Chris Hemsworth said his younger brother Liam Hemsworth got “very close” in the casting process for Thor before he ultimately landed the part

Chris Hemsworth almost lost his beloved role as Thor to his younger brother Liam Hemsworth.

Speaking with MensXP, Chris, 38, was asked about exploring the Multiverse in future Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and potentially interacting with alternate variants of his Thor character onscreen. He suggested Liam, 32, could be a cool casting.

“In this film, it’s not something we explore,” he said of the Multiverse not being central to new movie Thor: Love and Thunder’s plot. “But who knows if there is more in the future as you say it has opened up multitudes of options we can head in or be taken in.”

“My little brother almost got cast as Thor. He was one of the first people who got right down to the wire on getting the part so, I don’t know, I could cross paths with him. That will be fun,” he said with a laugh about possibly sharing the screen with Liam, both as versions of Thor.

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Chris Hemsworth as Thor (L); Liam Hemsworth. JASIN BOLAND/WALT DISNEY STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES/MARVEL STUDIOS/COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION

In an episode of Wired’s “Autocomplete Interview” last month, Chris recalled not getting a callback for the Thor role at first, guessing, “I think my audition sucked. I think that was the response I got.”

Then, he said, Liam took a stab at the audition — and got “very close” to landing the part, down to the “last five people” being considered.

“They were like, ‘Look, he’s great, but he’s a bit young.’ My manager then said, ‘Well, he does have an older brother,’ which was me,” said the Australian actor. “I came back in, re-auditioned a few times and just had a different attitude. Maybe I had a little more sort of motivation that my little brother got a look in and I hadn’t. I also had done a couple of films in between those two auditions, so I had a bit more experience and confidence in what I was going to do.”

Chris debuted as the God of Thunder in 2011’s Thor. Liam, meanwhile, landed the role of Gale in another big franchise, The Hunger Games, starting with the first of four installments in 2012.

In a behind-the-scenes video shared by the actor in the lead up to Love and Thunder’s release, producer Kevin Feige recalled casting Thor, who would become a key player in the MCU’s Avengers team.

“One of the early decisions we made at Marvel Studios was bringing on Thor. And we always knew we wanted to find and amazing performer who had the chops to perform this character as we saw him,” said Feige, 49. “We looked the world over, and we found Chris Hemsworth.”

“The way Chris did it, we thought, ‘Okay, this is gonna work,’ ” he added.

Thor: Love and Thunder — which is directed by Taika Waititi and also stars Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, Chris Pratt, Christian Bale, Russell Crowe and more — is in theaters now.