WHO'S AT YOUR CENTER?

Chris Hemsworth was a struggling actor-until he figured out how to stop obsessing over what he wants, and start focusing on what other people need

- PAUL KIX

Great movies always have a scene that screenwriters call "The Dark Night of the Soul." It's that spot where the hero questions not just what they're doing, but why they're doing it. Why they're doing anything. It resonates because we've all had our own dark nights.

Chris Hemsworth had one about 15 years ago. He'd moved from his native Australia, where he'd been wildly successful as a young soap opera star, to Los Angeles, hoping to star in much more than soaps.

It wasn't working out the way he'd hoped. He was missing out on roles. Bombing auditions. Waiting for callbacks that never came. "Eight months, nine months with sort of nothing-and the feedback was getting worse," he says. One night, as Christmas approached, he looked around the home where he was staying-his manager's guest house, which almost accentuated his precarious position, because the manager knew how much Hemsworth was struggling and allowed him to stay rent-free. He thought, Should I be here?

Should he just fly home for the holidays and not come back? Give up on his grand ambition for L.A.-starring in major motion pictures which was also his grand ambition for life?

Everything on this dark night suggested he should.
Then he asked another question.
Why did I start this? Meaning: Why did he move to L.A.? That's right, he thought. To take care of my parents.