Episode Transcript
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0:10
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Drive podcast.
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I'm your host, Peter Attia. This podcast,
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d dot com forward slash subscribe.
0:46
Now without further delay, here's today's
0:48
episode.
0:50
I guess
0:51
this week is Chris Hemsworth. Many of you
0:53
need no introduction Chris course and most of
0:55
you probably know who he is through his
0:57
work as Thor in the Marvel movie series.
0:59
You've also likely seen him in no shortage of other
1:02
movies out there and of course my absolute favorite
1:04
movie with him is Rush.
1:06
I wanted to sit down with Chris to talk
1:08
specifically about his work in the recent
1:10
project through National Geographic called
1:13
Limitless, which is now available on
1:15
Disney Plus. Prior to the beginning
1:17
of filming for Limitless, which was in
1:19
January twenty twenty, I didn't know Chris. But over
1:21
past three years, I've gotten to know Chris very well
1:23
and consider him very close friend. And it was
1:25
great to sit down with him in New
1:27
York as we were both there for the premiere
1:30
to talk about everything that had gone into
1:32
the making of this series. Chris and
1:34
I had kind of an ongoing joke over the past few
1:36
years where we would refer
1:38
to the series limitless by another name, relentless
1:41
because it really in some ways felt like
1:43
this was never going to end. In part, Of
1:45
course, that was due to COVID. But in part,
1:47
I think it was because the creative
1:49
team behind this had such
1:51
an amazing vision for what this could be.
1:53
And frankly, the version of
1:55
limitless that you all have seen is
1:57
a significantly better version than I
1:59
think the one that was conceived back
2:01
at the beginning in twenty twenty. So
2:04
as I said, given that we were both in New York for the
2:06
premiere, we wanted to take advantage that and sit
2:08
down and talk about this. Unfortunately, time
2:10
was not completely unlimited,
2:12
and there were constraints. And so as much as
2:14
I wanted to do a really deep podcast
2:17
with Chris and talk about everything in his
2:19
life beyond limitless, we
2:21
simply didn't have the time given how much of limitless
2:23
we wanted to talk about. So in this episode,
2:25
we really just focus on limitless. The
2:27
challenges that he went through in
2:29
a variety of episodes and particularly
2:32
we talk about how they've impacted him to
2:34
this day. In addition to the conversation
2:36
with Chris, we sprinkle in a variety of
2:38
clips from limitless throughout the interview process
2:40
depending on the topics that we're covering.
2:42
While this lens, I think, to a better
2:44
watching experience of the interview, or
2:46
purposeful in choosing clips from limitless
2:48
that would add value to even those of you who are just
2:50
listening to this in audio format. And of course, if
2:52
you haven't checked out the series, I recommend you
2:55
do so. I said it can be found on Disney
2:57
plus So without further delay, please
2:59
enjoy my conversation with Chris
3:00
Hamilton.
3:06
So good to Stanley Brothers. You
3:08
too. Thanks for having me. So
3:09
much to talk about, but feel like I just
3:12
wanna start with kinda getting a sense of
3:15
the first time you heard about this. Was it a call
3:17
from Darren? Like, how did you even get involved in this
3:19
project?
3:20
Yeah. I had a call from Darren. Be
3:22
going back on three years now. He said,
3:24
I wanna do the series, a docu series.
3:27
Called limitless on longevity.
3:29
And he said, I know you're a fit healthy guy, but we
3:31
want to dive into the science and put you in
3:33
some pretty extreme intense
3:35
physical emotional situations and
3:38
see how you're fair and you can be the guinea pig
3:41
as far as the longevity science goes.
3:44
Said, why not? And initially, it was supposed
3:46
to be about AA3 week shoot. And
3:48
I know you and I have talked about this a lot once
3:51
COVID hit the show got spread out over.
3:53
Two and a half years and really
3:55
transformed in the best way
3:57
possible due to having hell
3:59
of lot more time than I think we'd first anticipated.
4:02
We're able flash out each episode, explore
4:05
the science in greater detail. I was
4:07
able to grow throughout the experience
4:09
and have different opinions on myself,
4:11
different opinions on how I approached
4:13
health and wellness. So, yeah,
4:16
I'm really proud of how it
4:18
turned out and I think was a lot
4:20
due to the time spent around to shoot on.
4:22
Kinda
4:22
going back to this. First of all, I can't believe they've
4:24
bait and switched you on three weeks of shooting
4:26
because even before COVID, I was involved
4:28
in four week issues. Yeah. So I don't know where anybody Initially,
4:30
it was soon. I was like, I can't fit that in my
4:32
schedule. That was three and then two and a
4:34
half years. And we joke about it. Right? What do we
4:36
call it relentless? We're gonna do a title change.
4:38
Limited. So
4:42
where were you in you were done Avengers
4:44
by that point? Yeah. What did I
4:46
I'd
4:46
done Avengers. I think I was doing the
4:48
press tour about the time
4:50
this came off. You hadn't done Love and
4:52
Funeral. So
4:53
I remember three years ago almost to
4:55
the day I was sitting in my apartment here in New
4:57
York with Darren, Ruth, Aerie,
5:00
you know, sort of like a core group from Nootopia
5:03
and from protozoa. And at that
5:05
point, so call it November of twenty
5:07
nineteen, they had the idea for six
5:10
episodes. It
5:11
was still a bit foggy. And
5:13
it's kind of amazing how quickly they morphed
5:15
that into that first shoot when
5:17
we started in January. Was there
5:19
anything about it that you had apprehension about doing
5:21
I mean, besides the time, obviously, time is an issue
5:24
based on your schedule. But were you
5:26
nervous, worried, anxious about
5:29
doing
5:29
this? Because this is not
5:31
acting. I
5:32
was to be honest, so I had never hosted
5:34
anything before. And it's
5:36
one thing to hide behind the
5:38
character and and behind the mask or
5:40
whatever. Individually applying in a film
5:42
setting. But then to to be yourself, you
5:44
know, I've done obviously plenty of interviews and so on,
5:46
but to be in a situation like
5:49
this where it was not
5:51
only looking into the science, but dissecting
5:53
kind of my abilities and
5:55
seeing what my limits were in in one
5:57
regard. And there's vulnerability that's
5:59
required there. Right? They had to be authentic, so
6:02
I didn't wanna hold back. But,
6:04
yeah, it was a little more of
6:06
hesitation or a lot more sort of thinking
6:08
about it is how I was going to come across
6:10
and wasn't going to be genuine, wasn't going to be
6:13
appreciated or not, or all sorts
6:15
of silly kind of doubts and questions
6:17
start to creep in that I wasn't
6:19
normally sort of thinking about. And then the
6:21
thing transformed anyway. As far as my initial,
6:23
was there any hesitation around? Taking on
6:25
the show. I didn't think any of us knew what
6:27
it was gonna be. The three or four weeks that
6:29
we'd talk about, even when you're involved,
6:31
and I spoke to Darren the last couple of
6:33
days about this, he said, yeah, it
6:35
was a very different beast at the beginning.
