COVER MODEL MUSCLE COVER MODEL MUSCLE LIAM HEMSWORTH LIAM HEMSWORTH Hungry For More As far as preparation for the big time goes, being best mates with Jennifer Lawrence and younger brother to Thor goes a long way. Which is just as well for Liam Hemsworth – it’s about to blow up for the A-list’s newest heavyweight > WORDS BY DAN MASOLIVER – PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRIK GIARDINO ON A ROLL: LIAM HEMSWORTH’S CAREER HAS BEEN GAINING SERIOUS MOMENTUM 68 MEN’S HEALTH MEN’S HEALTH 69 COVER MODEL MUSCLE LIAM HEMSWORTH NUMB3RS “We knew GAM3 Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson The Hunger Games franchise is already with keeping each other grounded. one of the most “What’s great about having made such that at least profitable in history good friends with Jen and Josh is that OUTNUMBERED, we’re able to share it all together and NOT OUTGUNNED experience it as a threesome,” he says a few people While James Bond before pausing, realising the implication has 24 films to his of what he’s just said. “You know, we’re name, THG so far really close,” he deadpans conspiratorially. dwarfs it on average “Really, really close.” takings per film. TRIPLE THREAT: were going BATTLING HIS OLDER BROTHERS HAS GIVEN The family firm HEMSWORTH AN EDGE Good looks, ham-sized triceps and Hollywood superstardom would appear to see it,” to run in the family. Liam is the youngest £389m £144m of three Hemsworth brothers, all three says Liam Hemsworth with typical actors, all three six foot-plus with features humility. He’s reflecting on the 2012 release MAGIC seemingly chiselled from stone. Luke, of The Hunger Games, a series of films MONEYSHOT the oldest, is mainly a TV actor and that in the past four years has secured Going by opening perhaps the least well known. Middle weekend takings, his status as one of the most bankable brother Chris Hemsworth, otherwise THG knocks Harry action stars in Hollywood. Potter out of the known as Thor, is someone with whom There were more than just a few. Quidditch arena. you’re probably more familiar. Three years after its first instalment Growing up on Phillip Island, an The Hunger Games has become one of £144m insignificant collection of dirt roads the most successful film franchises in and surf beaches along the coast from cinema history. By the end of its first £103m Melbourne, the Hemsworth boys made weekend at the box office this month, their own fun. Entertainment included the fourth and final chapter,The SIBLING throwing knives as close as possible to each Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, RIVALRY other’s feet or firing air rifle pellets at looks set to propel the series above Chris may have baby brother Liam’s undeveloped glutes. the James Bond films – all 24 of beaten Liam to the “I was the youngest, so I was never really them – on the all-time list of box part of Thor, but anywhere near their physicality. If they Liam’s dystopian office takings. In four movies it is wanted to beat me up, they would,” he says. series has so far predicted to net close to what Harry made twice as much “But I idolised them. As a kid, I followed Potter and his wand-waving wizard money at the box them into anything and wanted to do chums managed to bank in eight. office than his whatever they were doing. hammer-toting bro. For Hemsworth this has meant And it was always competitive.” a meteoric rise from jobbing soap Beneath his When, in 2004, Chris star to teen idol to bankable box landed a part in seaside office muscle. “You think about gentle exterior soap Home and Away, it was what it might mean when it comes a couple of years before the out – how your life might change,” younger brother decided he he says, “but there’s really nothing there lies fierce wanted a piece of the same. you can do to prepare for it.” What “But then I went and watched followed was a cavalcade of red carpet £1.5bn him on set one day, and I appearances, globetrotting promotional determination clearly remember something tours, calendar shoots, fan selfies and snapping in my mind,” he prying paparazzi – thanks to a high profile £720m says. “It was like, ‘Yeah, I want to do this.’” relationship-turned-engagement-turned- The teenager promptly enrolled on an break-up with a certain Miley Cyrus. acting course, bagged himself an agent, A lesser man, or a bigger ego perhaps, and, in the finest Aussie acting tradition, might have flown off the rails. Hemsworth, landed a small part on Neighbours – playing however, credits co-stars and best mates the improbable role of a wheelchair-bound paraplegic heartthrob. Could