Chris Hemsworth took computer lessons so he could play a cyber-geek.

The 30-year-old Hollywood hunk is set to star in a new action thriller where he plays a computer genius who joins forces with the FBI and the Chinese government to track down a hacker.

Chris enlisted the help of a teacher from University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA] to help him better understand his character, but admitted he found classes boring.

He explained: ''I did two months of computer lessons before we started shooting. This computer teacher with a Ph.D. from UCLA would come into this little room and give me lessons in Unix commands and whatnot. It was exciting for the first day or two, then I was like, 'Oh no, this is why I didn't take a desk job.'

''I drank more coffee than I'd ever had in my life, because it was literally putting me to sleep.''

Although the computer lessons didn't help him develop advanced technological skills, they did help him improve his basic proficiency.

He added to Details magazine: ''I learned to type for one. I can't say I can hack into your Swiss bank account, but I can pretend to. There's an intelligence to this character that's certainly beyond my intelligence and some of the characters I've played before. They can make me smarter in the editing.''