Chris Hemsworth Talks the ‘Limitless: Live Better Now’ Stunt Disney Axed, Thor’s Future and ‘Extraction 3’

Chris Hemsworth has pushed the limits of his physical fitness time and time again to play the Asgardian God of Thunder, but screen muscles were by no means his only goal. 

In 2022, the Australian actor released six episodes of National Geographic’s Limitless with Chris Hemsworth. The endeavor was designed to challenge him physically and mentally in the name of longevity, and so Hemsworth went as far as climbing up a 100-foot rope that was dangling from a cable car in the middle of a thousand-foot canyon. Along the way, he discovered he had an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and so the Disney+/Hulu-streaming series became even more meaningful to him. (Prior to the upcoming second installment, the series was retitled from Limitless with Chris Hemsworth to Limitless: Live Better Now, raising the question of whether other people not named Hemsworth will eventually join the fold in order to push their own limits.)

Limitless: Live Better Now returns Aug. 15 with three new episodes, the first of which, “Brain Power,” gives Hemsworth the unenviable task of learning the drums in just two months so he can perform live with Ed Sheeran in front of 70,000 people. The second episode, “Pain,” has Hemsworth confront the root of his chronic back pain by training with Special Forces in South Korea. And the three-part capper, “Risk,” finds Hemsworth climbing up a 600-foot dam in the Swiss Alps, which took the place of another exploit that had him surfing a 40-foot wave. Understandably, Disney and Marvel brass put the kibosh on his attempt to impersonate Patrick Swayze’s Point Break character, Bodhi.

“I was going to attempt to surf a 40-foot wave and train with big wave specialists, but we couldn’t get it through the ranks. The risk assessment, basically, was too far gone, so I ended up climbing a 200-meter dam wall,” Hemsworth tells The Hollywood Reporter mid-laugh. “They both have a fair amount of risk attached to them, but [the dam climb] got past the risk assessment team. So there definitely was [concern from above]: ‘No, we need him to go off and shoot Thor next. We can’t have him drown while filming a big wave episode.’”

Speaking of Thor, Hemsworth released a YouTube video titled “Thank You! The Legacy of Thor” a couple months after his late March casting announcement in the Russo brothers’ Avengers: Doomsday. Naturally, the two-minute video caused an online frenzy, as fans quickly speculated that Hemsworth was preemptively saying goodbye ahead of his final go-round as Thor. Plot theories soon followed, and many wondered if Thor would have a fateful encounter with Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom à la the one that his brother Loki had with Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. 

Hemsworth is now clarifying that the above reading was not at all what he and his social media team intended.

“I had a few people ask me about it, and someone on my team said, ‘Ugh, we’ve given the wrong impression here.’ We didn’t do any [damage control]; there was no damage control necessary. But a lot was read into a little,” Hemsworth says. “I was [already] off starting another chapter of this character, and this journey has been the biggest part of my career. So [the video] was a moment of gratitude, and it wasn’t anything else. But it definitely got misconstrued and perceived in a different way.”

As for his other action franchise, , Hemsworth and his creative partners are still in the midst of figuring out what the next move is for black ops mercenary Tyler Rake.

“[Tyler Rake is] getting restless. We, the creative team, are putting together some different ideas and creative ventures of where we could take the whole place and the [third] film,” Hemsworth shares. “But the intention is to certainly make another one. I don’t know exactly when, but yeah, it’ll be coming.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Hemsworth also discusses the key differences between each season of Limitless, as well as the time crunch he felt while learning to drum in record time.

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Now that you’re nine chapters into Limitless, what’s been the most significant eye-opener along the way?

In the first season, I was much more of a guinea pig. I was kept in the dark by design, and I was thrown into these experiences and these challenges with little to no knowledge about what they were. So I was learning as I went, and this time around, it was more experiential journalism. I was able to create the show with the production team and look at different modalities and science that was available around longevity, health and wellness. I looked at what struck some sort of curiosity within myself and what was personal to me and how I could relate to it. So it became more of an introspective journey than the first season.

I am at a different point in my life. I’m 42 this year, and this show kept forcing me to ask deeper questions. It allowed me to navigate or observe or examine different parts of my personality or my genetic makeup or my physical, emotional and spiritual capabilities. I was either thrown into spaces that I had [no] awareness around or spaces that made me very uncomfortable. So I’m very thankful for that and for having a greater understanding about the ebb and flow of things. 

