Chris Hemsworth's first big goal was his dad's mortgage

Before Thor, there was a boy who saved a year for a surfboard, a family with very little money, and a young actor who nearly went home when his own ran out.

Ask most Australians what they would do with their first real pay cheque and the answer is rarely a sports car. It is a debt. For Chris Hemsworth, by his own account, it was the one hanging over his parents. He has told the story several times, to Variety, to Men's Health and in his own television series, and it has stayed remarkably consistent.

Growing up with not much

Hemsworth has said he grew up with no money, and that he did not want to be broke the way his family had been. As a boy he saved for a whole year, with help from his dad, to buy a $600 surfboard. He then worried so much about damaging it that he did not want to surf on it.

As a teenager, one of his first jobs was at a pharmacy that rented out breast pumps. His task was cleaning them with a toothbrush when they came back.

The mortgage that would not end

Hemsworth told Men's Health that when he asked his father when the house would be paid off, the answer was "honestly, probably never". He pointed out that most people are in that boat, and said he wanted to change that for his family. In his series Limitless he said hearing his dad talk about dying still paying it off had bothered him from a young age.

"I wanted to pay off their house, initially."Chris Hemsworth, Variety, 2019

Running out of money in Los Angeles

After a small part in Star Trek in 2009, the work dried up. He came very close to playing Gambit in the Wolverine X-Men film and Duke in G.I. Joe, and lost both. He told Variety he was upset at the time and running out of money, and that had he got either role he could not have played Thor.

He has also said he put too much pressure on himself, and might have been more relaxed without the family's finances on his mind.

Over about eight months he grew more and more anxious and was close to going back to Australia. He told Men's Health he went into one more audition telling himself to do it for his dad's house, and to think about reasons other than himself. That was The Cabin in the Woods. Then came Red Dawn, then Thor.

Money lives tells the money stories public figures have told about themselves, in their own published interviews. Chris Hemsworth has no connection with FIZO and does not endorse it or any practice listed on it. General information only.