daughter wasn't there to see him. “There was just this wave of nirvana,” Hemsworth recalls. “I turn around and go, ‘Where's my daughter? Where is she?’ And she's like, ‘Dad, did you win?’ And I'm like, ‘Did I win? You didn't see it?!’ They gave me a sticker. A first-place sticker.”
Hemsworth then called his wife, actress Elsa Pataky, to tell her of his brilliant achievement. Pataky did not attend the race, like her daughter. Although she had been out shooting that day, she frequently heard about the Running of the Dads. “I've never seen him so excited, not even about getting a big job,” Pataky says with a laugh. “It was probably one of the best things that have happened to him in his life, which is funny, right? All the things he has achieved,” the adoring wife added.
Hemsworth had to board a plane the next day and travel to London to begin filming his upcoming movie. He was going to leave their house in Byron Bay, Australia, where they lived, to a shoot location for a few months. “She's normally like, ‘Yeah, see you, Daddy. Cool.’ She was like, ‘Papa! Papa! Papa!’ She doesn't always call me Papa, either.” Hemsworth presented her with the shirt he had been wearing the day before, which still had the first-place sticker on it. “I wasn't, like, sobbing, but,” GQ reports, it shattered him.
Although Hemsworth is revered as a brave god by fans of the Thor movies, his best role yet is as a father to his three children, his wife of more than ten years shared. In 2010, they first met in Los Angeles, and she knew right away that her future husband was this man, who was quite mature for his age. But there was still more. She shared, "I could totally feel that he loved kids. And it's something that just melts you, as a woman."
References:
https://www.gq.com/story/chris-hemsworth-is-post-hunk-cover
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Quinn Rooney