#234 ‒ Chris Hemsworth on Limitless, longevity, and happiness

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter all focus on the goal of translating the science of longevity into something accessible for everyone. Our goal is to provide the best content in health and wellness, full stop, and we've assembled a great team of analysts to make this happen. If you enjoy this podcast, we've created a membership program that brings you far more in depth content. If you want to take your knowledge of this space to the next level, at the end of this episode, I'll explain what those benefits are. Or if you want to learn more now, head over to peterattiamd.com subscribe Now without further delay. Here's today's episode. My guest this week is Chris Hemsworth. Many of you need no introduction to Chris, of course, and most of you probably know who he is through his work as Thor in the Marvel movie series. You've also likely seen him in no shortage of other movies out there. And of course my absolute favorite movie with him is Rush. I wanted to sit down with Chris to talk specifically about his work in the recent project through National Geographic called Limitless, which is now available on Disney plus. Prior to the beginning of filming for Limitless, which was in January 2020, I didn't know Chris, but over the past three years I've gotten to know Chris very well and consider him a very close friend. And it was great to sit down with him in New York as we were both there for the premiere to talk about everything that had gone into the making of this series.

Chris and I had kind of an.

Ongoing joke over the past few years where we would refer to the series Limitless by another name, Relentless, because it really, in some ways felt like this was never going to end. In part, of course, that was due to Covid, but in part I think it was because the creative team behind this had such an amazing vision for what this could be. And frankly, the version of Limitless that you all have seen is a significantly better version than, I think the one that was conceived back at the beginning in 2020. So as I said, given that we were both in New York for the.

Premiere, we wanted to take advantage of.

That and sit down and talk about this. Unfortunately, time was not completely unlimited and there were constraints. And so as much as I wanted to do a really deep podcast with Chris and talk about everything in his life beyond Limitless, we simply didn't have the time given how much of Limitless.

We wanted to talk about.

So in this episode we really just Focus on Limitless, the challenges that he went through in a variety of the episodes. In particular, we talk about how they've impacted him to this day. In addition to the conversation with Chris, we sprinkle in a variety of clips from Limitless throughout the interview process, depending on the topics that we're covering. While this lends, I think, to a better watching experience of the interview, we're purposeful in choosing clips from Limitless that would add value to even those of you who are just listening to this in audio format. And of course, if you haven't checked out the series, I recommend you do so. As I said, it can be found on Disney. So without further delay, please enjoy my conversation with Chris Hemingway.

So good to sit down with you, brother.

You too. Thanks for having me so much to.

Talk about, but I feel like I just want to start with kind of getting a sense of the first time you heard about this. Was it a call from Darren? Like, how did you even get involved in this project?

Project? Yeah, I had a call from Darren. It'd be going back on three years now. He said, I want to do this series, a docu series called Limitless on longevity. And he said, I know you're a fit, healthy guy, but we want to dive into the science and put you in some pretty extreme, intense, physical, emotional situations and see how you fare. And you can be the guinea pig as far as the longevity science goes. I said, why not? And initially it was supposed to be about a three week shoot. And I know you and I have talked about this a lot. Once Covid hit, the show got spread out over two and a half years and really it transformed in the best way possible due to having a hell of a lot more time than I think we'd first anticipated. We were able to flesh out each episode, explore the science in greater detail. I was able to grow throughout the experience and have different opinions on myself, different opinions on how I approached health and wellness. So, yeah, I'm really proud of how it turned out and I think it was a lot due to the time span we're able to shoot it on.

Kind of going back to this. First of all, I can't believe they bait and switched you on three weeks of shooting. Because even before COVID I was involved in four weeks of shooting. So I don't know where anybody thought.

Initially it was two and I was like, I can't fit that in my schedule. Then it was three and then two and a half years.

And we joke about it, right? What do we call it? Relentless we're gonna do a title change.

Limited, I was gonna call it.

So where were you in. You were done Avengers by that point?

Yeah. What did I. I'd done Avengers. I think I was doing the press tour about the time this came up. You hadn't done Love and Thunder.

So. I remember three years ago, almost to the day, I was sitting in my apartment here in New York with Darren, Ruth, Ari, you know, sort of like the core group from Newtopia and from Protozoa. And at that point. So call it November of 2019, they had the idea for six episodes. It was still a bit foggy, and it's kind of amazing how quickly they morphed that into that first shoot when we started in January. Was there anything about it that you had apprehension about doing? I mean, besides the time? Obviously, time is an issue based on your schedule. But were you nervous, worried, anxious about doing this? Because this is not acting.

I was, to be honest. So I had never hosted anything before. And it's one thing to hide behind the character and behind the mask of whatever individual you're playing in a film setting, but then to be yourself. You know, I've done, obviously, plenty of interviews and so on, but to be in a situation like this where it was not only looking into the science, but dissecting kind of my abilities and seeing what my limits were in one regard, and there's a vulnerability that's required there. They had to be authentic. So I didn't want to hold back. But, yeah, it was a little more of a hesitation or a lot more sort of thinking about it as how I was going to come across and was it going to be genuine, was it going to be appreciated or not, or all sorts of silly kind of doubts and questions start to creep in that I wasn't normally sort of thinking about. And then the thing transformed anyway, as far as my initial. Was there any hesitation around taking on the show? I don't think any of us knew what it was going to be the three or four weeks that we talk about, even when you're involved. And I spoke to Darren the last couple of days about this. He said, yeah, it was a very different beast at the beginning and due to the time, but also I think due to what I was willing to do and the commitment I had for was allowed to evolve and become something bigger. And as did the challenges. You know, there were discussions about cold water immersion and we're gonna do ice baths and so on. And then it was like, well, let's go to Norway and let's you know, swimming in the Arctic Ocean and sort of became more and more epic as it went on.

It feels like you and I don't want to project this, so correct me if I'm wrong, but as I watched you, because, you know, one of the things about this that was kind of a joy is how close we became as a group. Like you, your team, me, like the whole group kind of coalesced. It's like you seemed to trust the team even more and more as time went on and gave more and more of yourself, because, again, everybody sort of got involved in this with the expectation this was going to be bracketed in terms of time and Covid in part, but also, I just think the breadth of expectation of what this could be expanded the scope so much. Do you get the sense that you were willing to give way more of yourself as this thing went on than maybe you had committed to up front?

Absolutely. And I think due to what you're saying about there's a trust there with the people I was working with, I knew on paper that these were the experts in their field and all of you were gonna take care of me and advise me in the right way. But it's like you're working with a director, and each of the experts in each of these series were kind of leading the way, and they were at the helm and I was following. And if I have a good relationship with my director and I trust them, and that only comes through experience and time spent, then I'm gonna give more of myself and take more risks and not feel like it's gonna be exploited in any way.

So the first episode that we filmed was the fasting one. Look, I'm gonna do it with you.

You are?

Yeah.

It makes it a lot easier to go through this with somebody else, so.

Okay, good.

Good.

We'll suffer together.

We will.