6:37
And due to the time, but also, I
6:39
think due to what I was willing to do, and me
6:41
and I had for it. It
6:43
was allowed to evolve
6:45
and become something bigger. And as
6:48
did the challenges, you know, the discussions about
6:50
cold water immersion and then we do wash
6:52
baths and so on. And then it was like, let's
6:54
go to Norway and let's, you know,
6:57
swimming in in the Arctic Ocean and
6:59
sort of became more and
7:01
more epic as it went on.
7:03
It
7:03
feels like you and I don't wanna
7:06
project this. So
7:07
correct me if I'm wrong. But as
7:09
I watched you because, you know, one of the things about this
7:11
that was kind of a joy is how close we became
7:13
as a group. Like, you, your team,
7:15
me, like, the whole group kind of coalesced.
7:17
It's like you seem to trust the team
7:20
even
7:20
more and more as time went on and gave more
7:22
and more of yourself. Because again, everybody
7:24
sort of got involved in this with the expectation.
7:26
This was gonna be bracketed
7:27
in terms of time and
7:30
COVID
7:30
in part, but also I just think
7:33
the breadth
7:33
of expectation of what this could be
7:35
expanded the scope so much. Do you
7:37
get the sense that you were willing to
7:39
give way more of yourself as
7:42
this thing went on that maybe you had committed
7:44
to upfront? Absolutely.
7:45
And I think due to
7:47
what you're saying about there's a trust there with the
7:49
people I was working with, I knew on
7:51
paper that these were the experts in their field and
7:53
all of you are going to take care of me and advise
7:55
me in the right way. But it's likely working
7:58
with a director. And each of
8:00
the experts and each of these series
8:02
were kind of leading the
8:04
way and they're at the helm. And I was following.
8:06
And if I have a good relationship with my director
8:08
and I trust them and that only comes through
8:10
experience and time spent, then I'm
8:12
gonna give more of myself and take
8:14
more risks and not feel like it's gonna
8:16
be exploited in any way. So
8:18
the first episode that we
8:20
filmed was the fasting one.
8:22
Look, I'm gonna do it with you.
8:24
Do you? Yeah. It makes it a lot
8:26
easier to go through this with somebody else. So Okay.
8:29
Good. Okay. We'll will suffer together. Oh,
8:32
we will. I've definitely gone
8:34
a day without food before. I
8:37
think I get pretty pretty cranky
8:39
when I missed a meal.
8:41
Certainly
8:43
detrimental to my my happiness.
8:46
It's a
8:46
pretty long time. Why why four
8:48
days? Why not? Why not
8:50
longer? I mean, what what is the
8:52
what is the benefit with four days? Why that
8:54
number? Three to four days is
8:56
probably that window at which
8:58
we do enough to
9:00
change how your body
9:02
is interacting with the
9:05
absence of nutrients to basically
9:07
do kind of a reboot on your system.
9:09
Not really. Do you think I'm gonna be able to
9:11
hold together? I can in
9:13
your experience, you see a lot of people the first
9:15
time I do it six eight. In the
9:17
next four days, there is no doubt in my mind. There
9:19
will be a period of time
9:21
in which you feel sluggish
9:23
or teas? Yeah. It's
9:26
kinda grumpy, grouchy, whatever.
9:28
But, you know, if you really stop to
9:30
think about it, this idea that we
9:32
kind of live today where we're sort of
9:34
surrounded by unlimited access to food
9:36
and we can eat three
9:38
meals and snack between them. That's a
9:40
relatively recent addition to
9:42
our species. Right. And
9:45
our ancestors would have gone days
9:47
without food, all the time and and not
9:49
only did they have to do that, they had the
9:51
ability to, in a period of
9:53
starvation, actually go out and hunt.
9:56
that
9:56
shows up third or fourth in the East Coast.
9:58
Yeah. What did you know going into that? And what
10:00
was your expectation? Just that I had never
10:02
fostered before, and I knew that
10:04
this was gonna be And I don't think you knew how
10:06
long it was going to be or anything like that. I mean, we
10:08
sort of saw that on that on you in real time
10:10
over that dinner. We did. I think the
10:12
initial discussions were around like intermittent
10:14
fasting and restricted sort of feeding
10:16
windows. And then it was like, oh, maybe we'll do
10:18
a day or a couple of days and you're like, no, we'll
10:20
do four days. And by the way, I
10:22
suggested three Yeah. I did.
10:24
And they said, no. No. We're gonna go one more. Because
10:26
I said, I wouldn't normally have a patient go more
10:28
than three days -- Yeah. -- on their first one. And
10:30
good. And they put it and they put it to
10:32
four. Yeah. I don't know. I
10:34
mean, as we've talked about many times,
10:36
my expectation or kind of thoughts
10:38
around would I be able to do it or not think
10:40
we're in line with yours. I thought, look, we're gonna commit.
10:42
We're gonna do it, but we kept discussing, you'll
10:44
kick into ketosis on day two, you know.
10:47
And maybe day three and then it comes
10:49
to like day four and I'm like, no. I'm not feeling
10:51
any of the sharpness or alertness. And
10:53
then right in the afternoon when
10:55
we went spear phishing them, probably
10:57
at the right time too. It kicked in
10:59
and things started to sort of pokeulate. I
11:01
remember saying to
11:03
Tanya, it was to Tanya. It might have been somebody else, but
11:05
I think it was to Tanya as we were
11:08
getting
11:08
ready to head out on the boat. I'm
11:10
and that was the moment when I kinda
11:12
realized how sort of strong you
11:14
were because I
11:16
felt like you didn't have that much time
11:18
to prepare for that exercise. And
11:20
it wasn't under ideal circumstances. It's one
11:22
thing to say, you're gonna do
11:23
your first fast. It's gonna be for four
11:26
days. And it was hard enough. I mean, we worked out
11:28
every day. We had a bunch of other things
11:30
that we had to do. But then learning an
11:32
entirely new skill around breath holding and
11:34
spear phishing, I mean, I think it would be challenging
11:36
under any circumstance. How much of that do you remember?