The biggest thing I’ve learned from this season was surrendering to whatever is right in front of me and carrying on anyway. I was immersed in the experience, and I let that drive come from a deeper place than just checking boxes or gathering pieces and assembling some sort of puzzle. So this became far more personal in a way and a lot of fun.

The season two premiere, “Brain Power,” gave me a great deal of anxiety. Your mate from Parkway Drive, drummer Ben Gordon, really knew how to sell the high stakes of drumming live for Ed Sheeran after only two months of training.

(Laughs.) 

When you said you had to cancel everything else in your life at a certain point, what exactly did that mean?

Well, the truth is I didn’t. I should have canceled a whole lot more. I was in and out of a press tour at the time. I had other work obligations. I have three kids, and I couldn’t cancel them, so they were still there. (Laughs.) I would’ve liked to have sent them off somewhere else for a couple of weeks and applied my complete focus to this, but I wasn’t able to do that. So it was more just narrowing my focus and understanding what was in front of me and separating from the other things, places and different directions I was being pulled in. Two weeks out was when that really hit home. I had about six-to-eight weeks to learn, and I kept putting it off. And about two weeks out, I realized I didn’t know the song. I was in the space of no return. It was too late basically.

So I went home and started drumming, and I literally blistered up my fingers that week. When I did the show, I had band-aids all over my fingers. So I thought of nothing else, and while it’s not the best way of working, I operate a little better in that space sometimes. Fear can be a pretty good motivator until it’s breathing down your neck. Sometimes, the reality is not as vivid. So I certainly was terrified, but the experience and the elation and the somewhat out-of-body feeling that I was absorbed in while playing — and then, afterward, the kick of endorphins — was unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced.

It was not just the juxtaposition of potentially going from fear or failure to success; it was being a part of something far bigger than myself. 70,000 people were singing along in unison and moving to this beat, this track, this song, this artistic creation that Ed assembled, and I was a piece of that puzzle. It felt how universal prayer or meditation or something on a big global scale might feel like. And as silly and orchestrated in whatever ways it was, there was something else I got a glimpse of, and it was pretty special. I’m very thankful for it.

During your climb of a 600-foot dam, I kept thinking about all your producers and studio heads who are going to hyperventilate upon seeing this footage. Did you have to shoot a lot of these exploits in between movie contracts?

Sort of, yeah. But this was National Geographic, which is Disney+, which is Marvel. So they did have eyes on it, and there was initially a big wave episode. I was going to attempt to surf a 40-foot wave and train with big wave specialists, but we couldn’t get it through the ranks. The risk assessment, basically, was too far gone, so I ended up climbing a 200-meter dam wall. (Laughs.) They both have a fair amount of risk attached to them, but it got past the risk assessment team. So there definitely was [concern from above]: “No, we need him to go off and shoot Thor next. We can’t have him drown while filming a big wave episode.” (Laughs.) That came up.

A couple months ago, you posted a Youtube video about Thor’s legacy, and the internet overreacted as if you were preemptively saying goodbye to the character in the near future. Was that not the intent? 

(Laughs.) It was certainly not the intent. To be honest, my social media team assembled some footage and were like, “Oh, this could be cool. We’ll put some stuff up and thank the fans.” And I was like, “Yeah, cool. It’s been great.” So we penned it together, and off I went to do something else. But then I had a few people ask me about it, and someone on my team said, “Ugh, we’ve given the wrong impression here.” (Laughs.) We didn’t do any [damage control]; there was no damage control necessary. But a lot was read into a little. I was [already] off starting another chapter of this character, and this journey has been the biggest part of my career. So [the video] was a moment of gratitude, and it wasn’t anything else. But it definitely got misconstrued and perceived in a different way.

Lastly, have you checked in with Extraction’s Tyler Rake lately? Is he getting restless?

He’s getting restless. He is. My inner Tyler Rake is feeling a certain amount of protest and needs to be released, for sure. That’s something we are working on, yeah. We, the creative team, are putting together some different ideas and creative ventures of where we could take the whole place and the [third] film. But the intention is to certainly make another one. I don’t know exactly when, but yeah, it’ll be coming.

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Limitless: Live Better Now streams Aug. 15 on Disney+/Hulu, before airing Aug. 25 on National Geographic.