Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett agreed to be Marvel’s first female villain because of her fantastic introduction. In this photo, the actress attends a panel for “Thor: Ragnarok” during the 2017 Comic-Con International Convention in San Diego, California on July 22, 2017. Reuters/Mario Anzuoni

There is a lot of hype for Hela (Cate Blanchett) in “Thor: Ragnarok” because she is Marvel’s first female villain to appear on the big screen. But this fact really surprised Blanchett, since she has already encountered several female villains in comic books.

“I didn’t realize… I was inhabiting the first female Marvel villain onscreen,” Blanchett told E! News. “I thought, ‘Surely not… well, no actually that’s true.’ There’s been many, many, many [female villains] in the comic books, but they’ve been a little tardy in bringing them to the screen, so hopefully there will be a lot more villainesses.”

READ: Which character may be killed off by Hela?

As to what made her agree to join the cast of “Thor: Ragnarok,” Blanchett admitted it wasn’t for the honor of being Marvel’s first female baddie, but for the honor of being the one to destroy Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) beloved hammer, Mjölnir. “That had me at ‘hello’ actually,” Blanchett said of her character destroying Thor’s weapon. “I thought that was really exciting that they were prepared to destroy Thor’s power in the first few minutes. It’s a nice entrance.”

Meanwhile, Hemsworth simply loved having Blanchett on board the franchise. But given her impressive acting portfolio, the Australian actor had to confess that he felt intimidated by her. “It was wildly intimidating but she is one of my favourite people on the planet,” Hemsworth told News.com.au at the 2017 Comic-Con in San Diego. “It’s nice to meet your heroes and it be as good as you’d hoped. She’s just incredibly wonderful and generous and fun and that was one of the best experiences.”

Hemsworth even said he would like to emulate Blanchett’s work ethic. “She has the same sort of attitude that I like to think I follow, which is just to kind of turn up, do the work, have fun, treat everyone with respect, get on with it,” he said.

Their co-star Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk, also feels the same way and has nothing but praise for the actress and her character. “She plays the worst of the worst,” Ruffalo told Entertainment Weekly. “So evil. She is going to kill us. It’s such a great part she gets to play.”

“Thor: Ragnarok” will be released on Nov. 3.

RELATED STORIES