I've definitely gone a day without food before. I think I get pretty. Pretty cranky when I missed a meal. Certainly detrimental to my. My happiness. A pretty long time. Why? Why four days? Why not?

Why not longer?

I mean, what. What is that? What is the benefit with four days?

Why that number three to four days is probably that window at which we do enough to change how your body is interacting with the absence of nutrients to basically do kind of a reboot on your system.

Oh, really? Do you think I'm going to be able to hold them together in your experience? You see a lot of people, the first time they do it, succeed in.

The next four days? There is no doubt in my Mind, there will be a period of time in which you feel sluggish or tease. Yeah. Kind of grumpy, grouchy, whatever. But if you really stop to think about it, this idea that we kind of live today where we're sort of surrounded by unlimited access to food and we can eat three meals and snack in between them, that's a relatively recent addition to our species. And our ancestors would have gone days without food all the time. And not only did they have to do that, they had the ability to, in a period of starvation, actually go out and hunt. I think that shows up third or fourth in the sequence. Yeah, it does, yeah. What did you know going into that, and what was your expectation?

Just that I had never fasted before and I knew that this was going to be.

And I don't think you knew how long it was going to be or anything like that. I mean, we sort of sprung that on you in real time over that dinner.

We did. I think the initial discussions were around, like, intermittent fasting and restricted sort of feeding windows. And then it was like, oh, maybe we'll do a day or a couple of days. And you're like, no, we're doing four days, by the way.

I suggested three.

Did you?

I did.

And they said, no, no, we're going to go one more. Because I said, I wouldn't normally have a patient go more than three days on the first one.

Good.

And they pushed it to four.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, as we talked about many times, my expectation or kind of thoughts around, would I be able to do it or not? I think we're in line with yours. I thought, look, we're going to commit, we're going to do it. But we kept discussing, you'll kick into ketosis on day two, you know, and maybe day three, and then got to, like, day four, and I'm like, nah, I'm not feeling any of the sharpness or alertness. And then right in the afternoon when we went spearfishing, probably at the right time, too, it kicked in and things started to sort of percolate.

I remember saying to Tanya, I think it was to Tanya, it might've been somebody else, but I think it was to Tanya. As we were getting ready to head out on the boat, that was the moment when I kind of realized how sort of strong you were, because I felt like you didn't have that much time to prepare for that exercise. And it wasn't under ideal circumstances. It's one thing to say, you're gonna do your first fast it's gonna be for four days. And it was hard enough. I mean, we worked out every day. We had a bunch of other things that we had to do. But then learning an entirely new skill around breath holding and spearfishing, I mean, I think would be challenging under any circumstance. How much of that do you remember? It's been almost three years since we filmed that, but how much of that do you remember? And was there ever a moment when you thought, I'm not worried that something's gonna happen to me, but I'm worried that I'm not gonna be successful?

That was most of the episodes as I'd get to doing the Arctic swim or doing the four day fast or climbing the rope. I kept thinking, so don't complete this exercise is not really an episode. Or it's pretty anticlimactic. And so there was definitely a healthy amount of fear there, kind of motivating me. But also coming back to the why of it and why we're doing it. And understanding the specific purpose of each challenge was, on one hand, looked like they were trying to kill me, but on the other hand was like there was an incredible amount of information and knowledge and support and science there that says, you do this, you do this consistently, you work this into your daily routine, then the benefits are exponential.

So think about Norway. We filmed that in, I think, February. Right. We went right from Australia, maybe had two weeks off, and then we're all in Norway. My recollection of that was a beauty like, I couldn't imagine. So we were there to do this thing. It was in this place that you would normally never go to. I feel like we took like three flights to get there or something crazy. Again, Ross spoke about this a little bit last night, which was. It was another example of you were being asked to do something much quicker than you would normally do.

So.

Right.

I think you didn't. What was the first day you jumped in that water? Cause it's different than an ice bath. Like, you can sit in an ice bath all you want. It's totally different experience to jump in the Ocean when it's 36 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some of the episodes I was able to train for, specifically probably the strength episode, that was on and off over the course of six, seven months. And then I had injuries and so on. But the cold water immersion, I mean, I did a couple of ice baths back in.

We were doing some in Australia, back.

In Australia, and that was new to me. And then I was talking to Ross about it and the sort of overarching idea was that, you know, they were talking about developing brown fat, you know, and we're going to monitor that. And Ross is like, not in four days this is going to happen. And so it became as much an adaptation around cold water immersion as much as it was sort of a resilience test or just a grit head down. Go for it. Because the first time we jumped in the water in Norway, and we were in there for four and a half minutes, that was longer than any ice bath I've had. But it was snowing. I'm breathing in, you know, freezing cold air, and it's windy, and I'm also moving. You know, you sit in an ice bath and there's a couple of mil of water that starts to heat up. If you stay still, you're treading water, then none of that's happening. So a lot of it was trusting Ross and listening to Ross's voice and just kind of, again, back to what you said about the trust. If I didn't have Ross there coaching me through it, having also done it, and even to even more extremes, I would have questioned it to no end. And in particular, on that actual. On the actual swim itself, halfway through, I was like. Every part of me was like, you're dying. Get out of the water. This is ridiculous.

Explain to me and to folks watching and listening what it feels like, because I have never been in water that cold. I've done long swims at about 49 degrees. And even at that temperature, which seems balmy compared to 36, I mean, that's a big difference, right? It feels like you're on fire.

Oh, yeah.

It actually feels like you're in boiling oil, which I think most people wouldn't understand. How is that possible that you can get in something so cold? And the sensation is that of being lit on fire. And then the other thing that I think is. I'm curious to whether you felt it as well, is the breathlessness. It starts to take your breath away.

Yeah, it definitely. I mean, I'm not. I'm gonna sound overly dramatic, but it was one of the most painful things I've ever done. And again, in comparison to the ice bar, it's very different. The big thing was putting my head underwater again. An ice bar.

Remind me, did you have earplugs?

I don't think I did, no. And the idea, big difference, by the way. Oh, yeah. I was standing on the shore, and all the training we'd done was treading water, head above water, and Ross is like, let's go for a proper swim tomorrow. I was like, I just don't want to do it, mate. I'm just saving it for the day, you know, in the afternoon when we actually shoot it, I'm just going to go for it. Because if I experience, and I think in hindsight, if I had have experienced how painful it was, I would have been even more doubtful. So I was standing on the edge and he said, we want to warm up as much as possible before you get on and strip off and dive in. And he said, and then when you get in, just take a second to try and adjust before you put your head under. And we did the warmup. I walked down to the edge and I didn't even know if they were rolling, but I was like, I'm outta here. I'm in the water and I'm off. And Ross didn't even have time to jump onto the boat that was chasing us along. I jumped in, just started going. And the first, like, I don't know, maybe 25, 30, 40 meters, I was like, got this, you know what? I'm going all the way, I'm coming back, I'm doing two laps. And out of nowhere, once the initial sort of adrenaline went, I felt the most extreme headache, pain, right all through and through the back of my eyes, in front of my head, everywhere. And I started. I was looking at the bottom as I was swimming and I started getting really dizzy. And then I all of a sudden stopped. And I was like, I'm gonna throw up. Like it was that painful. And then I look and I've actually swum off course a bit, and I've started swimming toward where the couple of the camera guys are, and they're like, the buoy's that way, go that way. And so I head down again, and the whole time I'm just like, nah, get out, get out, get out, get out. And then I have another voice in my head. I have Ross's voice there saying, come on, fight, fight. Dig in. And I just started going for it. But what starts to happen is your arms and legs are just like lead balloons. Nothing works. You know, I felt like I was swimming like this. A little chicken.