11:38
You know, it's been almost three years since we filmed that, but how much of
11:40
that do you remember? And was there ever a moment when
11:42
you thought, I'm not worried that
11:43
something's gonna happen to me, but I'm worried that I'm
11:45
not gonna be successful. That was
11:47
most of the episodes. As I'd get
11:49
to doing the Arctic swim
11:51
or doing the four day fast or
11:53
climbing the road, I kept thinking,
11:56
So don't complete this
11:58
exercise. He's not really an episode or it's pretty
12:00
anticlimactic. And so
12:02
that it was definitely healthy
12:04
amount of fear there kind of motivating
12:06
me, but also coming back to
12:08
the why of it and why we're doing it
12:10
and understanding the specific
12:12
purpose of each challenge
12:14
was on one hand the clock they were trying to kill me,
12:16
but on the other hand was like, there was an
12:18
incredible amount of information
12:20
and knowledge and support and science
12:22
there that says you do this, you do
12:24
this consistently, you work this in your daily
12:26
routine, then the benefits are
12:28
exponential. So think about Norway. We filmed
12:30
that in, I think, February. Right? We went right
12:32
from Australia. Maybe we had two weeks off and
12:34
then we're all in Norway. My recollection of
12:36
that was beauty
12:37
like I couldn't imagine. So we
12:39
were there to do this thing. It was in this place
12:41
that you would normally never go to. I feel like
12:43
we took, like, three flights together. Yeah. Yeah.
12:46
Again, Ross spoke about this a little bit last
12:48
night, which was it was another
12:50
example of you were
12:52
being asked to do something much
12:54
quicker than you would normally do
12:56
so. Right? I think you didn't What was
12:58
the first day you jumped in that
13:00
water? Because it's
13:01
different than a nice bath. Like, if you can send
13:03
a nice bath all you want. Yeah. It's totally different
13:05
experience to jump in the ocean when it's thirty six degrees
13:08
Fahrenheit. Some of the episodes I
13:10
was having to train for, specifically
13:12
probably the the strength episode.
13:14
That was on and off of the course of
13:16
six, seven months and then I had injuries
13:18
and so on. But the
13:20
cold water immersion I
13:22
mean, I did a couple of ice baths back
13:24
in some We were doing some in Australia,
13:26
back in Australia, and that was new
13:28
to me. And then I was talking to Ross about
13:30
it. And the sort of
13:32
overarching idea was that, you know, when I
13:34
was talking about developing brown fat, you know,
13:36
and we're gonna monitor that. Ross is
13:38
like, not four day. No. This is gonna
13:40
happen. And so it became as
13:42
much adaptation around
13:44
cold water immersion as much as it was sort
13:46
of a resilience test or
13:48
just a grid head down,
13:50
go for it. Because the first time we jumped
13:52
in the water in Norway, and
13:54
we're in there for four and a half minutes. Was
13:56
longer than any ice baths I've had, but it was
13:59
snowing. I'm breathing in,
14:01
you know, freezing cold
14:03
air, and it's windy. And I'm also
14:05
moving. You know, you sit in an ice bath and
14:07
there's a couple of mill of water that starts
14:09
to heat up if you stay still.
14:11
You're treading water, then none of that's
14:13
happening. So a lot of
14:15
it was trusting Ross and listening
14:17
to Ross' voice and just kind of again,
14:19
back to what he said about the trust. If I didn't
14:21
have Ross there, coaching me through it, having also
14:23
done it and even to even more extremes,
14:25
I would have questioned it to no
14:27
end. And in particular, on
14:30
that actual on the actual swim
14:32
itself halfway through, I was like,
14:33
every part of me was like, you're dying, get out
14:35
of the water. This is ridiculous. It's a plain to me
14:37
and to folks watching and listening what
14:40
it feels like because I have
14:42
never been in water that cold. I've done
14:44
long swims at about forty nine
14:46
degrees. And even at that temperature,
14:48
which seems balmy compared to thirty
14:50
six. I mean, that's a big difference. Yeah.
14:52
Right? It feels like you're on fire.
14:54
Oh, yeah. It actually feels like you're in
14:56
boiling oil, which I think most people wouldn't understand
14:58
how is that possible that you can get something so
15:00
cold and the sensation is that Attia being lit
15:02
on fire. Yeah. And then the other thing that
15:04
I think is I'm
15:05
curious to whether you felt it as well, is
15:07
the breathlessness. It starts to take
15:09
your breath away. Yeah. It definitely I mean,
15:11
I'm not I don't understand overly dramatic, but it
15:13
was one of the most painful things I've ever done.
15:16
And again, in comparison to the Ospa is
15:18
very different. The big thing was putting my head on the
15:20
water. Again, an awesome spot. Mind me, did you
15:22
have your plugs? I thought
15:24
I think I did. And
15:26
and and the other difference, by the
15:28
way. Oh, yeah. I was standing on the
15:30
shore. And all the training we've done
15:32
was treading water head above water.
15:34
And Ross is like, let's go for a proper
15:36
swim tomorrow. I was like, I'm just trying to do it, man. I'm
15:38
just saving it for the day, you know, in the afternoon when
15:40
we actually shoot it. I'm just gonna go for
15:42
it because if I experience and I think in
15:44
hindsight, if I had have experienced her pains what
15:46
it was, I would have been even more
15:48
doubtful. So I was standing on the edge and he
15:50
said, we wanna warm up as much as
15:52
possible before you get on and strip off
15:54
and dive in. And he said, and then when you
15:56
get in, just take a
15:58
second to try and adjust before you put your
16:00
head under And we did the warm
16:02
up, a walk down to the edge, and I didn't
16:04
even know if they were rolling. But I was like, I'm out of
16:06
here. I'm in the water, and I'm hoffing.
16:08
And and Ross didn't even have time to jump onto the
16:10
boat that was, you know, chasing us along.
16:12
I jumped in, just had a gun, and
16:14
the first flight I don't know,
16:16
maybe twenty five, thirty, forty
16:18
meters. I was like, got this. You know what?
16:20
I'm going, oh, I know. And I'm coming back. I'm
16:22
going to do that. And
16:24
out of nowhere, once the initial sort of
16:27
adrenaline went, I
16:29
felt the most extreme
16:32
headache, pain, right, to all through and
16:34
to the back of my eyes, and front of my head
16:36
everywhere. And III was
16:38
looking at the bottom and as I was swimming,
16:40
and I started getting really dizzy. And
16:42
I all of a sudden stopped and I was like, I'm gonna throw
16:44
up like it was that painful.
16:46
And I look and I've actually swum off
16:48
course a bit and I've started swimming toward where the
16:50
couple of the camera guys are and they're like, the boys
16:52
that way go that way. So head down
16:54
again and the whole time, I'm
16:56
just like, No. Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.
16:58
And then I have another voice in my head. I
17:00
have Ross' voice there saying, come
17:02
on. Fight, fight, dig in. And I'll
17:04
just start going for it, but what
17:06
starts to happen is your arms and legs are just
17:08
like lead balloons. Nothing works. You
17:10
know, I felt like I was swimming
17:13
like this. A little chicken. And you can't keep your fingers together.
