It was always hard to imagine what large man in Hollywood was going to end up playing Kratos, an incredibly difficult role to cast for Amazon’s upcoming God of War series. Now things have ended in the wildest way possible.
Actor Ryan Hurst will play Kratos in the God of War show on Amazon. Hurst is a veteran of Sons of Anarchy and runs on a few other shows like The Walking Dead, Outsiders and Bates Motel. But also…God of War.
Hurst voiced Thor in God of War Ragnarok, the 2022 sequel to the 2018 revival of the series, now set in the Norse pantheon. There is no official announcement as to who will play Thor in the show, but rumors are that it will be Severance’s Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, who does look perfect for the part.
But now the Thor actor is…playing Kratos. There’s an additional wrinkle here because the voice actor of Kratos across both new games, Christopher Judge, was said to be vying for the role himself. Hurst is 12 years younger than Judge (49 to 61), but I think you could argue that neither are “names” in the way that someone like Jason Momoa or Dave Bautista would have been. Still, I mean, in terms of looks alone, you can see the vision in Hurst more, I’d argue.
Fundamentally, I think Hurst is a good choice, separated out from all this other craziness. He certainly made an impact in Sons of Anarchy, but also, I mean, playing Thor. He has the voice and presence for a god, clearly, so now you just take that into a Kratos performance. I do wonder what sort of hellish workout/bulk up routine they’re going to put him through to replicate Kratos’ usually bare-chested physicality.
There are no other official cast members yet. Again, Ólafsson could be Thor, and similar rumors say that Boots’ Max Parker could be Baldur. There haven’t been any rumors about who would play Atreus, Kratos’s son and the co-lead of the show. I would be curious if Daredevil’s Deborah Ann Woll would be tapped to return to play his wife, given that they used her exact likeness in the game, unlike many of the other characters. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t.
But Hurst is the first official announcement, and for a show like this, he should have been first. I think he will work, and his time in god-training in the games will serve him well here, even if he was playing someone beating Kratos to death with a hammer.
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