Yeah. And you can't keep your fingers together, so your fingers start to splay. You can't hold the water.

And it's just like. It was gnarly. And then I got to the buoy and they're all cheering and stuff, and Darren said, I was waiting for a big celebration. I was like, I couldn't move I was gonna die. And then the Jet Ski pulls up and he's like, well done, mate. And I'm like, I can't get. Help me on, mate. I can't lift my arms. And they drag me up onto it. And then the same thing would have gone on the boat. Everyone's like cheering and boss is like.

Get out of the way.

And he came in with a blanket and a little beanie and sort of started warming me up and so on. It was wild. But I've never felt the endorphin kick and the sort of elation that I felt afterward. It was incredible. And I just remember the most serene, peaceful state, in awe of everything. And we are there in Norway. It's the most stunning backdrop, but it's just this wonderful sense of calm and overwhelming sort of joy. And I think that comes with. Anytime you achieve something that you think is impossible, or overcome some great challenge, or in the face of diversity or whatever, you overcome it. It's such a beautiful feeling. It made me think about people who climb Everest and do extreme feats all the time. And the rest of us are wondering, why the hell would you do that? I believe it's for that. That moment, that post feeling was pretty special. And I remember it for a long time.

I think there's actually something within that. It's not just accomplishing the feat. It's the temporal juxtaposition of being so low and so high. Right. Like, I don't think you know how we don't feel speed. Like, if you're on an airplane, you don't feel it, you feel acceleration. In other words, we're only wired, I think, to feel a rate of change. And I think that's true of emotion. Like, if you're constantly in a state of bliss, everything is going well all the time. Same old man. I don't think you feel profound joy. So I think the reason, in part, I mean, I think there's a physiologic exploitation for what you experience. We'll talk about that in a sec. But I think what you're also experiencing is four minutes earlier, I thought I was going to die. And even if the upper part of your brain knew you weren't, the reptilian part of your brain absolutely believed it, you were dead. And then four or five minutes later, you have this unbelievable surge of positive emotion. I don't think you can find a period of time and when just four minutes, you can go from your absolute lowest to your absolute highest. I think that's the thing that's the juice.

Yeah, absolutely. And with no negative lasting injury, et cetera, you know, for sure.

I mean, of all the things in limitless, the strength stuff, the endurance stuff, the mental challenges, all those things, you know, the hardest one to make the case for this will make you live longer, is go and jump in the Arctic Ocean and swim. However, I think about the benefits of cold water, I think that is something everybody should get used to exposing. I mean, just this morning, right, like, you know, you and I had breakfast, had to really quickly go up, shower, come get over here. I still made time to spend 30 seconds to a minute in the ice water of the shower in the hotel. And I love that feeling of the first time you get into the ice water. You feel a right. You feel that little thing. I mean, there is really compelling evidence at what this does to brain chemistry. So that's the other thing that I think you're also experiencing, although in your swim, it was to a much higher degree than just taking a cold shower and ice bath. But you were, I think, probably being flooded with endorphins and neurotransmitters that are very positive.

Absolutely.

And you still do this. I mean, this is still kind of.

A part of your routine.

You're constantly taking an ice bath.

Yeah. And it's probably about exactly what you're saying, like the endorphin kick. But also every time I get in the ice bath, whether I'm somewhat used to it, it's still brutal. But the moment you get out, like you say, you've gone from one extreme to another. So it's an instant sort of kick of happiness. But I find even like just from inflammation repair the general mood, if I, you know, wake up in the morning and I'm feeling off and I'm achy and I'm not in the space, I could have a hot shower and like, I'm still a bit doughy, but I jump in the cold and completely different. It's a game changer.

So does Elsa join you? Do your kids join you?

One of my kids often tries to jump in for not that long, but gives it a go. Yeah, and Elsa does it too. We have a sauna and an ice bath set up at home. And just the best rehab.

I couldn't agree more. Single best investment I've ever made was the sana cold plunge at home. Let's talk about strength. So, Chris, you obviously spend a lot of time working on your strength training. What type of program do you do?

I mean, over the years, training for different roles and for Thor in particular, was about getting big and mass. I do shoulders one day, arms another. Back, chest, legs. Got it.

Okay.

Feel okay?

Uh huh.

Obviously he's in amazing shape. Most of us would look at Chris and give anything to look like that, but there's always room for improvement. There are more than 600 muscles in the human body. And for longevity, you've got to make good use of as many as possible. So when I assessed Chris muscular power and efficiency, his flexibility and agility, I found he could be working a wider range of those muscles.

That's it, let's go. Two, one. That's it. Done.

And he could improve his stamina. I think that was an awesome episode because I think, and this is a great example of where Covid really benefited the series because, you know, the initial challenge for strength was kind of an interesting challenge, but I think the one you ultimately ended up doing was better. And my only view on this was like, from a scientific perspective, what can we say about strength and longevity or fitness and longevity? And really like kind of grip strength, Cardiorespiratory fitness, you know, would be top of the list. And that's why I think that that challenge was a perfect challenge because it's grip strength, it's top end. Cardiorespiratory fitness.

Yeah. Initially it was I was gonna be in a harness and pulling a car across a section of land. And Ross Edgley had done that, I think for 20 hours or something crazy. So he was like, I'll train you to do that. And we were doing it. And I did like, I did a good month, like pulling the sled in the backyard. I had a little Polaris dune buggy thing that I was pulling for a bit, and it just started to like, aggravate my back and joints and everything. And so we transitioned then to the rope climb. And as you say, it was probably more on point as far as the science around strength and longevity. So I started training for the rope climb. I'd never climbed a rope before, and Ross had also done a feat like that and so was training me. He said to me, look, you want to be strong, but you don't want to be heavy. The heavier you are, the harder it is going to be to get up that rope. So I had a three meter rope in my house.

That's 10ft for the Americans.

Yeah, 10ft in my house. And I was going kind of three quarters of the way up and just jumping off and back up and down and doing loops like that. And one day I jumped down Blew my ankle out, and I ruptured all the ligaments and tore ligaments.

What happened, by the way? Was there anything different that day?

I was rushing. The UFC was on. Right. My mates were in the next room, and I was in the gym where my house set up. And they go, I quit starting. I'm like, I'm just getting in 15 minutes and I'm up and down. And it must have been like, last one, and I just jumped off and I had a mat there, and I just rolled my ankle. It just blew out. And then straight away, I looked at it. It was bloomed and Utopia and all the team from Naccio were in Australia ready to shoot, I think it was next week. So called them up and said, this ain't gonna happen. And I had a doctor have a look, and I said, yeah, this is not good. And that was the rope. That was the foot I was gonna anchor off as I was pulling myself up.