17:15
Sorry. Your fingers got display. You
17:17
can't hold the water. Yeah. And it's
17:19
just like it was nollie.
17:21
And then I got
17:22
to the buoy and they're all cheering and stuff.
17:25
And Darren said, I was waiting for a big
17:27
celebration. I was like, I couldn't move. I was supposed to
17:29
die. And then the jet ski pulls up. He's like,
17:31
well done mate. And I'm like, can't can't be
17:33
help me on mate? I can't lift my arms, and they're
17:35
dragging up onto it. And then the same thing would
17:37
have gone on the boat. Everyone's like cheering and like,
17:39
get out of the way. And he came in with a
17:41
blanket and a little beanie and sort of started
17:43
warming up and so on. It was
17:45
wild, but I've never felt
17:47
the endorphan kick and the
17:49
sort of elation that I felt
17:51
afterward, it it was incredible.
17:53
And I just remember that my serene
17:56
peaceful state in
17:57
awe of everything, and we are there
17:59
in
17:59
Norway. It's a much stunning backdrop.
18:03
But it's just this wonderful sense
18:05
of calm and overwhelming
18:07
sort of joy. And I think
18:09
that it comes with any time you achieve something
18:11
that you think is impossible or
18:14
overcome some great challenge or
18:16
the face of diversity or whatever you'd
18:18
overcome it. This is such a beautiful feeling.
18:20
And maybe think about people who climb
18:22
Everest and do extreme feats all the time. And the rest
18:24
of us are wondering why the hell would you do
18:26
that? I believe it's for
18:27
that that moment. That post feeling was
18:30
pretty special. And I remember a long
18:32
time. I think there's
18:33
actually something within that. It's not
18:35
just accomplishing their feet. It's the
18:38
temporal juxtaposition of being
18:40
so low and so high. Right. Right.
18:42
Like, I don't think you know, how we don't feel
18:44
speed. Like, if you're on an airplane -- Yeah. -- you
18:46
don't feel it. You feel acceleration.
18:48
In other words, we're only wired, I
18:50
think, to feel a rate of change.
18:52
And I think that's true of emotion. Like, if
18:54
you're constantly in a state of bliss, everything
18:56
is going well all the time. I don't think you
18:58
feel profound joy.
19:00
So I think the reason in part I mean, I think
19:02
there's a physiologic expectation for what you
19:04
experience. We'll talk about that in a
19:06
sec, but I think what you're also
19:08
experiencing is four minutes earlier,
19:10
I thought I was going to die. Yeah.
19:12
And even if the upper part of your
19:14
brain knew you weren't, the reptilian part of
19:16
your brain? Absolutely believed it. Yeah. You were
19:18
dead. Yep. And then four or five
19:20
minutes later, you
19:22
have this unbelievable surge
19:24
of positive emotion. I don't think
19:26
you can find a period of time. And when just
19:28
four minutes, you can go from your absolute lowest your
19:31
higher. I think that's the thing. Yeah.
19:33
That's the juice. Yeah. Absolutely. And
19:35
with no negative lasting
19:37
injury, etcetera, you know,
19:39
for sure. I mean, of all the things
19:41
in limitless, the
19:43
strength stuff, the endurance stuff,
19:45
the mental challenges, all
19:47
those things, You know, the hardest one to make
19:49
the case for this will make you live longer is go
19:51
and jump in the arctic ocean and
19:53
swim. However, I think
19:55
about the benefits of cold
19:57
water I think that is something everybody should get used
19:59
to exposing. I mean,
19:59
just this morning. Right? Like, you know, United Breakfast,
20:02
I did really quickly go up, shower, come get
20:04
over here. I still made time
20:06
to spend thirty seconds to a minute in the
20:08
ice water of the shower and the
20:10
hotel. And I love that feeling
20:12
of the first time you get into the ice water,
20:14
you feel You feel that little thing.
20:16
I mean, there is really compelling evidence at
20:18
what this does to brain chemistry. So that's the only
20:20
thing that I think you're also experiencing,
20:22
although in your swim, it
20:24
was to a much higher degree than just
20:26
taking a cold shower and ice bath. But you
20:28
were, I think, probably being flooded
20:31
with endorphins and neurotransmitters that are
20:33
very positive. Mhmm. Absolutely. And you still
20:35
do this. I mean, this is still kind of a part of your routine.
20:37
You're constantly getting a nice Yeah.
20:39
And it's probably about exactly what you're saying, like the endorphin
20:41
kick, but also every time I get in
20:43
the ice bath, whether I'm
20:45
somewhat
20:45
used to it, it's still brutal. But
20:49
the moment you get out, like you say, you've gone from
20:51
one extreme to another. So it's an instant sort
20:53
of kick of happiness. But I
20:55
find like, just from inflammation,
20:57
repair, the general mood,
20:59
if I had, you know, wake up in the morning and I'm
21:01
feeling off and I'm achy I'm
21:03
not in the space. I could have a hot shower and, like,
21:05
I'm still a bit doughy, but I jump in the
21:07
cold and completely different. It's
21:09
a game changer. So Does Elsa join you?
21:11
Do your kids join you? That one of
21:13
my kids often tries to jump in for,
21:15
you know, not not that long, but gives it a
21:17
go. Yeah. And Elsa does it too. We have
21:19
a sauna and a lost bus set up at home and
21:22
just the best rehab. I
21:23
couldn't agree more. It single best investment I've
21:25
ever made was the sauna cold
21:28
plunge home. Let's talk about strength. So,
21:31
Chris, you
21:31
obviously spend a lot of time
21:34
working on
21:34
your strength training.
21:36
What type of program do you do? I
21:39
mean, I've over the years, training
21:41
for different
21:43
roles and for Thor, in particular, was
21:45
about getting big and mass. I do shoulders
21:47
one day, arms and other
21:49
back, chest, legs.
21:51
Got it. Okay. Feel
21:54
okay? Uh-huh.
21:56
Obviously,
21:59
he's in
21:59
amazing shape. Most of us would look at and
22:02
give anything to look like that.
22:04
But
22:06
there's always
22:06
room for improvement.
22:08
There are more
22:10
than six hundred muscles in
22:12
the human body. And for
22:15
longevity, you've
22:15
got to make good use of as many
22:18
as possible. So when I
22:21
assess Chris' muscular power and
22:23
efficiency, his flexibility
22:25
and agility,
22:26
I found
22:28
he could be working a wider range
22:30
of those muscles. No. That's it.
22:33
Okay. One, that's it.
22:36
And he could improve his stamina.
22:38
I think that
22:40
was an awesome episode because
22:42
I think and this is an a great example
22:45
of where COVID really
22:47
benefited the series. Yeah. Because,
22:49
you know, the initial
22:51
challenge for
22:51
strength was kind of an interesting
22:54
challenge But I think the
22:55
one you ultimately ended up doing was better.
