Natalie Portman Enjoyed Bulking Up For Thor: Love And Thunder Because Actresses Are Often Asked To Lose Weight For Their Roles

Natalie Portman thought it was "wonderful" to "get bigger" for Thor: Love and Thunder.

Speaking to Sunday Times Style magazine, Portman, 41, said she had a blast hitting the gym to prepare for her role as Jane Foster/Mighty Thor in Taika Waititi's Marvel movie. 

“It’s pretty unusual and wonderful to be tasked with getting bigger as a woman," she said. 

“Most of the body transformations we’re asked to make are to be as small as possible and there’s an emotional and sociological correlate to that.”

Portman admitted the timing of making the film was particularly meaningful because she celebrated her milestone 40th birthday.

“For someone to say, ‘Let’s see how much strength you can have," said the Oscar-winning actress, who shares two children, Aleph, 11, and five-year-old Amalia, with choregrapher husband Benjamin Millepied.

"I turned 40 while making the movie and it was an incredible point in my life to say, ‘You’re going to be the fittest, strongest version of yourself.’ ”

But Portman had to rely on CGI to transform her 1.6m frame to being a "huge" figure.

She explained: “It’s the joy of CG [computer generated] movies that someone can conceive of making a tiny little woman into a huge character.”

And if you're keen to get ripped like Portman, her trainer recently revealed to Us Weekly what her workout regime entailed.  

"We trained for 10 months, starting around four months prior to filming," said trainer Naomi Pendergast said. "Natalie did five sessions a week and did not miss one session for the whole time period we trained."

"The initial goal was to build arm and abdominal definition," she added. "We also worked on stability and agility for injury prevention as Natalie had some dynamic stunt scenes that required her to move, twist and land in various positions. … I was also really pleased she got through the challenging stunt process without any injuries."

Warm Up

-Marching arms for 30 seconds

-Lat stretch for 30 seconds

-Beast crawl for 30 seconds

-Roll down walk outs (10 repetitions)

-Power band kneeling reverse fly (25 repetitions)

Super Arm Set

-Banded pull ups (4 sets of 12 reps)

-Dumbbell straight arm lateral raise (4 sets of 25 reps)

-Rest for 90 seconds

-Straight arm raise with palms up (4 sets of 20 reps)

-Reverse plank (4 sets for 1 minute each)

-Rest for 90 seconds

-Seated dumbbell Arnold press (4 sets of 10 reps)

-Kneeling banded tricep press (4 sets of 20 reps)

-Rest for 90 seconds

-Dumbbell bicep curl (4 sets of 12 reps)

-Banded kneeling rotation (4 sets of 20 reps)

-Rest for 90 seconds

-Dumbbell tricep press (4 sets of 12 reps)

-Squat jumps (4 sets for 1 minute each)

-Rest for 90 seconds

Boxing and Skipping

-Boxing (2 minutes) followed by skipping (1 minute)

-Repeat for three sets, resting for 90 seconds between each

Core Set

-20 reps of basic abdominal crunch (feet down)

-20 reps of abdominal crunch (feet up)

-20 reps of abdominal crunch with a twist

-1 minute weighted overhead arm raise (do three times, pausing between reps) — BANG SHOWBIZ