And for folks that have seen Thor, you've got kind of different bodies in there. I assume the biggest you were in Thor was that scene when you were in front of Russell Crowe.

Yeah. By the way, I was that size for that afternoon. And kind of fluctuate through the film. Obviously, you pick your windows and your days of kind of, you know, where to be your biggest. This was like. I had been training with Ross prior to that and quite intensely and learned some pretty unique, special things and how to just kind of blast the body and do the most effective, intense workouts and when and what to eat and so on. So I was schooled in that, more so than I'd ever been before. So I had an opportunity to get stronger and bigger than I ever was. But the timing of it didn't line up with this event. And so Ross turns up. And I tried to. Hadn't been using the rope at all because I'd been working. And we started doing it, and I was just heavy, and I was getting, like, three, four pulls up, and I was just like, everything was tightening up and so on. So we had about two weeks where I just stopped lifting weights completely. And it's funny, I don't know if you've ever put on a big amount of muscle that it doesn't take long for your body to go, okay, this is. We can switch gears now. And so I started doing a lot more rope pulls and sled pulls. Got down to the Blue Mountains where we shot, and there was a.

And what was your weight doing during that period of time? How much weight were you dropping?

I Mean, it was only a few weeks, a little bit, but I was still.

Did you make an effort to reduce your intake?

Yeah. Because you were eating two and a half weeks. I stopped lifting weights. I reduced my calories pretty dramatically and maybe lost a couple of kilo. I don't know. It would have been like two or nine or something, but still heavier than I should have been for it. Yeah. And we get to the Blue Mountains, and it's the most beautiful setting. And there's the cable cart across two mountains. It's a thousand foot off the ground, and we go out onto this cart and they throw the rope out and it's 100ft, the rope which is three, four times longer than I've anything I've climbed in my training or anything. So again, this became less about, well, you've trained for this and more about just, again, grit and will and just get up there. And I just remember Ross kind of at the top of the cart going, make it a fist fight. Make it a fight. Come on, big man. Stand by. From the doors opening, we got the rope going out. Oh, don't look out there. Soul hits me. And all the little voices of doubt that I've been pushing aside in my mind start sort of getting louder and louder. I'm looking down and I'm thinking, that is not something I fancy doing. But I cannot let Chris see any moment of doubt in my mind at all. Switch on. Switch on.

Switch on.

Switch on.

Yeah. Ready? So I'm getting winched down, and it feels a lot longer than 100ft. I don't want to look back up because I'm like, this is so much further than I've ever climbed.

How long did it actually take? Start to finish?

Probably, I don't know, probably a couple of minutes, which is a long time to be. You know, there's a harness that will catch me if I fall, but none of it is helping me up the rope. I was surprised. The quad burn was one of the most gnarly things.

More than your hands, more than your.

Forearms, both biceps and forearms. I mean, when I got off, I had, like, claws. I couldn't extend my fingers. They were locked. But my quads and especially my right leg kind of doing the push and the anchor.

So how do you feel physically now from a strength perspective in terms of, like, how this has kind of morphed your training a little bit?

I feel it's. It's more specific, my training now. You know, I used to just sort of go in, and I still do to it to an extent. Like, and just start throwing weights around and go, okay. Biceps, you know, go back and I get chest and shoulders and just as heavy as I could. As much as I could. And when I was a bit younger, I could get away with doing that. And then now it's like, oh, geez, I'm just not warmed that up properly. Or you know, you're kind of hitting everything too many times. And so just being smart about the training. And that came from working with Ross and my trainer, Luke Zocchi as well. You're just targeted. Much more targeted approach. He has really interesting, intense ways to work out though. It's. Everything is about sort of explosive energy. Like light up your. Was it your parasympathetic nervous system and just switch on sympathetic probably. Sorry, Sympathetic, yeah. And fire up and just explosive up. And then slow negatives that made dramatic differences. I got far more gains than I had previously trained like that.

Now you actually, I don't think I've told you this, by the way, but you know, in the process of kind of going through a lot of your genetic stuff, which we're doing now, we'll talk about this in a second. But kind of doing this, you know, we actually have found that you have a very favorable gene around muscle fibers. I do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that we'll talk a second about kind of like a gene you have that we wish we could erase. But on the flip side, you've got a pretty favorable gene around fast twitch muscle fibers. You know, you sort of have a genetic predisposition to be muscular and to be strong and to be explosive.

I was lean when I was younger, but as soon as I started, even when I was playing footy, you know, I was 17, doing more push ups, whatever I would grow. I've always had to work my ass off in that space. But yeah, I do feel I've had some, some benefits there.

It's a great variant of a gene to have as you age because one of the hallmarks of aging is actually atrophy shrinkage of these fast twitch muscle fibers.

Shrinkage in Norway, definitely. Different type.

Different type, but yes, yes, yes. So as we get older, these slow twitch muscle fibers are shrinking in everybody. And that's why people are losing strength and power and explosiveness most rapidly as they age. Much more than they're losing endurance. Slow fiber. So one of the things we always talk about with our patients is, hey, we need you lifting weights all the time. You start early and you never stop lifting weights. And the heaviest you can lift is the better because it's only through lifting heavy weights that you can really get those fast twitch type 2 muscle fibers firing. So the fact that you kind of have a genetic predisposition to have more of them is a good thing. Which then brings us to kind of like some of the other stuff we talked about. So one of my earliest memories of this whole experience was in December of 2019. We took advantage of the fact that you were in LA to get some blood work done. And Darren said, look, here's the deal. You and Chris are gonna sit down in January in Australia to kick off the first bit of shooting. And I want you to walk Chris through his blood work just as you would do with a patient the very first time. And I said, okay, great. I get the blood test back about two weeks before I'm supposed to go out to Australia and I see something in it that I say, darren, I can't walk him through this for the first time on camera. That's not fair to him. I mean, I know that that's what sort of the drama is, but this is a bit too much. But I can't tell you, Darren, what it is. So without telling you, you need to trust me that this can't be done on camera for the first time. This one thing, you can do the whole lab, but this one thing. So I asked him to sort of trust me and he did. And then we connected.

So he called me first. Yeah, kind of in a panic and was like, you've got to call Peter Attia, something's come up and. But I don't know what it is. And I was like, oh, God, how long have I got left? What's happening? And so I was kind of rattled before we even got on the phone.

So we did sort of the million dollar workup on you. We've got every blood test one can get and I've looked at every gene in your body six ways to Sunday. And overall, your labs look fantastic. And I think looking at you from the outside, it's quite clear how much you take care of yourself. But we did find a couple of things that are a cause for concern. Some of the genetic testing that we did looked at a gene for a protein called apoe. You have a very rare combination, which is you have two copies of Apoe 4, a set from your mom and a set from your dad.

And what does that mean exactly?

That means you have an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Hmm. How much higher?

Probably somewhere between 8 and 10 times higher than that of someone in the general population.

