The Peter Attia Drive - #234 ‒ Chris Hemsworth on Limitless, longevity, and happiness

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

View the Show Notes Page for This Episode Become a Member to Receive Exclusive Content Sign Up to Receive Peter’s Weekly Newsletter Chris Hemsworth, best known for his role as Thor in the Marvel movies, joins Peter to discuss his recent work in the docuseries called Limitless. In the docuseries, Chris undertook extreme challenges to explore his physical and emotional limits and gain insights into longevity. In this episode, Chris discusses these many challenges—from fasting to arctic swims to 100-foot rope climbs—as well as the insights that he gained from each. Peter, who also played a role in the docuseries, guides Chris through the science of longevity, including what Chris’s APOE-ε4 genotype means for his risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, Chris describes how his outlook on health, happiness, work-life balance, and more have changed from his experience on Limitless. We discuss: Limitless: how Chris got involved and his overall experience filming the docuseries [3:00]; “Fasting” ‒ ep. 3 of Limitless in which Chris attempts a 4-day fast [8:15]; “Shock” ‒ ep. 2 of Limitless in which Chris swims in the Arctic Ocean [12:15]; Cold exposure: the potential physical and mental benefits [19:30]; “Strength” ‒ ep. 4 of Limitless in which Chris explores how muscle can improve longevity [21:15]; The APOE-ε4 genotype and Alzheimer’s disease risk [31:30]; How Chris uses sauna [39:45]; “Acceptance” - ep. 6 of Limitless in which Chris explores the meaning of life by contemplating death [42:15]; Chris’s new perspective on work-life balance [52:00]; “Stress-Proof” - ep. 1 of Limitless in which Chris learns about the impact of stress and how to manage it [54:30]; Chris reflects on his intrinsic motivation driven by both fear and purpose [58:00]; Chris reflects on his career arc and how his presence as an actor has evolved [1:01:15]; How Chris’s outlook has changed since filming Limitless [1:05:00]; and More. Connect With Peter on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube

Hey everyone, welcome to the Drive Podcast. I'm your host, Peter Atia. This podcast, my website, and my weekly newsletter, I'll 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 peteratia MD dot com forward slash subscribe. Now without further delay, here's today's episode. I guess 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+. 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.

And 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 simply didn't have the time given how much of limitless we wanted to talk about. So in this episode, we really just focused on limitless, the challenges that he went through in a variety of episodes, and particularly talk about how they've impacted him to this day. In addition to the conversation with Chris, we sprinkled in a variety of clips from limitless throughout the interview process, depending on the topics that we're covering. While this lens, I think, to a better watching experience

of the interview were 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 join my conversation with Chris Hem. So good to see 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? Yeah, I had a call from Darren. It'd be going back on three years now. He said, I wanted to do this series, a docu-series called limitless on long jaabody. 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 long jaabody 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 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. We were able to flash out each episode, explore the science and grow to 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 on. Kind of going back to this person, 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 that's gonna come down. And just when it was two, I was like, I can't forget that much.

Schedule, that 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'm gonna call it. So where were you in, you were done of engines by that point? Yeah, what did I, I done of engines, So where were you in, you were done Avengers by that point?

Yeah, what did I, I done Avengers, I think I was doing the press tour about the time this came up, you hadn't done Love and Funded. 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 hadn't never hosted anything before, and it's one thing to hide behind the character and behind the mask or whatever individual you're playing in a film setting, but then to be yourself, you know, I've done obviously plenty 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 vulnerability that's required there. I 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'd talk about, even when you were 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 women I had for it, it was allowed to evolve and become something bigger. And as did the challenges, you know, the discussions about cold water immersion and we're going to do auspices and so on. And then it was like, well, let's go to Norway and let's, you know, swim 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 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 seem 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 that maybe you had committed to upfront? Absolutely. And I think, due to what you're saying about, there's a trust there way more of yourself as this thing went on that maybe you had committed to upfront? 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 in their at the helm and I was following in. If I have a good relationship with my director 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 in, if I have a good relationship with my director and I trust them and that only come 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.

