Washington (AFP) - Australian actor Chris Hemsworth is the Sexiest Man Alive, American magazine People said on Wednesday.

The honour was announced on the late night television show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC and the magazine itself.

With his face at first masked and his voice digitally modified, the 31-year-old star of the Thor and Avengers movies, speaking from Australia, toyed with playful yes-or-no questions from the TV audience.

Kimmel's instructions and teasers to his crowd: "If you guess correctly, the sexiest man alive will make love to you, so this is big. I will give you three clues. He is sexy, he is a man, he is alive."

Is he in a band? No. Over age 35? Wrong, again.

"Are you hairy?" a bearded, balding man in the audience asked. "Just up here," the still unknown masked person answered, gesturing to his head.

Fast forward: The audience zeroed in on the guy as a non-American, buffed dude who is an actor that has played a superhero in the movies, wielding a hammer: Thor in the Marvel Studios superhero movies? Bingo!

Hemsworth's award was a small facial mirror.

"Anything you would like to say to the men who lost, specifically Matt Damon?," Kimmel asked.

"I like everything there is about being sexy, to pursing the lips the right way to squinting at the essential time. Thank you, Matt, and all the other previous intelligent men. This is based on an IQ test, not just the physical appearance," Hemsworth said.

The actor is married to Spanish model Elsa Patak, 38, with a two-year-old daughter and eight-month-old twin sons.

Asked if there was anyone he wanted to thank, Hemsworth said, "my parents, I guess, for putting this together".