Yeah, right. Okay. You know, you're, I don't know, you're constantly thinking you're gonna live forever, especially as a young individual, and then to all of a sudden be told, oh, this may be the thing that might take you out was like, whoa, kind of floored me for a minute.

You know, it's hard to imagine, but it's my belief that if we take every step possible, we can reduce your risk to that of anyone else.

Sure.

In fact, I don't think you'll believe me when I say this, but I think you will in time. You having this gene is probably a.

Blessing because the motivation that will get me to.

Yeah, this is going to motivate you to take steps today that most people your age would never think about until they're in their 50s or 60s.

Sure.

I hadn't had too many patients that had this combination of APOE 4 4. It's not a very common genotype. It's only about 1% of the population. So I probably only at that time had maybe three patients that had it. And truthfully, two of the three of them kind of suspected it before the blood test based on their family history. In one case, about a 40 year old woman. Total shocker. And so I remember just sort of trying to say, look, this is a gene that really increases risk of Alzheimer's disease, but it's not a deterministic gene. And that's, I think, just something someone like me can take for granted. Cause I'm sort of in this space. I understand that, but I think that's a hard concept to explain to somebody who doesn't eat, sleep and breathe genetics, which is you have this gene and it doesn't guarantee this thing is gonna happen. And there are some genes that do, by the way. There are certain genes that if you have the gene, you have the gene for Huntington's disease, you're gonna get Huntington's disease. This isn't that kind of gene, but it's increasing your odds. And that's the bad news. And then the good news is the earlier you know this, the more you can do to mitigate risk. That was my message. But what did you hear? I mean, how much do you think back to that?

Again, I knew nothing about the science or the sort of the markers and so on, outside of that one conversation. And so I hung up and I was trying to explain to my wife and I was like, yeah, I'm not really sure what he just said, but I think, you know, I'm more vulnerable to Alzheimer's. And then we had another conversation, and I wish we'd had more conversations immediately after because I did spend sort of a week going, what does this mean? What's gonna happen? And how long have I gotten? And I'm trying to talk to my parents about it. And they didn't know much about it either. My grandfather has Alzheimer's and it's, you know, been very tragic to watch. And so they were aware of it, but didn't know in any great detail about the gene combination that we were talking about. But as you say, it was just a good sort of kick in the ass and a reminder to do what I can, whatever's within my control and within my power to give myself the best fighting chance and whatever work I'm doing for brain health benefits the rest of my body and the rest of my life. Anyway, so we turned it into a positive.

You know, one of the things that was sort of interesting about filming this is we obviously came out, we filmed it and we did everything in duplicate for those episodes. We did everything. We talked about all this stuff, we went through all this stuff. And then of course it was also done, which is, hey, there's a really good chance that we're not gonna wanna talk about this particular aspect of Chris's health publicly. So let's redo that whole thing. But without that.

Yeah.

And I think for about two years it was. We didn't know which version of this was gonna happen. Obviously the decision was 100% yours. When and why did you decide that you wanted to be public with something so personal?

Once I understood more about it, but also the same reason it's motivated me to make positive changes. I thought, well, that's a great opportunity for anyone else out there who may be in the same situation to either go and get checked or to understand more about brain health and see what they have within their power to make that change. So I thought, oh, it's a. I don't know, it's a missed opportunity to motivate others to do the same if I don't talk about it. And then they cut together two versions of the episode and the other one was just kind of fell flat, you know, so this had. There was no over dramatise it or exploited or anything. I think what they did a great job at was it just became relatable. It became. And this is what most of serious was like, look, he's a human being like you or I. And you know, the sort of superhero costume aside, this is an individual who has many of the same challenges and is up against the same things that all of us are.

So even though you have two copies of the APOE4 gene, which is a very rare combination, you know, 20 to 25% of the population has at least one copy of the E4 gene. And even though that doesn't increase their risk as much as the increase that you experience, it still does. In fact, even though it's only 20, 25% of the population that has that gene, that group of people makes up about two thirds of cases of Alzheimer's disease. So I do think I applaud you for doing it and I'm really glad you did decide to do this. Cause I've always said I really wish every single person would know their APOE genotype early in life. And there's a lot of resistance in the medical community to this. Truthfully. There are a lot of physicians who would say, look, no one should know that there's nothing that can be done about it. Why would you burden somebody with that knowledge? And people like me and Richard Isaacson, Kellyanne Niodis, people I work with, I mean, we fundamentally disagree with that, Chris. We think that is complete nonsense. And we think that this is absolutely a condition through which you have an enormous lever arm to mitigate risk. If that's true, which I wholeheartedly believe it is, then not knowing that information early is criminal.

Yeah. And also, as we're saying that whatever I do in regards to protection and arming myself with the sort of tools, have the best chance it benefits everything else anyway. You know, we talked about reducing stress levels, more mindfulness practices, there's certain training I do, nutrition, my sleep habits, all those things made a dramatic difference in every other part of my life too. So, you know, one of the things.

We always talk about is sauna.

Barpeda's convinced that regular saunas can boost my long term health.

You know, now that we just got in here, Chris, let's take your pulse.

All right.

Yeah, you're about 64 beats per minute. But we've got this temperature cranked up to about 195 degree Fahrenheit. So let's see where you are in a couple of minutes.

I guess I gotta get used to this height.

Yeah, we're uncomfortable right now because we're hot. And in response to that, our body is trying to cool us off.

Yeah.

And so it's pumping harder so that your heart can quickly get the blood to the outside of your body. And just as exercise is known to help with cardiovascular disease. I think SANA has a number of those benefits as well. How much of a fan were you of SANA before we shot that series in Norway and then really kind of got into the science of why it's likely it hasn't been proven yet to the same extent that some things have, because so much of the data is observational, but it's so overwhelmingly positive in the same direction with every single study that I think we're quite confident it is. You know, I know you've always enjoyed it, but has that taken on kind of a more urgent.

Yeah, definitely. And definitely during having shot the show, it's made a. Or it's become a bigger part of my daily routine, often after a workout. And again, I don't know what the science says, but I know I feel great after doing it. The same with an ice bath. And so if sort of mood elevation was the only thing, then if I'm.

All about it, I would say even if the emphasis and the benefit of the heat shock proteins is less than what we think, I agree with you. I think just the psychological benefit and the sleep benefit. I mean, the difference in my sleep between when I sauna and when I don't is so noticeable that then again, are we gonna question the benefits of sleep? I don't think so.

There is no doubt if I've been training a lot and I wake up achy in particular. You know, I've had issues with my back over the years. If I wake up and I get in the sauna in the morning and I do an ice bath or either or I feel 50, 60% better. You know, that's the thing. You lie in bed all night and you're in, you know, that position, and everything starts to kind of, I don't know, lies dormant and becomes, I don't know, there's no fluidity there. You know what I mean? You wake up and you're stiff and sore, and then you get into one of those spaces, the hot, the cold or the hot. And instantly I feel like everything's just kind of lit up and a Wykin son.