22:57
And my only view on this was, like, from
22:59
a scientific perspective, what can we say about
23:01
strength and longevity or fitness and longevity
23:04
and really like kind of grip strength,
23:06
cardio respiratory fitness, you know,
23:08
would be top of the list. And that's why I
23:10
think that that challenge was a
23:12
perfect challenge because it's
23:14
grip strength, it's
23:15
top end cardio respiratory
23:18
fitness. Yeah.
23:18
Initially, it was I was gonna be being a
23:20
harness and pulling a car across a
23:22
section of land. And Ross Edgel
23:24
had done that, I think, for twenty hours or
23:26
something crazy. So he was like, I'll try and
23:28
you do that. And we were doing it. And I
23:30
did, like, I did a good month, like, pulling a sled
23:33
in the backyard. I had a little
23:35
Polaris doing buggy thing that I was pulling for
23:37
a bit. And it just started like,
23:39
aggravate my back and joints and
23:41
everything. And so we transitioned then
23:44
to the rope climb. And as you say, it
23:46
was probably more on point as far as
23:48
the science around strength
23:50
and longevity. So I started
23:52
training for the rope climb. I'd never climbed the rope
23:54
before, and Ross had also done a feat like
23:56
that. so was was training me. He said to me,
23:58
look, you wanna be strong, but you don't wanna be heavy. The
24:01
heavier you are, the harder it is gonna be to get up
24:03
that road. So I had a three minute road from
24:05
my house. That's ten feet for the
24:07
American? Yeah. Ten for ten feet in my house. And I
24:09
was going kinda three quarters the way up and
24:11
just jumping off and back up and down and doing
24:13
loops like that. And one day
24:14
I jumped down, blew my ankle up,
24:16
and I ruffled all the lemons and tall
24:18
lemons. What happened by the way? Was there anything
24:20
different that day? I was rushing.
24:22
The UFC was on. Right? My mates were in the
24:24
next room, and I was in the gym where my my house set
24:27
up. I think I quit starting online. I'm just
24:29
getting in fifteen minutes, and I'm up and down. And it
24:31
must've been like, Last one, and I
24:33
just jumped off and I had a map there and I just rolled
24:35
my ankle. It just blew out. And
24:37
straightaway looked at it was blue in utopia and
24:39
all the team from that year were in
24:41
Australia and ready to shoot. I think it was next
24:43
week.
24:43
So called them up
24:44
and said, this ain't gonna happen, and then I had
24:46
a doctor have a look and I said, yeah, this is not good.
24:48
And that was the rope, that was the foot I was gonna anchor off as
24:51
I was pulling myself up. And for
24:53
folks that have seen Thor, you've
24:55
got kind of different bodies in
24:57
there I assume the biggest you were in Thor was that scene
24:59
when you were in front of Russell Crowe. Yeah. By
25:01
the way, I was that size for that
25:03
afternoon and kind of fluctuate through
25:05
the film. Obviously, picky windows and guys
25:07
have kind of, you know, where to be your
25:10
biggest. This was like I
25:12
had
25:12
been training with Ross prior
25:14
to that
25:15
quite intensely and
25:18
learned some pretty unique special
25:20
things and how to just
25:22
kind of blast the body and
25:24
do the most effective intense
25:26
workouts and when and what to eat and
25:28
so on. So I was schooled in that
25:30
more so than I'd ever been before, so I had an
25:32
opportunity to get stronger and bigger than I ever
25:34
was. But the timing of it
25:36
didn't line up with this event. And
25:38
so rest hands up and I tried to I hadn't
25:40
been using the rope at all because I'd been working and
25:42
we started doing it and I was just
25:44
heavy and I was getting like three,
25:46
four pulls up and I was just like everything
25:48
was tightening up and so on. So
25:50
we had about two weeks
25:52
where I just stopped lifting weights completely.
25:54
And it's funny. I don't know if you've ever
25:56
put on a big amount of muscle
25:58
that It doesn't
25:59
take long for your body to go. Okay. This is
26:02
where you can switch gears now. And so I
26:04
started doing a lot more right tools and
26:06
sled tools. Got down to the Blue
26:08
Mountains where we shot and there was a and what
26:10
was your weight doing during that period of time? How much
26:12
weight were you dropping? I mean, it was only
26:14
a few weeks. A little bit. But I was still gonna make an
26:16
effort to reduce your intake. Yeah. Because
26:18
you were in India two weeks Two and a half
26:20
weeks. I stopped lifting
26:22
weights. I reduced my calories
26:24
pretty dramatically. Maybe lost a couple of
26:26
kilo on it. It would have been, like, two or nine or
26:28
something, but still heavy than I should have been
26:30
for it. Yeah. And we get to the Blue Mountains and it's
26:32
the most beautiful setting and there's the
26:34
cable cut across two
26:36
mountains as a thousand foot off the
26:38
ground and we go out onto this cart
26:40
and they throw the rope out and
26:42
it's a hundred feet of the rope,
26:44
which is three, four times
26:46
longer than I've anything. I've climbed
26:48
in my training or anything. So
26:50
again, this became less
26:52
about what you've trained for this and
26:54
more about just again grit and will and
26:56
just get up there. And I just
26:58
remember Ross kind of at the top of the cart going.
27:00
Make it a fist fight. Make it a
27:02
fight. Come on big man. Stand
27:05
right with doors
27:06
opening. Get
27:08
the rug going out.
27:17
Oh,
27:17
don't look at it. So
27:20
hits
27:23
me. And all
27:25
the little voices of doubt
27:27
that
27:27
I've been pushing aside
27:30
in
27:30
my mind, started to
27:33
get
27:33
louder and louder.
27:35
I'm looking down and I'm thinking that
27:38
it's not something I fancy
27:39
doing. But I
27:41
cannot let
27:42
Chris see. Any moment of doubt in my mind
27:44
at all.
27:46
Swish
27:50
on Swish two jump. Two jump. Yeah. That's
27:52
good. Very good.
28:00
We're
28:09
So
28:12
I'm
28:17
getting winched down. And
28:20
it
28:20
feels a lot longer than a hundred
28:23
feet. I
28:25
don't want to look back up because
28:28
I'm like, this is so much further
28:30
than I've ever climbed. How
28:32
long did it
28:33
actually take start to finish?
28:36
Probably,
28:36
I don't know,
28:37
probably a couple of minutes. It's a long time
28:39
to be, you know, to the harness that will catch me
28:41
if I fall, but none of it is helping me
28:43
up the road. I was surprised was fun. They're
28:46
most gnarly things. More than your hands, more
28:48
than your forearms, both the biceps
28:50
and forearms. I mean, when I got
28:52
off, I had, like, claws.