That I'm gonna do it with you. Yeah. Yeah. It makes it a lot going to do it with you? Yeah. Yeah, it makes it a lot easier to go through this with somebody else, so... OK, good. We'll stuff it together. We will. I've definitely gone a day without food before. I think I get pretty cranky when I'm Mr. Meal.

Certainly detrimental to my happiness. It's a three long time. Why four days? Why not? Why not longer? I mean, 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 it together? I can, in your experience, you see a lot of people the first time I do it, succeed. In the next four days, there is no doubt in my mind that we'll be a period of time in which you feel sluggish or... Tears.

Yeah, I do. I'm ocean. 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. Right. 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 these sequence. Yeah, it does. What did you know going into that and what was your expectation? Just that I had never faster 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 swung 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, now we're doing four days. By the way, I suggested three. Did you? I did. And they said, no, then we're going to go one more. Because I said, I wouldn't normally have a patient go more them four days. By the way, I suggested three. Did you? I did. And they said, no, we're going to go one more.

Because I said, I wouldn't normally have a patient go more than three days. Yeah. I'm the first one. Good. And they pushed it before. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, as we talked about many times, my expectation of 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 kicking into ketosis on day two, and maybe day three and then it comes to day four. And I'm like, no, I'm not feeling any other 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 have been somebody else, but I think it was Tanya as we were getting ready to head out on the boat. I'm, 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 going to do your first fast.

It's going to 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 we'll 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 going to happen to me? But I'm worried that 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, if I don't complete this exercise, it's not really an episode, or it's pretty anticlimactic. And so that it was definitely healthy, a matter 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 look 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, 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 you 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. So, I'm 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? Because it's different than a nice bath. Like, you can send a nice 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 try for specifically probably the strength episode.

That was on and off of 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 something Australia. It's 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, when they were talking about developing brown fat, you know, and we're going to monitor that, Ross is like, not in four days, and this is going to happen. And so it became as much 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 mill of water that starts to heat up if you stay still. You're trading 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 the actual swim itself, halfway through, I was like, every part of me was like, you're dying, get out of the water, the situation doesn't. It's plain 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 bombing

compared to 36, I mean, that's a big difference, right? It feels like you're on fire. 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 not saying I have lead dramatic, but it was one of the most painful things I've ever done. And again, in comparison to the Ospa, it's very different. The big thing was putting my head on the water.

Again, an Ospa... Remind me, did you have your plugs? Uh, I don't think I did. No. And the other thing was... Big difference, by the way. Oh yeah, I was standing on the shore and all the training we'd done was training water head above water. And Ross is like, let's go for a proper swim tomorrow. And I was like, I'm just telling it to him, 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 experienced, and I think in hindsight, if I had

of experienced her pain, it was, I would have been even more doubtful. So, I was standing on the edge and he said, we wanna 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 warm up,

I walked down to the edge and I didn't even know if they were rolling, but I was like, I'm out of here, I did the warm up, 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 Rost didn't even have time to jump onto the boat that was chasing us along. I jumped in just out of Gown, 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, I'm doing two laps. And I don't know, it wants the initial sort of adrenaline when I felt the most extreme headache, pain, right to all through and to the back of my eyes and find my head everywhere. And I started, I was looking at the bottom and as I was swimming and I started getting really dizzy. And then I always had to stop and I was like,

I'm gonna throw up like it was that painful. And then I look and I've actually swam off course a bit and I've started swimming toward where the cover of the camera guys are. And they're like, the boys are that way. I go that way. So I head down again in the whole time. I'm just like, not, 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'll just start a gown for it, but what starts to happen is your arms and legs, it 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.

Your fingers together. You can't just play, you can't hold the water. Yeah. And it's just like, it was gnarly. And then I got to the buoy and then all cheering and stuff. And DARREN said, I was waiting for a big celebration. I was like, I couldn't move. I was just looking for something to die.

And then the jet ski pulls up and he's like, well done mate. And I'm like, I can't get help. He helped me. I can't live my arms. And then he dragged me up onto it. And then the same thing would have gone on the boat. Everyone's like cheering and the boss is like, get out of the way.

