Christian Bale Reveals Surprising Influences for Love & Thunder's Gorr

Christian Bale reveals a few surprising influences that shaped his new villain, Gorr the God Butcher, in the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder.

Christian Bale Reveals Surprising Influences for Love & Thunder's Gorr

Christain Bale reveals the surprising influences behind his villain, Gorr the God Butcher, in Thor: Love and Thunder. After first being introduced in 2011’s Thor, Chris Hemsworth’s titular God of Thunder would go on to star in two additional solo films as well as a number of Avengers team-up movies. Thor: Love and Thunder, which is written and directed by Taika Waititi, picks up after the events of Avengers: Endgame, depicting the character on a quest to find inner peace when he is forced to confront Gorr the God Butcher, a villainous figure intent on wiping out all gods.

Initial trailers for Thor: Love and Thunder have teased some of what’s to come in the upcoming MCU offering, including an epic showdown between Thor and Gorr. Bale’s villain is depicted in heavy black and white makeup and is shown ominously wielding a large sword. While much of the character still remains shrouded in mystery, Waititi has previously revealed that Bale’s Gorr is the best-received MCU villain thus far in test screenings for the film. In addition to Hemsworth and Bale, Thor: Love and Thunder stars Chris Pratt, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman, Karen Gillan, and Russell Crowe, among others.

In a new interview with GamesRadar, Bale reveals a few surprising influences for his villain, Gorr, which include Nosferatu and a music video from the band Aphex Twin. Bale explains that he and Waititi even wanted Gorr to have something of a dance sequence in Thor: Love and Thunder, which would have been inspired by singer-songwriter Kate Bush’s music. Check out Bale’s full comment about the influences for Gorr below:

“Mostly hearing Taika’s [Waititi, director] thoughts on it. There’s obviously sort of a Nosferatu slight attitude. Taika and I wanted to do a whole dance, which we didn’t get to do, but we had all this sort of Kate Bush stuff that we worked at. But I think he just realised he was never going to be allowed to put that in the final film. I would say that the most common thing I was staring at was the Aphex Twin video of ‘Come To Daddy’. But I don’t even know if that will be in the final film.”

While it would seem that even Bale isn’t sure what parts of his performance have made it into the final film, the actor’s comment does hint at some of what audiences can expect from Gorr the God Butcher in the Thor sequel. Nosferatu is a 1922 German silent film, which acts as an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel, and it was, at the time, considered to be very frightening due to its vampiric villain, Count Orlok. Similarly, the Aphex Twin “Come to Daddy” music video features a pale and disturbing creature not dissimilar to Nosferatu‘s vampire villain.

Count Orlok and the creature from the “Come to Daddy” music video certainly do share some visual similarities to Bale’s black and white Gorr as he is seen in the Thor: Love and Thunder trailers. Interestingly, however, it would appear that juxtaposed against Gorr’s scary appearance, both Waititi and Bale attempted to add a playfulness to the Thor: Love and Thunder villain as well, with the character potentially having an affinity for dance and a flare for the dramatic. It remains to be seen how many of Bale’s influences will be apparent on screen when the movie releases on July 8th, but Gorr the God Butcher clearly has the potential to be the MCU’s most interesting villain yet.