he have imagined then the springboard that his Ramsay Street cameo would provide for GUTTER CREDIT GUTTER GROOMING: NATALIA BRUSCHI USING TOM FORD FOR MEN AND BRUSCHI USING TOM NATALIA GROOMING: SAMANTHA MCMILLEN I SET DESIGN: MURPHY I STYLIST: KEVYN I JEANS NUDIE, SHIRTS EYE AGENCY EAGLE AT FAIELLA NICHOLAS VINTAGE BELT JAMES PERSE AND RLL, SHOES VANS, him? “It was definitely the goal,” says 70 MEN’S HEALTH MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MENSHEALTH.CO.UK MEN’S HEALTH 71 COVER MODEL MUSCLE LIAM HEMSWORTH does their sibling rivalry extend to takings at the box office? “Yeah, of course,” he says. “That’s what brothers do.” Hemsworth matter-of-factly. “Before Bodyweight rules places you’ve ever been to. It was this old I even started working on Neighbours in At 6ft 3in, Liam is the tallest of the boxing gym with a really mixed crowd of Australia, I was already thinking about LA.” Hemsworth brothers and, thanks to people and the worst stench. It made you With his soft accent and casual surfer a varied training plan, he’s catching up just want to get in there, get the job done, styling, Hemsworth cuts a laid-back, with his older brother on the physique and get out. That’s how I like it.” easy-going figure. But it would be foolish front, too. But despite looking every inch to mistake his humility for a lack of the action hero, Hemsworth is no great Veg your bets ambition. Beneath the gentle exterior fan of traditional workouts. “I don’t like More impressive than his self-structured there clearly lies fierce generic weightlifting,” he says. “I mean, VEGAN workouts is how he fuels them: for the determination and there are periods where I’m doing lots of past five months Liam Hemsworth has competition, most of all that of course, but for the last six months MUSCLE eaten a vegan diet. Far from hampering with the siblings who once I’ve been trying to spend as much time his gains, he claims never to have felt better: used him for target practice. outdoors as I can: going for a bike ride, MATHS “When I was eating meat I was eating a lot By the time Liam was playing soccer or basketball, going for of meat. I’d feel sluggish after meals and challenging love rivals two-hour hikes and doing as many You too can go green constantly want to have a nap. Now I feel without gutting your to games of wheelchair push-ups as I can on the way.” like my energy levels are much more gains, says strength basketball in Erinsborough, It is 10am in Los Angeles when we and nutrition coach consistent.” Refreshingly though, it’s not older brother Chris was chat and Hemsworth has already been Scott Baptie, with all clean eating. “I tend to go from one already in California. His on a long trek through Malibu Canyon, these smart swaps extreme to the other,” he says. agent had put him forward getting up at 6am to avoid the blistering EGGS < QUINOA “I like gritty “Leading up to a movie I’m for the part of Thor, but Californian sun. He has things to do, Amino acids are the usually pretty healthy. But initially casting agents people to see, waves to ride – he surfed building blocks of then after I’m mostly eating didn’t think him right for competitively up until the age of 18 and protein and, gram- gyms. You get pizza and playing Xbox.” for-gram, this grain the role. Undeterred, young had ambitions of turning pro, before his WHEY = BROWN Hemsworth is currently outdoes eggs. Pile Liam sent them a tape of acting career took off. So when it comes into a salad with RICE PROTEIN in that mode (not that you’d his own. They liked it. to the professional requirement that is spinach; you’ll walk Using enzymatic the job done guess) because he has just processing, protein “Marvel flew me out to the pre-filming shred, he prefers short away a bigger man. wrapped on what is already is extracted from screen test for it and it was bursts of bodyweight exercise. set to be one of the biggest DAIRY < SOY MILK rice and weighs in at and get out” down to me and four other Ahead of the first Hunger Games film, at 24g protein per releases of next summer, Worried about low 30g – equivalent to guys,” he chuckles quietly Hemsworth trained with the legendary calcium levels? The Independence Day: Resurgence. a protein shake. to himself, remembering Hollywood PT Logan Hood, who helped phytoestrogen in Expect high-octane action, explosions how close he came to carve out the obliques of 300’s Spartans. soy actually speeds and comical fisticuffs with odd-looking up absorption of the FISH OIL pipping his brother to the But unusually for an actor of his stature, extra-terrestrials.