And he came in with a blanket and a little beanie and sort of started warming up and so on. It was wild, but I've never felt the endorphin kick and the sort of elation that I felt after it. It was incredible. And I just remember that my serene, peaceful state, the north 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 it comes with any time you achieve

something that you think is impossible or overcome some great challenge or the fate of diversity or whatever you overcome it. There's such a beautiful feeling. And maybe think about people who climb Everest and do extreme feats all the time and the rest of us are wondering why they hold you do that. I believe it's for that moment. It's such a beautiful feeling. It might be think about people who climb Everest and do extreme feats all the time. And the rest of us are wondering, why they hold you do that.

I believe it's for that at that moment. That pose 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. 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. If you're constantly in a state of bliss, everything is going well all the time. 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, five minutes later, you have this unbelievable surge

of positive emotion. I don't think you can find a period of time in 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, 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 know, you and I had breakfast, I 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 a nice 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 and of happiness. But I find even, like, just from inflammation, repair, the general mood, if I wake up in the morning and I'm feeling off and I'm achy and I'm not in the space, I get a hot shower and I'm still a bit doughy, but I jump in the cold and completely

different. It's a game changer. Does Elsa join you? Do your kids join you? Yeah. 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 a nice bath set up at home and it's the best for you, hub. I couldn't agree more. Single best investment I've ever made was the sauna called Plenty of 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, I've been trying for different roles and the Thor in particular was about getting big and mass. I do shoulders one day, arms another back, chest, legs.

Got it. Okay. Do you feel okay? Uh-huh. Obviously, he's an 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's muscular power and efficiency, his flexibility and agility, I found he could be working a wider range of those muscles. No, that's it. That's it. One, that's it. And he could improve his stamina. I think that was an awesome episode because I think... And this is an great example of where COVID

really benefited the series. Because the initial challenge for strength was kind of an interesting challenge, but I think the one you ultimately end 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 kind of grip strength cardio respiratory 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 cardio respiratory fitness. Yeah, initially it was I was gonna be being a harness and pulling a car across a section of land and Ross elderly Edgley had done that, I think for 20 hours, or something crazy. So he was like, I'll try and do it to 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 doing buggy thing that I was pulling for a bit. And it just started to like aggravate my back and joints and everything. 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 the rope before and Ross had also done a feat like that and so it was was training me he said to me look you want to be strong but you don't want to be heavy the heavy 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 ten 10 feet for the American. Yeah, 10 feet, 10 feet in my house. And I was going kind of three quarters 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 tall 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 rushing. The UFC was on, right? My mates were in the next room and I was in the gym where my ass set up. I quit starting, I'm like, I'm just getting in 15 minutes and I'm up and down and I must have been like, last one and I just jumped off and I had a map there and I just rolled my ankle. They just blew out and straight away looked at it, it was blown. And Utopia and all the team from Natuja were in Australia ready to shoot.

I think it was next week. So call them up and said, this ain't gonna happen. And they had a doctor have a look and I said, yeah, this is not good. And that was the road. 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 the ways 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 learnt 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 where you can switch gears now. And so I started doing a lot more rope pools and sled pools 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 weren't eating at two weeks to see. Two and a half weeks, I stopped lifting weights, I reduced my calories pretty dramatically, and maybe lost a couple of kilos. I know, I'd have been like two or nine or something, but

still heavy then 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 as a thousand foot off the ground and we go out under this cart and they throw the rope out and it's a hundred feet the right, which is three, four times longer than I've anything I've climbed in my training or anything. So again, this became less about what 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, go make it a fist fight, make it a fight, come on big man. Stand right for the doors opening. We got the rope going out. Oh, don't look out there. Ha, ha, ha. Wow, that's so hit to me. And all the little voices of doubt that have been pushing aside in my mind.

Starts it again louder and louder. I'm looking down and I'm thinking that it's not something I fancy doing. But I cannot let Chris see any moment of doubt in my mind at all. Oh! No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sui-jian, Sui-jian, Sui-jian, Sui-jian. Yeah, that's good. Ready?

So I'm getting winched down. And it feels a lot longer than 100 feet. 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. It's 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 road. I was surprised the quad burn was one of the most gnarly things. More than your hands, more than your forearm.

Both. But 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 of the anchor. So how do you feel physically now from a strength perspective in terms of how this is more of your training a little bit? I feel it's more specific, much running now. I used to just go in, I still do it to an extent.

