Elsa Pataky: My marriage to Chris Hemsworth has been full of ups and downs
In retrospect, I do think it was probably for the best when Chris Hemsworth suddenly moved his young family out of LA and back to Australia. Before that move, his wife Elsa Pataky was a regular on celebrity blogs, fashion blogs and across entertainment/gossip media. She loved to be photographed and she loved to do interviews and she loved to get attention. I thought, at the time, that the move to Australia would be detrimental to their marriage because Elsa would be so unhappy. But she stayed with him and I think he got her some work in the Australian film/TV industry too. Elsa chatted with an Australian outlet, Body + Soul, about her life now and fitness and her ten-year marriage to Chris. Some highlights:
She doesn’t like feeling soft: “If I’m not exercising, I don’t feel strong. I feel soft and I don’t like it. I am a very active person. I want my body to stay young – in strength and energy. I want to still go horseriding with my daughter when I’m 80!”
Her obsession with fitness came from watching the Olympics: “I was in awe of the fit, athletic body and my whole life became about exercise. I’ve never stopped since I was 14. I just fell in love with being healthy and fit.”
She loved the LA fitness scene: “I learnt so much about health and fitness in Los Angeles. They were much more advanced in LA than in Spain.”
She & Chris share a love of fitness: “We love to do sports, eat healthy and move our bodies. We’ve got the kids into surfing. Any hobbies to get them outside, and not on social media and computers. My daughter has been horseriding with me since she was two-and-a-half.”
On her pregnancies: “I had to slow down during my pregnancies and I couldn’t exercise as hard as I wanted,” she says. But the physical changes that came with carrying a child paled in comparison to the mental impact of motherhood. “I remember feeling a bit lost when I had India. I thought my life was going to be the same [when I had kids] and I would keep working. But I couldn’t. Chris would come home and say, ‘How was your day?’ And I didn’t feel proud to say: I’m just a mum. But you should. Because it’s the hardest but greatest job in the world.”
Devoting herself to motherhood: “I really liked being with the kids. I wanted to take them to school and pick them up every day. I just love that moment. I didn’t grow up with my parents [around] and I missed that so much, so I wanted to give that to my kids… I love acting, but having balance is important to me. So, if something comes along that fits into my life and lets me work close to home, then I’m happy to do it.”
Her tenth wedding anniversary is coming up: “It’s funny that people think of us as a perfect couple. No way. It’s been ups and downs, and we still keep working at the relationship. I think a relationship is constant work. It’s not easy.” But true to form, Pataky says any struggles they’ve encountered have only made their union stronger. “I always try to see the positives of things.”
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I felt like I detected some wistfulness, especially when she talked about LA being more advanced about fitness and exercise. Sure, she’s happy with her life in Australia and she rides her horses and surfs and has a beach view. But she could have had that in Malibu, plus she could have pap strolled all the time. I don’t know. It also feels like Elsa is just ride-or-die too – I absolutely believe that she and Chris have had some major ups and downs, and there was one point where I was pretty convinced that he checked out of the marriage in a major way. But Elsa stuck with it. They both did.
Photos courtesy of Instagram, WENN.
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