Remember that episode of this year’s Married At First Sight where Connie Craydon tells her mum she’s joined MAFS and her reaction is one of disgust? Well, that’s how Chris Hemsworth reacted to the prospect of his personal trainer, Luke Zocchi, becoming the next Bachelor.
During the celebrity PT’s appearance on Nova 96.9’s Fitzy & Wippa, he revealed that he’s now off the market, but back when he was single and ready to mingle, Bachie producers approached him for the show.
Why? Well for one thing, one of his hottest clients was dead-set against it, Mr Chris Hemsworth.
“I actually did get it but I said no,” he told the radio hosts. “I actually said it [to Chris] as a joke and he said ‘if you go on The Bachelor I will fire you!’”
To be fair, Chris Hemsworth is a pretty huge deal to the bloke considering they’ve known each other since they were wee lil kiddies and the actor helped launch Zocchi’s personal training business.
“I met Chris in primary school,” he revealed in a previous interview with Men’s Health. “He was in the year above me and we started hanging out when I was in Grade 2 or 3. Then we went to the same high school.”
“I was an amateur fighter when I was at school and Chris used to come down to the gym and watch me spar. After a while we started training together. I’d be like, ‘Oh, mate, you should jump in the ring!’ Because he always wanted to. But even back then he was like, ‘Oh, mate, I can’t ruin my face – I want to get into acting’.”
Then, many years later, when Chris became a global celeb and had just filming Thor: The Dark World, he contacted Luke for help with slimming down, and so ignited his career as a PT.
“Because of my boxing background we’d get up and we’d do runs and then I’d hold the pads for him in the afternoon, and I think that must have sparked the idea for him. It was just before Easter he rang me. He said, ‘What are you doing?’ I told him I was just working. I’m an electrician by trade and at that time I used to run boxing circuits out of PCYC. He said, ‘Mate, do you want to come with me to the States? It’s just a six-week boot camp’. ‘Yeah,’ I thought. ‘I’ll come to the States for six weeks’.
“We did the six weeks together and then he said, ‘Come with me to my next film’. It was Blackhat, a Michael Mann movie. From that film, we wrapped in Kuala Lumpur, jumped on a plane, flew to London and went into a meeting with Ron Howard for In the Heart of the Sea.”
From then on, he says he’s prepared Chris Hemsworth “for all his films. For each role he comes up with an image of how he wants to look. I do my research and put together a program, and then we get to work.”
So yeah, it was a wise move to turn down Bachie in order to appease Chris.
