Elsa Pataky Opens Up About Filming With Her Husband Chris Hemsworth for the First Time (original) (raw)

Elsa Pataky and husband Chris Hemsworth have recently become close to another famous family — Matt and Luciana Damon. The two couples met through mutual friends and now vacation together with their kids.

“Chris has been a big fan of Matt Damon, me too, and then when I met his wife I’m even more a fan of his wife,” Pataky, 41, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “They are such amazing people. We have three kids, they have four kids, so we ended up making the same plans because everything we do we do with the kids, so it’s easier to do things with people that understand you. And they’re very adventurous too, so we were just on holiday in Costa Rica. We told them about it and they went and loved it and then we went together and had a great time and we’ve become really really good friends.”

Adds the Spanish model and actress: “[Matt] is an amazing dad and an amazing person, he’s so easy. And his wife is Argentinian so we speak Spanish. So for me it’s a relief, yes, somebody I can speak Spanish with! We’ve become very good friends.”

Pataky and Luciana have become so close that they recently got matching tattoos.

“The [Damons] came here for Christmas and we were all together and it was a really inspirational time,” recalls Pataky. “We created a lot of things and a lot of ideas. A few friends, we got together and we felt like we had to have something to remind us of those great moments we stayed together, and we decided to get a little tattoo [of three dots on their pinkies] all together and we say ‘We’ll have to do one every year.'”

Workwise, although Pataky and Hemsworth, 34, are both actors, they have never appeared in the same project together — until now.

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In the new movie 12 Strong — about a successful anti-terrorist mission in Afghanistan led by a group of Special Forces soldiers — Pataky and the Thor: Ragnarok star play husband and wife, which the actress says was a great experience and provided the couple a mini-vacation.

“We never had the experience to work together so you never know how it will go,” Pataky says. “You hear so many stories of other married couples, some are really great working together and then some other [couples] can’t work together so, we were excited. It was kind of like a work holiday for us, about 10 days away from the kids which was hard for both of us, but at the same time we had a great great time working with each other. I think we made each other better because we ask for more and more from each other and I think that helps a lot. I had a great experience working with him.”

Pataky, who has a very busy career as a model and actress, says that when it comes to working away from the family, she and Hemsworth have an agreement not to be away for more than two weeks.

“It’s hard to be away from the other person, it’s important for us not to be away for more than two weeks,” she says. “If it’s more than two weeks, we travel as a family and go together. We prefer to be together as a family and try to be in touch everyday, talk to each other, check in and see what we’re doing. It’s hard, but we make it work. We both do it, it’s equal and balanced, so it’s our way to survive together.”

12 Strong is now in theaters.