When we think about kind of the last episode, which is the one that we saw in the premiere, we were talking about this over breakfast today. But that episode, maybe more than any other, really reaped the benefit of COVID because it had so much more time to flesh out. You know, when I think about what the first version of the final episode was supposed to look like, if this was kind of blasted through in 2020. I won't restate what that episode was supposed to be, but it was kind of gimmicky. I didn't think it would work. And then what it became is unbelievable. In your mind, how was the evolution of that episode? Did you have much of a hand in the creative side of that or were you kind of just a passenger?

I was a passenger and I was kept in the dark intentionally. Darren didn't want me to know much about it. It was an immersive theater experience and I'm glad I didn't know because I feel like I would have had preconceived sort of ideas and then expectations and couldn't have helped acting a certain way or reacting a certain way based on that. So to go into it blind and just open and ready for whatever they were going to throw at me or throw me into was. Was exciting and different to the other episodes. Everything else was about being prepped in some way and learning and understanding some of the science prior to shooting. Whereas this, it was about. All I knew was it was about the acceptance of death. All I've been told is that I'm about to jump forward 50 years into the future and spend the next three days living the life of an octogenarian. The architect of this strange challenge is Dr. B.J. miller, a world renowned palliative care physician. His work centers on unlocking the transformative power of. Of accepting aging and death.

Dying offers us something we can change.

How we see it, what we do with it, how we play with it. Chris is about to take part in.

A truly unique experiment. Ready, my old man?

I don't know. I mean, ask me in three days time maybe.

What did that suit feel like?

Just uncomfortable. Incredibly restrictive. And I talk about this in the episode, the way people then spoke to me. Cause I knew I couldn't hear properly. And you know, there was this condescending sort of patronizing tone of, you know, how you hear people and some of the time talk to elderly. You know, it made me immediately go, oh my God, I hope I don't do that. But incredibly isolating too. Vision's diminished and as I said, you can't hear. Restricted. So everything has been pulled away. All the sort of your abilities that were there the hour before I put it on. And also not having 50 years to transition into that again, one extreme to the other, in the opposite direction to what we were talking about before.

There are so many things about that episode that are beyond beautiful. One of them, to me, it's just a very subtle thing is that all of the residents of that place were not actors. And what was it like kind of interacting with them? Because you, you know, you watch the episode, it's like a, you know, slightly over an hour long episode. But I assume shooting it was days, minimum.

Three days, right? Three days, yeah.

So you have a lot of time on that set. I reckon some of those folks didn't necessarily know who you were prior to that set.

I don't think any of them did, to be honest. Yeah.

Which must have been a great relief, wasn't it?

It was. It was really nice. It was unique and different on so many levels, that episode. But to be in a retirement village with elderly folks who were there for the fun of the episode, but were just genuine and truthful and honest and didn't hold back with anything they were thinking and sort of the no filter approach to things was. It was great. It was refreshing. You know, I think being in a sort of industry where a lot of people do know who you are and a lot of the time you're sort of supported in what you're doing and everything's kind of tried to be made or be accommodating as possible, that was like, no, you're one of us now. It was fantastic. So it brought me straight back to Earth. If I'd drifted previously, having known you.

For many years, you're pretty down to Earth. But I still think that that must have been even another level because you're so far out of your comfort zone. This wasn't. There's no superhero component to this.

No. I was a lot more nervous about that episode than anything else. Cause it wasn't something I could fight or muscle through or just put my head down, grit my teeth and go for it. I had to be completely open and vulnerable and accessible and confront things that I had never really thought about that much and interact with people who were at the end of their days or who had dealt with death in very extreme ways or come close to death. And so to go from sort of one environment of physical sort of challenge and feats and then go into this emotional state was a real shock and an adjustment. I'm so proud of what the episode is and became because it's unlike anything I've certainly ever done, but unlike anything I think that I've seen before in the doc space.

There were several moments that really stood out to me. I'm guessing you didn't know BJ Miller's story before that episode.

No, I didn't.

Because it came across as really genuine. When you're hearing it for the first time on camera, it looked to me as though that was the first time you were hearing something.

It was.

Do you recall what that felt like? Because it seemed like you got quite emotional. I'm curious as to what was more emotional. Was it the tragedy of his story or was it more how moved you were by his resilience and how he overcame it to do what he's doing?

Combination of things. He's one of the most unique individuals I've ever met. There's something saintly and otherworldly about him. He is such a beautiful individual. Certainly his story shook me and also the strength, now that which he reflects upon it and his attitude toward what happened to him was so inspiring. It made me, you know, I was in a. I was really exhausted coming into that episode. I was at the end of a. Felt like a five year run of different films and work and we were shooting this series throughout and I think I was more vulnerable than I'd been in a long time. Just out of exhaustion, but also out of the questions that were starting to circulate through my head. And a lot of them were to do with, you know, this point in my life and am I proud of what I've done? Am I? What's next? And all I kept thinking was I have been sprinting through life and the moments and opportunities and I'm grateful for them, but I've been very quickly going to the next one, to the next one, next one. And I was in a bit of a state of what's next and what's the point and who am I? And all of these kind of questions that I hadn't sort of been able to analyze but were there in the back of my head. And my mom had said something to me a few days before that she'd had this experience where she came pretty close to what she thought was gonna be her death in a very instant sort of moment. And she's fine now, but said, oh, you know, I wasn't at all afraid to go because I realised I'm so thankful for my life and I'm so happy that everything I've had and all the experiences I have and I thought, well, what a beautiful feeling. And then in that moment, I think I was talking to BJ about it and I got really emotional because I realized that I just. I'm not ready yet. You know, I have all these beautiful things around me and family and friends, but I can't go yet. This is not. This is not my time. And it was strange. Cause we're manipulating everything in that space to make me feel like I'm gonna die. I'm asked to think about my death, how I would want it to be, and so on. But I had this sort of sense of urgency, of just, I'm not ready. And it made me think about my kids and how they're growing up and things are changing so dramatically. And like, I wanna sit, I wanna soak it in. I don't wanna be in a sprint anymore. I wanna be more present. I wanna be right here and appreciate everything that's in front of me. And again, I tried to articulate that a few times and I. I don't know if I've hit the nail on the head is exactly why it's. Something in me sort of felt so fragile at that point. That whole experience shook me to my core and made me want to slow down and just race home to my family and my kids and not jump on another plane and travel and work and do anything else, you know, in the best way.

I think the time when you were sitting on the bench next to Natalie was sort of equally profound. At least it appeared that way. As an observer, I assume it's the same. You weren't aware of Natalie's story. And you're probably sitting there thinking, why are they having me sit and talk to a 27 year old, very normal, healthy appearing woman.

Yeah, definitely. Again, what she said particularly was there's an urgency from her to shake people and say, wake up. It doesn't last forever. The end could come at any moment. So make the most of it and love and laugh and live with a sense of gratitude and joy. Incredibly inspiring and heartbreaking hearing what she's been facing at such a young age too. And I'm really thankful that I had those conversations and I was forced to think this way and have this realization now, not when I'm 80. You know, I'm glad I'm not sitting on my deathbed going, ah, damn, I should have done this. I could have done this. Finally, I'd done that. So I feel like this is sort of an awakening or a sort of shakeup or whatever you want to call it. Came at the perfect time for me.