And just start throwing weights around and go, I get biceps, I go back, 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 not warm that up properly. Or you're kind of heating everything too many times. And so just being smart about the training and that came from working with Ross and my trying to look so lucky 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. 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 That might have dramatic differences, like, about formal guins than I had previously trying like that.

Now, you actually, I don't think I've told you this, by the way, but 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. We actually have found that you have a very favorable gene around muscle fibers. 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 a 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 soon as I started even when I was playing 40 years, 17, doing more pushups, whatever I would grow. I've always had to work my ass off in that spice, but yeah, I do feel I've had 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. So shrinkage in Norway, definitely.

Different time, 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 going to 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 at the very first time and I said okay great. I get the blood test back about two weeks before I'm supposed to go to Australia and I see something in it that I'm 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 But I can't tell you, Darren, what it is. So without telling you, you need to trust me, but 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. Economy and a panic was like, you've got a cold pitter of tears, something's come up, but I don't know what it is. And I was like, oh my God, what is it? I longer if 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 work up 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 clear how much you take care of yourself. But we did find a couple of things that are a cause for concern. Right.

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 for, 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 oil? Probably somewhere between eight and ten times higher than that of someone in the general population. You know what? Okay. You know, you're, uh... 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,

well, this may be the thing that might take you out, it was like, whoa, can I floor 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. 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 we'll be able to. Yeah, this is going to motivate you to take steps today that most people your age would

never think about until their 50s or 60s. Sure. I hadn't had too many patients that had this combination of ApoE4-4. It's not a very common genotype. It's only about 1% of the population. So I've 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, because 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 going to happen. Then there are some genes that do, by the way. There are certain genes that if you have the gene, if the gene for Huntington's Disease, you're going to 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 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 is this mean? What's gonna happen?

And how long have I gotten? I was going, I'm trying to talk to my parents about it. And they didn't know much about it either. My grandfather has the Alzheimer's and it's been very tragic to watch. And so they were aware of it, but didn't know in any great detail about the gene combination we were talking about.

But as you say, it was just a good 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, 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, 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 going to want to talk about this particular aspect of Chris' health publicly. So let's redo that whole thing, but without that. And I think for about two years, we didn't know which version of this was going to 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 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. So this had, there was no over dramatized

that are exploited or anything. I think what they did a great job that was, it just became relatable. It became, and this is what my series was like, look, he's a human being like you were I and you know the sort of superhero costume aside this is an individual who has many the same challenges and is up against the same things at all of us. So even though you have two copies of the apo e4 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 to 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 because I have always said I really wish every single person would know their apoe geneotype 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, you know, 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 to have the best chance, it benefits everything else.

Anyway, you know, we talked about reducing stress levels, more mindfulness practices, the 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'll talk about is song. But I've paid us convinced that regular soreness can boost my long-term health. You know, now that we just got in here, Chris, let's take your pulse. Oh, I was. 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 got to get used to this height. We're uncomfortable right now because we're hot and in response to that our body is trying to cool us off. 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 sauna has a number of those benefits as well. How much of a fan were you of sauna 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. And 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? Well, yeah, definitely.

And definitely during having shot the show, it's made it, where 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 the nice bath. And so if sort of mood elevation was the only thing,

then 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 going to 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 when I'm back over the years, if I wake up and I get in the sauna in the morning and I do a nice bath or either all, I feel 50, 60% better. You know, that's the thing, you lie in bed all night and you're in 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, I mean, you wake up and you're stiff and so on.

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. I don't like it in the sun. 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 may be 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. A darand didn't want me to know much about it. It was an immersive theater experience. And I'm glad I didn't know it because I feel like I would have had preconceived sort of ideas and then expectations and couldn't have helped acting a certain way, 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 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 hit was about, all I knew 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 accepting aging and death. Dying offers us something, but we can change how we see it, but we do with it, how we play with it. Chris is about to take part in a truly unique experiment. Ready? My old man? Uh, that's a lie.

