Chris Hemsworth Reveals Petrifying Shark Encounter During a Documentary Shoot: ‘So Lucky'
Chris Hemsworth recently recounted a harrowing near-miss incident while swimming with Sharks for a documentary shoot in 2021. During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Hemsworth shared the story of how what began as a routine dive turned into a dangerous encounter. While discussing some of his adrenaline-fueled family adventures, including motorcycle rides and fishing tips, Stephen Colbert asked Hemsworth about the most dangerous thing he had ever done.
As per HuffPost, in response, Hemsworth brought up the shark expedition, which he thought was going all too well until he tried to help one of the sharks. Hemsworth claimed he noticed one of the sharks had a spear embedded in its side. Feeling an instinctual urge to help, he considered pulling the spear out. He recalled thinking, "'Should I grab it? Should I just pull it out like it’s a little toothpick?' And I kind of went to [do it], and the camera guy starts doing this [frantic waving], and afterward I went up and they said that ‘they’re not man-eaters, but he would have ripped your arm off if you would have pulled that thing.’ So lucky ― lucky I have both arms.”
As per People magazine, the documentary was a massive television event that lasted for six weeks. It was filmed as a part of Shark Fest organized by National Geographic in which Hemsworth showed off his surfing skills. His main objective was to show humans and sharks can coexist if we respect the boundaries of the wild. He went on a dive with shark conservationist, Valerie Taylor, to have a deeper understanding of the sharks. National Geographic said in a statement, "The mysteries of the ocean's most iconic predators are so vast, even with eight years of shark-focused content under our belt, there remains more to be discovered. Like every year, shark scientists and oceanic experts have pulled out all the stops for this year's SharkFest, revealing discoveries, shocking revelations, and bizarre shark behavior never seen before. It's going to be jaw-some!"
Apart from sharks, Hemsworth, a true adrenaline junky, also performs his own stunts for his action movies. As per Screen Rant, Extraction 2 director, Sam Hargrave, revealed, "Hemsworth does 99 percent of his action stuff. Only when it's repetitive or too dangerous or something that's gonna tweak him because it's a long haul with him. It's a marathon. So we have several different stunt doubles that can stand in for him with different things, but whenever possible, he's doing the action." In the film, the most daunting stunt involved standing atop a moving train at a speed of 50 mph while firing at an enemy helicopter which Hemsworth aced with the help of a walkway constructed on the train to ensure his and the camera operator's safety.