You and I talked about this last month, I think. But you haven't had more than two months off in about 10 years, right?

Yeah, pretty much, yeah. You know, during COVID but even then I was still working or prepping things.

How do you reconcile the fact that you work so hard and you've been so successful. And with that success has come so many wonderful things. You've got wealth, you've got fame, you've got a platform, right? We're sitting here talking about more people are gonna know what the APOE4 gene is and why they need to be tested and what they can do about it because of this episode, because of this series, than anything else that would have ever come out of the scientific literature, ever. And all of that is attributed to the fact that you have a platform to do this. So there's all of these amazing things, both to you personally and. And to society at large, that come from this. But at the same time, that's not sustainable. You once told me a story about something your daughter said when you kind of half jokingly suggested to her you might retire. Do you remember what that was?

Yeah, I was talking to her. And as I've done, I feel like I've been doing for a long time to my kids. I'm like, you know, every time I've left to go on another trip, I'm going back to work. I'm like, it's not long. Soon I'm gonna take some downtime. And I think my daughter sort of rolls her eyes at times these days and says, yeah, sure. And then this time I said, look, you know, when I'm done with this tour, I'm having a big chunk of time at home. And she goes, oh, great, awesome. It'd be fun. And I said, yeah, maybe I'll just retire. Maybe this is it. Maybe I'll stay home with you forever now. And she's like, no, dad, you can't. And I was like, why? And she goes, kids love seeing you play Thor. And it was this beautiful kind of moment of like, oh, yeah, maybe it does. There is a purpose to it. You know, I think for me, it's. I've been chasing my career and been doing it for a number of reasons, but, you know, it's been my journey. And there's a sense of sort of guilt that comes with that of sort of chasing down my dreams all the time. And when you have kids, it's not about your dreams anymore, it's about theirs. And I have a family to take care of. And I was really sort of questioning kind of what I've contributed or done. And hearing her say that was like a, you know, a beautiful little moment. And so I don't wanna retire for a number of reasons, but I certainly wanna replenish and fill up my cup again. I feel like it's just been sort of flat stick for so long now and I've loved it and I'm very thankful for it but I need to have a chunk of time at home now and sort of. Yeah, get re inspired, I guess.

How is your sleep now compared to three years ago? You had a very restless mind. You would wake up a lot in the middle of the night and you'd have a thought and you'd fixate on it. And sometimes it was a very rational thought. Like I'm worried about the success of this film. I'm worried about my relationship with my wife. I'm worried about like these were all very normal things to be concerned with but they would wake you up and you wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. And then sometimes they were things that maybe seemed less rational which by the way, I'm not being critical of you because every one of us has those very irrational thoughts.

They're mostly irrational stress. It definitely affects my sleep. And this is, this is going back a few years. You know, this is not such a big issue these days but. Well, actually it's not true. It is, yeah. Like I'll go to sleep fine and then at 2:30 there's a shot of adrenaline and my brain will just start going through a checklist of things. Be like, does that bother me? That does that. But. Oh, that one, yeah, good, let's think about that. Let's tear that apart. Are you getting nervous a bit now? A little wave of nausea. Sometimes I don't even know why. And I wish I could deal with that stress but I. Just got a whole lot realer, didn't it? Not just because it sucks. Okay. But also it could be killing me.

How has that changed and has this series given you a different perspective on anything that has given you more peace?

I think generally I'm sleeping better than I was back then. I think just running in a state of fight or flight constantly. But that was required for me to leave Australia with, you know, not a whole lot of money in the bank and live on people's couches and audition and audition and go through that sort of grind and be told no a million times and still, you know, obsessively be pushing forward requires a huge amount of compulsive, obsessive sort of self motivated drive. And then the problem is you then start to achieve those things. And I'm no longer in the same sort of fight that I was but I'm still acting like I am. My internal sort of environment is still thinking it's, you know, running Away from the dinosaurs or whatever, you know, goes back to sort of. To our sort of ancestral, you know, makeup. And so the more comfortable I get and the more I sort of rationally talk myself through, hey, it's all okay now. You know, like, you can afford to do this and this and this, and you don't have to. You worry so much about it not working out. Some of that dissipates, but it's there all the time. I'd be lying if I said that I had a complete handle on it. But again, I want to kind of dismiss it too much because it's what got me here. And it's a tool that I will still need to use at certain times. It's just monitoring that. And I hear a lot of people talk about that. People in the sort of friends of mine, sports players and so on with that. What's required to get them to that place. It's a blessing and a curse. And it's a hard thing to switch on, switch off.

Sorry.

Once you've opened the gates.

Yeah, I think that's a very common thread for people who have achieved great success. And when you think about your motivation. Right. When you think about the love you have for your craft, is there a way to use excitement more than fear? Like, I think back to, you know, your beginning. As you talked about, you've spoken a lot about, and I think you even did in some of the episodes. You spoke about how one day you found out your father wasn't gonna be paying off the mortgage anytime soon. Like, you sort of had this realization of the fact that your parents have done so much for you and your brothers with the means that they had.

Yeah.

But you wanted more for them. So part of your fuel for success was like, I wanna take care of my family as well. Not just the kids that I'm going to have. Which you didn't yet have, but these people who you love so much. And there's a bit of fear in that. There's a bit of, like, do or die. But at the same time, there's also a real passion you have for what you do. In other words, you're an artist. And so artists enjoy making art. Is it about shifting the balance of what's the fire? Like, where's the fire coming from? Is the fire coming from a place of fear? Is the fire coming from a place of love? I mean, do those go back and forth for you from time to time in different seasons.

I used to get very intense performance anxiety when I was first acting, and it Was debilitating. I would go to auditions and I'd want to throw up and I'd be shaking. And then even when I got jobs and I don't know how I was getting jobs based on how nervous I was in those auditions, but I would then be on a set and it was like I couldn't think or see and I felt I was going to pass out, like. And I had, I was fighting that for years. And you talk about fear or excitement and I remember reading something that took a series of tests with athletes, performers, musicians, actors, whatever, anyone in a sort of adrenaline fueled sort of space. And they said, okay, before the event, are you nervous or excited? And some of them said they were scared out of their minds, some of them said they were pumped. The interesting thing was they all had the same physical response. Elevated heart pulse, et cetera, clammy hands, short of breath. The only difference was how they labeled that feeling. And so for me that was a real light bulb moment. And I thought, oh, okay. So when this feeling comes out, about to walk onto a set, I programmed myself to say, oh, this is bad.

That's fear.