I mean, I was mean to read those time, buddy. Yeah. 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, because anyway, I couldn't hear properly. And there was some of this condescending

sort of patronizing tone of, how you hear people in some of the time talk to elderly, you know, it may be immediately go, oh my god, I hope I don't do that. But credit be isolating too. You know, you've visions diminished. And as. But credit be oscillating to, you know, he visions 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, the other. In the opposite direction to what we've told met before. There's 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 watch the episode, it's like a slightly over an hour long episode, but I assume shooting it was days, minimum three days. Right, 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. I don't think anyone dead 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 that we're thinking and sort of the no filter approach to things 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. It brought me straight back to Earth if I 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, there was a lot more nervous about that episode than anything else because 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 one environment of physical challenge and feats and then go into this emotional

state with a real shock and an adjustment. I'm so proud of what the episode is and became because it's not like anything I've certainly had done, but I'm like anything I've seen before in the talk space. 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. 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? Comin' action to things. He's one of the most unique individuals I've ever met. This is something saintly and otherworldly about him. He is such a beautiful individual. Certainly his story shook me, and they'll say 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 it, it 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, dispointing my life and am I proud of what I've done and 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, the 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 this kind of questions that I hadn't sort of been able to analyze, but were there in the back of my head. And my mum 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 going to 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 realized I'm so thankful for my life and I'm so happy that everything I've had in 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, well, I'm not ready yet. I have all these beautiful things around me and family and friends, but I can't go yet. This is not my time and it was strange because 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 I made me think about my kids and how they're growing up and things are changing so dramatically. And like, I'm not ready and I didn't think about my kids and how they're growing up and things are changing so dramatically and like, I want to sit, I want to soak it in, I don't want to be in a sprint anymore, I want to be more present, I want to be right here and appreciate everything that's in front of me. And again, I tried to articulate that a few times and I feel 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 her 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 had this realization now not when I'm 80, you know, I'm glad I'm not sitting on my deathbe going, ah damn, I should have done this, I could have done this, I found there done that. So I feel like this is sort of an awakening

or sort of shake up or whatever you want to call it. Kind of 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're not during COVID, but even then I was still working with 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 going to 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've a platform to do this. So there's all of these amazing things both to you personally 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? 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? It was, it's talking to her and as I've done for like I've been doing for a long time in my kids and like you know every time I've left to go on another trip I'm going to

make to work. I'm like it's not long you know and just soon I'm going to take some downtime and I think you know my daughter sort of rolls her eyes at times these days and says yes sure. And then this time I said look you know when know, when I've done this tour, I'm having a big chunk of time at home. And she goes, oh, great, awesome, to be fun. And I said, yeah, and I got us for time. 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 just a beautiful kind of moment of like, oh, you know, 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 this. 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 beautiful little moment. And so I don't want to retire for a number of reasons, but I certainly want to replenish and fill up my cup again. I feel like it's just been sort of flat-stick for so long now. And I loved it, and I'm very thankful for it, but I need to have a chunk of time at home now and sort of get reinspired, I guess. How was 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 everyone has their most irrational thoughts. Most of the irrational. Stress. It definitely affects my sleep. And this is just going back a few years, you know, this is not such a big issue these days, but um, actually it's not true, it is. to big issue these days, but um, well actually it's not true, it is. Ha ha. 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. Will I just be like, is that bother me? Is that bother me? Is that bother me? Oh, that one, yeah, good. Let's think about that. Let's chair that apart. You're getting nervous a bit now?

A little wave of them. No, I'm not. I'm not. I're getting nervous a bit now? A little wife of the Thames. Nose. Sometimes I don't even know why, and I wish I could deal with that stress better. I just got a whole lot real at that. Not just because it sucks. Guys. 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 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 my internal sort of environment is still thinking it's, you know, running away from the dinosaurs or whatever, you know, it goes back to our sort of ancestral, you know, makeup. And so the more comfortable I get, 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 worry so much about it and 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 don't 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. I hear a lot of people talk about that, people in this sort of friends of mine,

sports players and so on, with that watch required to get them to that place. That's a blessing and a curse. And it's a hard thing to switch on, a switch off, sorry, once you've launched your life in the guides. 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 going to be paying off the mortgage any time 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, but you wanted more for them. So part of your fuel for success was like, I want to 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? I'm pretty sure. 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 was then being on a set and it was like I couldn't think or see and I felt like I was getting jobs based on how nervous I was in those auditions, but I was then being on a set and it was like, I couldn't think or see, and I felt like I was going to pass out like it.

