Signs of “Taurus: Love and Thunder” Natalie PortmanFirst major appearance for the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2013’s Thor 2. While the “Black Swan” star reprises her role as Jane Foster from the first two “Thor” films, her third appearance will look dramatically different than anything Marvel fans have seen before. . Rather than sitting on the sidelines as a love interest for the god of thunder, Taika Waititi’s new movie sees her pick up the hammer and fit in as a superhero in her own right.
But to do that, she had to become a superhero. Portman spent 10 months working on the film, including several months of conditioning before she began actively adding muscle. And once filming started, she would rehearse at 4:30 in the morning every day. Supervising process coach Naomi Pendergast, who outlined Portman’s training regimen in a new interview with diverse.
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“The initial goal and brief for working with Natalie was to develop the definition of the arm and abdomen,” Pendergast said. “However, to get Natalie safely to this goal without injury, we worked on conditioning her body first for about four months. This means we can safely increase the load to get her together without negatively affecting her joints.”
Once Portman was fit enough to start a recovery without risking injuries, they took off on the races. Since they were training during the COVID pandemic, a lot of the initial work was done with dumbbells. Lots and lots of boxing.
“We worked on building her upper body three times a week, which included arm, back and chest exercises, boxing, jumping and running,” she said. “The other two days were devoted to injury prevention work, which included Pilates-based exercises, stretching exercises, work-release exercises, and balance exercises.”
Of course, exercise isn’t helpful without the right diet, and Pendergast also had to work to ensure Portman could add muscle while sticking to her vegan diet.
“Natalie is a very healthy person with a very clean and healthy diet, so we didn’t have to make any big changes to her food,” she said. “Natalie is vegan, so in order to get enough protein to bulk up the way she needed it, we had to increase her daily intake by adding plant-based protein powders a few times a day.”
Thor: Love and Thunder hits theaters Friday, July 8.
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