28:54
I couldn't extend my fingers that were locked,
28:56
but my quads and especially my right leg kind of
28:58
doing the push of the anchor. So how
29:00
do you feel physically now
29:03
from a strength perspective in
29:05
terms of, like, how this is kind of more if you're
29:07
training a little bit.
29:08
I feel it's it's
29:10
more specific, much running now. You know, I
29:12
used to just sort of go in. Let's still do to
29:14
it to an extent, like, and just start
29:16
throwing weights around and go I get
29:18
biceps, you know, I go back and I get chest and shoulders and
29:20
just as heavy as I could as much as I
29:22
could. And when I was a bit younger, I could get
29:24
away with doing that. And then
29:26
Now it's like, oh, jeez. I'm just not worn that
29:29
properly or, you know, you're kinda hitting everything
29:31
too many times. And so just being
29:33
smart about the training and that came from work
29:35
with Ross by trying to look zockey as
29:37
well. He just targeted much
29:39
more targeted approach. He
29:41
has really
29:42
interesting intense ways to work out
29:44
though. It's everything is about sort of
29:47
explosive energy, like
29:49
light up your was it your
29:51
parasympathetic
29:51
nervous system and
29:53
just switch on. Simparate pro. Sorry. Simparate.
29:55
Yeah. And fire up and just explosive
29:57
up and then slow negatives.
30:00
That might dramatic differences. I got formal
30:02
guidance than than I had previously trying like that. Now
30:04
you actually I don't think I've told you this by the way, but,
30:06
you know, in the process of kind of going through a lot of your
30:08
genetic stuff, which we're doing now.
30:10
Talk about this in a second. of doing this, you know, we actually
30:12
have found that you have a very
30:14
favorable gene around
30:17
muscle fibers. Of the yeah. Yeah.
30:19
Yeah. So I think that we'll talk a second
30:21
about kind of like a gene you have that we wish we
30:23
could erase. But on the flip side, you got
30:25
a pretty favorable gene around
30:27
fast twitch muscle fibers. You know, you sort of
30:29
have a genetic predisposition
30:31
to be muscular and to be strong
30:33
and to be explosive. I was
30:35
lean when I was younger, but as soon as I started even when
30:37
I was playing forty, you know, I was seventeen
30:40
doing more push ups where I would grow. I've
30:42
always had to work my ass off in that
30:44
space, but Yeah. I do
30:46
feel I've had some benefits
30:48
there. It's a great variant of a
30:50
gene to have as you age because one of
30:52
the hallmarks of aging is
30:54
actually atrophy shrinkage of these fast
30:56
twitch muscle fibers. Mhmm. So slinkage in
30:59
Norway, definitely. Yeah. Attia different
31:01
time, but yes. Yes. Yes.
31:03
So as we these slow twitch muscle fibers
31:05
are shrinking and everybody, and that's
31:07
why people are losing strength
31:11
and power and explosiveness most
31:13
rapidly as they age. Much more than they
31:15
are losing endurance, slow fiber. So,
31:18
you know, one of the things we always talk about their patients
31:20
is, hey, we need you lifting weights
31:22
all the time. You start early and
31:24
you never stop lifting weights and the
31:26
heaviest you can lift is the better because it's only
31:28
through lifting heavy weights that you can really get
31:30
those fast twitch type two muscle
31:33
fibers firing. The fact
31:35
that you kind of have a genetic predisposition to
31:37
have more of them is a good
31:39
thing, which then brings us to kind
31:41
of like some of the other stuff we talked about So
31:43
one of my earliest memories of this
31:45
whole experience
31:46
was in December of twenty
31:48
nineteen. We took advantage of the fact that you were
31:50
in LA to get
31:51
some blood work done. And, you
31:53
know, Darren said, look, here's the deal. You and
31:55
Chris
31:55
are gonna sit down in January
31:58
in Australia to kick off the first bit
31:59
of shooting. And I want you to walk
32:02
Chris through his blood work just as you would
32:04
do with a patient the very first time.
32:06
And I said, okay, great. I get the blood
32:08
test back. About two weeks before I'm supposed to go out
32:10
to Australia, and I see something in it that I'm
32:12
I say, Darren, I
32:13
can't walk him through this for the first time
32:16
on camera. That's
32:16
not fair to him. I mean, I know that
32:19
that's what sort of the drama is. Yeah. But
32:21
this is a bit too much. But I can't
32:23
tell you, Darren, what it is.
32:25
Mhmm. So without telling you you need to
32:27
trust me that this can't be done on camera for
32:29
the first time. This one thing -- Yeah. -- you can do
32:31
the whole lab. This one thing. So I asked him to
32:33
sort of trust me, and he did. And then we connected.
32:36
So he called me first. Yeah. He
32:38
called me in
32:38
a panic and was like, you've got to call Peter or
32:40
Tear, something's come up, and
32:42
but I don't know what it is. And I was like, oh, god.
32:45
Why not this? How long have I
32:47
got left? What's that? And so I was
32:49
kinda rattled before we
32:51
even got in the fun.
32:53
So we did sort of
32:55
the million dollar work up on you. We've got
32:57
every blood test one can get and I've
33:00
looked at every gene in your body six ways
33:02
to Sunday. And
33:04
overall, your labs look
33:06
fantastic. And I think looking at you from
33:08
the outside, it's clear how
33:10
much you take care of yourself, but
33:12
we did find a couple of things that are
33:14
a cause for concern.
33:15
Right. Some of
33:17
the genetic testing that we
33:19
did looked at a gene for
33:21
a protein called APO E.
33:24
You have a very rare combination,
33:27
which is you have two copies of
33:29
APO E4A
33:31
set from your mom and a set from your dad. And
33:34
what does that mean exactly? That
33:36
means you have an increased risk
33:38
of Alzheimer's disease. How
33:44
much oil? Probably
33:46
somewhere between eight and
33:48
ten times higher that of someone in the general
33:51
population. You know what?
33:54
Okay. You
33:56
know you're I
33:58
don't know. You're constantly thinking you're gonna live
33:59
forever, forever especially as
34:01
a young individual. And
34:03
then to all of a sudden be told, oh, this may
34:05
be the thing that might
34:07
take you out was like, whoa. Kinda applaud me
34:10
for floored me from it
34:12
a minute. You
34:14
know, it's hard
34:15
to imagine, but
34:18
it's my belief
34:20
that
34:20
if we take every step
34:24
possible, we can reduce your
34:26
risk to that of anyone
34:28
else. Mhmm. Sure.
34:30
In fact, I don't think you you'll me I I you
34:32
in time. You having
34:34
this gene is probably a blessing.
