Thor: Love and Thunder villain Christian Bale hadn't even heard of the Marvel Cinematic Universe before joining it as Gorr the God Butcher.
Next month, his Lord Voldemort-looking character will hunt down Chris Hemsworth's Thor, while the movie's latest trailer also teases a showdown with Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie.
Bale confessed to Total Film that this now-multiverse had somehow escaped his attention, despite its dominance since 2008.
Related: Why Christian Bale turned down a fourth Batman movie
"People would go, 'Oh, look at this! He's entered the MCU!' And I'd go, 'I've done what? I haven't entered shit, thank you very much,'" said Bale.
"I'm like, 'The MCU?' I had to ask what that was."
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Elsewhere in that chat, Bale weighed in on the inspirations behind his version of Gorr, sharing: "There's obviously sort of a Nosferatu slight attitude. Taika [Waititi, director] and I wanted to do a whole dance, which we didn't get to do, but we had all this sort of Kate Bush stuff that we worked at. But I think he just realised he was never going to be allowed to put that in the final film.
Related: Thor: Love and Thunder confirms earlier UK release date
"I would say that the most common thing I was staring at was the Aphex Twin video of 'Come to Daddy'. But I don't even know if that will be in the final film."
Away from the god-slaying aspect of Love and Thunder, Hemsworth himself has teased that the movie will solve a long-running mystery about Thor and Jane Foster's relationship.
Thor: Love and Thunder has a release date of July 7 in the UK and July 8 in the US. The other three Thor movies are available to stream now on Disney+.
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Dan is a freelance entertainment journalist. Beginning his writing career in 2014, Dan's work first graced the pages of cult publications Starburst magazine and Little White Lies before moving onto Total Film, Digital Spy, NME and Yahoo Entertainment.
In the film and TV universe, he kneels at the altar of Jim Carrey, Daniel Plainview, Mike Ehrmantraut and Paulie Walnuts.