This is fear. This is a negative. I then went, nope, this is a positive. My spidey senses are up now. I'm able to think faster, react quicker. I'm going to see clearer, I'm going to. My vision will be sharp. And it was. And that was all it was. It was a decision then to see it differently then sort of as time goes on. I think the fear does have its place though. I think you sort of, people talk, you know that the fear pushes you, your purpose pulls you and both of them need to have equal sort of relevance in the conversation. And it's a bloody good motivator too. You know, half of these challenges, my fear of looking ridiculous if I didn't complete this task or the fact that the episode wouldn't have worked, you know, that kept me going. But also the sort of purpose of why I was doing it kept me going. So I think they both deserve conversation. Just it's about balance and if either of them get too much attention, then you know you have too much of, oh, my purpose and my thing. There can be a lack of humility there, you know, the fear I feel has allowed me to have more of a self deprecating sort of sense of humour about myself and the world and the work and hopefully kept me humble too.

What was the first role you had where you allowed yourself to think, I'm gonna make it?

Well, it's interesting the first Thor film, I thought, great. I mean, the game, certainly.

Which year was the first Thor film?

Oh, God, was it 2010, I think? Yep. I thought, this is good. I'm kind of in the mix. But I didn't know if the film was gonna work. I didn't know if we were gonna do an Avengers film.

And you weren't the first choice, or were you? Wasn't there something funny in the audition there?

I auditioned initially and didn't get a callback. I got some pretty bad feedback.

What was the feedback?

Just no good.

Just really direct feedback.

Really, like minimal feedback, which is like, we're not even going to give you any sort of, you know, constructive criticism or anything. It was just kind of minimal and nothing. And I was shooting a film in Vancouver and my little brother calls me up and said, oh, they're going to fly me out from Australia to LA for this film, Thor. And I was like, what? And he was like, yeah. I don't know. I sent an audition on a tape and I'm going over. I'm like, oh, that's awesome, man. Congrats.

Wow.

What do you know? And then the trades, I think Variety or Deadline come out and had, like, the six final guys for Thor. And Liam was one of those people. And I was with Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard on the Cabin in the woods, and they both said, what the hell's going on here?

Is this your brother?

And I go, yeah. And he goes, why are you in the mix? You should be Thor. And I was like, no, no, I didn't get a callback. So on, none of them ended up getting it. And they reopened the casting and I got a chance to do an audition and I sent in a tape and I was called back in to meet with Ken Branagh and do the audition. And I just had a very different attitude about it. I didn't put anyone on a pedestal like I did the first time. I had, like, little chip on your shoulder.

A little pissed off.

Yeah. That my brother had gotten there and I hadn't. And it was a good motivation. And it's about perspective, you know? And then I was able to walk into that room and give the best version of whatever I had to offer, as opposed to people pleasing and going and going, is this what you want or is it this or this way? And then, you know, there's nothing. There's a lack of strength there. I think they needed the character to be assertive. And so I had a lot more sort of presence in that space than I did the first time around and then got the part.

How long does an audition take?

Usually you have a few days to learn it. Sometimes they call you at lunchtime and they say, come in this afternoon and read.

But the audience, when you're actually there in front of them.

Again, depending on how well or bad it goes, it could be five minutes, it could be two minutes, it could be an hour. I've had, like, people answer the phone midway through my audition. When I first got the town, they'd just be like, yeah, yeah, cool. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, am I supposed to be still going? And just like, yep, that's great. Thank you very much. We'll call you. And you're like, it's brutal. You get enough of them and it's either become numb to it or it destroys you.

How'd you hear about Rush?

So Ron Howard was making the film. I didn't know anything about Formula one. It's.

Cause you didn't know me.

I didn't know you. And my agent had called me and said, oh, you should do an audition. And Ron said, oh, look, I've seen Ford. He's great, but he's not right for the character. You know, he won't fit in the Formula one car. I said, well, I'm not that size. And he said, yeah, it's okay. And I said, I'm doing an audition, and I watched an interview with James Hunt, and my hair was kind of long enough that I could kind of style it exactly how his was. And. And I had. You know, I've been practicing the accent and did an audition, and he saw it and went, okay, cool.

Had he already picked Daniel for Nikki?

I think he had, yeah.

I mean, you know my feelings on that film.

Yeah.

Like, if you were getting a dollar for every time that film got watched by me, I would. You'd be even more wealthy.

I'm so thankful.

It'S such a good movie.

You would know it better than I do at this point. I haven't seen it since Premiere.

Are you kidding me?

It's hard to watch yourself, you know.

So you don't take your kids to Thor or they don't watch it around the house. I know you take them to the premiere, but.

No, I take them to. Okay, well, that was the first premiere I took them to, but I'll watch it once or twice, or if I'm producing it, then I'm, you know, stick through it a bit more, but. And it should be uncomfortable. I think there's something narcissistic about enjoying it too much.

So if we're sitting here in five years and your life is better than it is today, especially in accordance with the final episode of Limitless, meaning you're running less. The balance between purpose and fear is more in favor of purpose than fear. You feel more connected to your kids, your family. What has to be true? What are you doing?

This is another thing that came up in the episode. I just want to sort of clarify. I don't feel like I've been doing anything wrong as much as I've just been in the storm of it. You know, I have a beautiful relationship with my kids and my wife and my family, and I'll be there with them, but my brain is pulled in a million other places. And so for things to be even better would just be about.

Is it just about a state of mind or does it mean it's both?

Because in the episode, I was talking about this and I said I was being asked to imagine what my death would look like, and if this was my final moment, who would I have around me? Where would I be? And I realized it's in the living room with my family and friends. And that's every other weekend, you know, I have it. So it was as much a moment of it's already right here in front of you. Change your attitude. And also, in addition to that was okay, I want to do this even more now. And I have an opportunity to do that because I'm not in the fight or the sprint anymore. So it would be to be more curated with my choices and have more time pre and post the film to prepare and decompress as opposed to just piling one after the other.

Does that mean more directing, shifting the balance a little bit?

I think it's who the directors are working with. People that are at the top of their game. And I've been so lucky. I've worked with some wonderful people, just work with George Miller and to continue to work with individuals like that, where I'm learning from them. It's a collaboration, but they're at the helm, they're steering the ship. I don't have to feel like I gotta police anyone else. There, you know, is the dream. And then you're inspired by those people and you're doing it for the right reasons. It's from an artistic space and an expression as opposed to a financial one. It's a good payday. Script sucks, but I get paid well, you know, which I've done a few times, you know, and so, yeah, to be more curated in my choices and have more stillness and more calm either side of it.

Chris, you know, I think about the last three years and I think about when we started this thing in January. For me, one of the most unexpected joys of this. I really only, you know, Darren and I were and remained such good friends and the chance to do something fun like this with him was the motivation. But I think a very pleasant surprise for me has been meeting you and meeting all the people around you. And it gives me great comfort as now someone who's become a close friend of yours to know that you are surrounded by these amazing people like Ben and Aaron and Zok and your family and your parents and your brothers. I mean, you are rich, Chris. You are rich in people and I suspect that's actually probably your greatest asset. So it's been a real privilege to be a part of that.

Well, it's been wonderful getting to know you too, mate. It's been the biggest joy is the people I've met through this experience and the knowledge one thing, but the friendship's the most important. So thank you, buddy.

Yeah, man. Thanks for sitting down with me.

Yeah.

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