34:37
Because of the motivation that will get into. Yeah. It's this
34:40
is going to motivate you to
34:42
take steps today that most people
34:45
your age would never think about
34:47
until there's your or Sure. I hadn't
34:50
had too many patients that
34:51
had this combination of APO
34:53
E44
34:56
It's not a very common genotype. It's only about one percent of the
34:58
population. So probably only at that time had
35:00
maybe three patients that had
35:03
it. And truthfully, two
35:05
of the three of them kind
35:08
of suspected it before the blood
35:10
test based on their family history. Yeah.
35:12
In one case, about old
35:14
woman total shocker.
35:17
And
35:17
so I remember
35:19
just sort of trying to say,
35:21
look, this is a gene that really increases risk of
35:24
Alzheimer's disease, but it's not a
35:26
deterministic gene. And that's I
35:28
think just
35:30
something someone like me can take for granted because I'm sort of in this space. I understand
35:32
that, but I think that's a that's a hard concept
35:34
to explain to somebody who doesn't eat,
35:36
sleep, and breathe genetics, which is
35:39
you have this gene and it doesn't guarantee this
35:42
thing is going to happen. And there are some genes that do,
35:44
by the way, there are certain genes that if you have
35:46
the gene. If the gene
35:48
for Huntington's disease, you're gonna get Huntington's disease. This isn't that kind of
35:50
gene, but it's increasing your
35:52
odds. And that's the
35:54
bad news. And
35:56
then the good news is the earlier
35:58
you know this, the more you
35:59
can do to
36:02
mitigate risk. That
36:03
was my message. But what did you hear? I mean, how much
36:05
do you think back to that? Again, I I
36:07
knew nothing about the science or the sort
36:09
of the moccas and so on. Outside
36:11
of that one conversation. And so I hung up and
36:13
I was trying to explain it to my wife
36:16
and I was like,
36:17
yeah, I'm not really
36:18
sure what he just said, but I think, you know, I'm
36:20
more vulnerable to Alzheimer's. And
36:22
then we had another conversation And
36:25
I wish we'd had more conversations immediately
36:28
after because I did spend sort of a week
36:30
going, what does this mean? What's going to happen?
36:32
And how long have
36:34
I forgotten? I'm trying to talk to my parents about it, and they didn't know much about it
36:36
either. My grandfather, the house
36:38
of Adamis, and Steve, I've been very
36:40
tragic to
36:42
watch. And So they were aware of it, but didn't know in any great detail about the
36:44
gene combination we're talking about. But
36:46
as you say, it was just a a
36:48
good sort of kick in the ass and a
36:50
reminder to you do
36:52
what I can, whatever is it within
36:54
my control and within my power to
36:56
give myself the best fighting chance.
36:58
And, you know, whatever work I'm doing
37:01
for brine health benefits the rest of my body and the
37:03
rest of my life anyway. So we turned
37:05
it into a into a positive. You
37:07
know, one of the things that was sort of interesting about
37:09
filming this is obviously came out,
37:11
we filmed it, and we did everything in
37:14
duplicate for those episodes. We
37:16
did everything. We talked about all of this, and we went through
37:18
all this stuff. And then, of course, It was also done,
37:20
which is, hey, there's a really good chance that we're
37:22
not gonna wanna talk about this particular
37:24
aspect of Chris' health publicly. So
37:26
let's redo that whole thing, but without
37:28
that. Yeah. And
37:30
I
37:30
think for about two years, it was
37:32
we didn't know which version of this was gonna happen.
37:34
Obviously, the decision was a hundred percent
37:36
yours. When and why did you
37:38
decide that you wanted to be public
37:41
with something so personal? Once
37:42
I understood
37:44
more about
37:45
it, but also Well,
37:47
the same reason, it's motivated me
37:49
to make positive changes. I thought, well, that's
37:51
a great opportunity for anyone else out there who
37:53
may be in the same situation. To either go and get
37:56
checked or to understand more about brain
37:58
health and see what they have within their
37:59
power to make that change. So I
38:02
thought,
38:02
i thought out I would say, I
38:04
don't know. It's a missed opportunity to motivate others
38:06
to do
38:06
the same if I don't talk about
38:08
it. And then they cut to get two versions
38:11
of the episode and the other one
38:13
was just and I fell flat, you know. So Attia had and
38:15
there was no overdramatized or exploit
38:17
or anything. I think what they did to
38:19
Gretel about was it just became relatable. It became and
38:21
this is what most of the series was late. Look, you said,
38:24
humor being, like, you or I and,
38:26
you know, this
38:28
sort of superhero costume aside. This is an
38:30
individual who has many the same
38:32
challenges and is up
38:34
against the same things that all of
38:36
us. So
38:38
even though you have two copies of the APOE4 gene, which is a very
38:41
rare combination, you know, twenty percent to twenty
38:43
five percent of the population has at least one
38:45
copy of the E4 gene And
38:48
even though that doesn't increase their risk as much as the increase that
38:50
you experience, it still does. In fact,
38:52
even though it's only twenty percent twenty five percent
38:54
of population that has that gene that
38:57
group of people makes up about two thirds of
38:59
cases of Alzheimer's disease. So I do
39:01
think I applaud you for doing it and I'm really glad
39:03
you did decide to do this
39:06
because I I've always said I really wish every single person would know their
39:08
APOE genotype early in life. And there's
39:10
a lot of resistance in the medical community to this
39:12
truthfully. There are a lot of physicians who would say,
39:14
look, no one should know that. There's nothing that can be
39:16
done about it. Why would you burden somebody with that
39:18
knowledge? Yeah. And people like me and
39:20
Richard Isaacson, Kellyanne, you know, as you
39:22
know, people I work with, I mean, we
39:24
fundamentally disagree with that, Chris. We think that
39:26
is complete nonsense, and we think that this is
39:28
absolutely a condition through
39:30
which you have
39:32
an enormous lever arm to mitigate risk. If that's true,
39:34
which I wholeheartedly believe it
39:36
is, then not knowing that
39:38
information early is
39:40
criminal. Yep. And also as saying
39:42
that whatever I do in
39:44
regards to protection and arming
39:46
myself with the sort of tools to get
39:49
have the best chance, benefits
39:51
everything else anyway. You know, we talked
39:53
about reducing stress levels, more
39:56
mindfulness practices. There's certain training
39:58
I do, nutrition, my
40:00
sleep habits. All those things made a dramatic difference in every other part of my life
40:02
too. So, you know, one of the things that I was talking
40:04
about is Sona. But
40:06
I paid us convinced that regular
40:08
Sona can boost long
40:10
term health. You know, now that
40:12
we just got in here, Chris, let's let's
40:14
take your pulse. Her eyes.