And I had, let's fighting that sort of for years. And you talk about fear or excitement. And I remember reading something that took a series of tests with athletes, performers, musicians, the actors, whatever, anyone in a sort of adrenaline fuel to the 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, that's what kind of a set. I programmed myself to say, oh, this is bad. That's fear. This is fear. This is a negative. I then went, no, this is a positive.

My spotty sense is about me. I'm gonna be able to think faster, react quickly. I'm gonna see clear, I'm gonna, my visual workshop. And it, my spotty sense is right now. I'm going to be able to think faster, react quicker, I'm going to see clearer, I'm going to my visual good sharp. And it was, and that was all it was, was a decision then to see it differently. Then, as time goes on, I think the fear does have its place though. I think you're sort of people talking

about that the fear pushes you, your purpose pulls you. And both of them need to have equal relevance in the conversation. And it's a bloody good motivator to, you know, the 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, there's sort of purpose on why I was doing it kept me going. So I think that 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 all my purpose

and my thing it can be like a humility there you know the fear I feel has allowed me to have more of a self-deprecating sort of a sense of humor about myself and the world and the work and hopefully it kept me humbled. What was the first role you had where you allowed yourself to think I'm going to make it? Well it was interesting. The first Thor film I thought a 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 going to work. I didn't know if we're going to do an Avengers film. And you weren't the first choice or were you, wasn't there something funny in your

audition? I auditioned initially and then didn't get a call back. I got some pretty bad feedback. What was the feedback? It was just no good. Just the 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 for. And I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, I said an audition on a tape and I'm going over and 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 four and Liam was one of those people and I was with Josh Weidon and Drew Goddard on the cabin in the woods and they both said what the hell is going on here? Who's this your brother and I go yeah, and he goes why are you in the mix? You hear me for and I was like, I don't know

I didn't get a callback sound none of them end up getting it and they reoff in 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 Brunner and do the audition. And I just had a very different attitude about it. I didn't put anyone on a pedal stool like I did the first time. I had like a little chip-a-chill stuff.

Yeah, my brother had gotten there and I hadn't. And I was a good motivation and it was about perspective. 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 way? And then 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 and I did the first time around. And then they got the part. How long does an audition take? Usually you have a few days to learn it sometimes. I call you at lunchtime and they say, coming this afternoon and read. But 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 give you 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, I just be like, yeah, yeah, cool. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm supposed to be still going and just like, yep, that's great. Thank you very much for call you. It's good brutal. You're 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 because you didn't know me. I didn't know you.

And my agent had called me and said, ah, you should do an audition. And Ron said, ah, look, I've seen Thor, he's great, but he's not right for the character. 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. I thought it kind of style it exactly how he was was and I had you know I've been practicing the accent and didn't audition and he saw it and went I got a cool maybe 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. Yeah. 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 the 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 into the premiere a bit. No, I take into a casual,

that was the first premiere I've talked into, but I'll watch it once or twice. Or if I'm producing it, then I stick through you a guy who walked that was the first premiere I've told him to, but I'll watch it once or twice. Or if I'm producing it, then I'll stick through it a bit more, but and it should be uncomfortable, I think. It was 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 clarify,

I don't feel like I've been doing anything wrong as much as I've just been in the storm of it. 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, OK, 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-impose the film to prepare and decompress, as opposed to just piling one after the other. Does that mean more directing, and have more time pre-imposed 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 at work 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 staring the ship. I don't have to feel like I've got a 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 the financial one. And it's a good payday, script sucks, but I get paid well,

you know, so I've done a few times, you know. And so, yeah, to be more curated in my choices and have more stillness and more calming decided. 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 did this because of Darren. You know, Darren and I were, we're in remain 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 Zach 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, Mike. It's been the biggest joyous, the people have met through this experience. And the knowledge, one thing with the friendships that are most important. So thank you, buddy. Yeah, man. Thanks for sitting down with me.

Yeah. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. for the friendships that are most important. So thank you, buddy. Yeah, man, thanks for sitting down with me. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. If you're interested in diving deeper into any topics we discuss, we've created a membership program that allows us to bring you more in-depth, exclusive content without relying on paid ads. It's our goal to ensure members get back much more than the price

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