40:19
Yeah. You're about sixty four beats per
40:22
minute, but we've got this
40:24
temperature cranked up to about hundred and
40:26
ninety five degree. In fact, fahrenheit.
40:28
So let's see where you are
40:30
in a couple of minutes. I guess I gotta
40:32
get used to this hate. Yeah.
40:34
We're uncomfortable right now because we're
40:37
hot. And in response to that, our
40:39
body is trying to cool us off.
40:41
Yeah. And so it's pumping harder so that
40:43
your heart can quickly get the blood
40:46
to the outside of your body. And just as
40:48
exercise is known to help with
40:50
cardiovascular disease, I think SONNA has a
40:52
number of those
40:53
benefits as well. How much of a fan were you
40:55
of Sona before we shot that series in
40:58
Norway? And then really kind of got into the
41:00
science of
41:02
why it's likely. It hasn't
41:04
been proven yet to the same extent that some things
41:06
have because so much of the data is
41:08
observational, but so overwhelmingly positive
41:10
in the same direction with every single study. I think we're confident
41:12
it is. I know you've always enjoyed it,
41:14
but has that taken on kind of a more urgent
41:16
-- Yeah. Definitely. -- and definitely during
41:18
having shot the show, it's
41:21
my or it's become a bigger part of my
41:23
daily routine often after a
41:26
workout. And again, I don't know what the
41:28
science says, but I know I feel great
41:30
after doing same with the nice bath. And so if sort of mood elavosem the
41:32
only thing, then if I'm all about it. I
41:34
would say even if the emphasis and
41:36
the benefit of the heat shock proteins is less
41:38
than what we think I
41:40
agree with you. I think just the psychological benefit and the sleep benefit. I
41:43
mean, I but the difference in my sleep between
41:45
when I saw not and when
41:48
I don't, is so noticeable that then again, are we gonna
41:50
question the benefits of sleep? I don't think
41:52
so. There is no doubt if I've been
41:54
training a
41:56
lot I wake up achy in particular, you know, I've had issues going
41:58
back over the years. If I wake up
42:00
and
42:00
I'd get in the sauna in the morning,
42:03
and I do a nice bath or either or I
42:05
feel fifty, sixty percent better. You know,
42:07
that's the thing you're lying better or not. You're in,
42:09
you know, a position and everything
42:12
starts to kinda I don't know
42:14
lies dormant and becomes
42:16
I don't know. There's there's no fluidity there. You know
42:18
what I mean? You wake up and you're stiff and sore. And then
42:20
you get into one of those spaces, the hot the
42:23
cold all the hot and instantly, I feel like everything's just
42:25
kind of lit up in a wagon.
42:27
So when we think about kind of
42:29
the last episode, which is the one that
42:31
we saw in the premiere, we
42:33
were
42:33
talking about this over breakfast today, but
42:35
that
42:35
episode maybe more than any other,
42:38
really reaped the
42:40
benefit of COVID. Mhmm. Because it had so much
42:41
more time to flush out. You know, when I think
42:43
about what the first
42:44
version of the final episode was
42:47
supposed to look like if this was kind of blasted through in twenty
42:49
twenty. I won't restate what that episode was supposed to be, but
42:52
it was kind of gimmicky. I didn't think it would've worked.
42:54
And then what it became
42:56
is unbelievable. Your mind, how was the
42:58
evolution of that episode? Did you have much of a hand in
43:00
the creative side of that, or were you kind of just a
43:02
passenger? No. I was a
43:04
passenger and I was kept in the dock. Intentionally.
43:06
Darren didn't want me to know much about it. It
43:08
was an immersive
43:09
theater experience. And
43:12
I'm glad I didn't know
43:13
because I feel like I would've had preconceived
43:16
ideas and then expectations and couldn't
43:18
have helped acting a certain way or reacting a
43:20
certain way based on that. So to
43:22
go into it blind and just open and ready for
43:25
whatever they were gonna throw at me
43:27
or throw me into was was
43:29
exciting and different to the other episodes. Everything else was
43:32
about being prepped in some way and
43:34
learning and understanding some of the
43:36
science prior to shooting,
43:38
whereas this It
43:39
was about all I knew was it was about acceptance of
43:42
death. All I've been told
43:42
is that I'm about to jump forward
43:45
fifty years into the future
43:48
and spend the next three days
43:50
living the life of an octogenarian.
43:59
The
44:06
architect of this strange challenge
44:08
is doctor
44:08
P. J. Miller, a world renowned palliative
44:11
care physician. His work sends
44:13
us on unlocking the transformative
44:16
power of accepting aging and
44:18
death. Dine offers
44:20
us something We can change how we see it,
44:22
what we do with it, how we play with it.
44:25
Chris is about to take part in
44:27
that truly unique experiment.
44:28
Ready? My
44:31
old man? That's a
44:32
nice I mean, ask me
44:35
three days
44:35
time, buddy. What did
44:37
that suit feel like? Just
44:39
uncomfortable, incredibly restrictive.
44:42
And I talked
44:44
about this in the episode, the
44:46
way people then spoke to
44:48
me because I knew I couldn't hear
44:50
properly and, you know, there was some of this condescending sort of patronizing tone of,
44:52
you know, how you hear people and some
44:54
of the time talk to elderly, you
44:58
know. It may be immediately going, oh my god. I'm I hope I don't do
45:00
that. But, incredibly oscillating
45:02
to, you know, visions diminished
45:04
and you as I said, you
45:08
can't hear. Restricted to everything is has
45:10
been pulled away all the sort of
45:12
your abilities that were there the
45:14
hour before I put it on.
45:17
And also not having fifty years to
45:19
transition into that. Again, one extent to the other
45:21
in the opposite direction to what we told them
45:23
before. If there's so many things about that
45:25
episode that are beyond
45:26
beautiful. One of them, to me, it's just a very subtle thing is that all
45:28
of the residents of that place were not
45:32
actors. And what was it like kind of
45:34
interacting with them? Because, you know, you
45:36
watched the episode. It's like a, you know, oh,
45:38
slightly over an hour long episode, but I
45:40
assume shooting it was days. A
45:42
minimum three days. Three days. Yeah. So you have a
45:44
lot of time on that set. I reckon some
45:46
of those folks didn't necessarily know who you
45:48
were prior to being able to be
45:50
honest. Yeah. Which must have been a great
45:52
relief, wasn't it? It was. It was really nice. It was unique and different
45:54
on so many levels that episode.
45:57
But to be
45:58
in a retirement
46:00
village with elderly folks
46:02
who were there for the fun
46:04
of the episode, but were just
46:06
genuine and truthful and honest and didn't
46:09
hold back with anything that was thinking
46:11
and sort of the no filter
46:13
approach to things
46:16
was it was it
46:16
was refreshing. You know, I think being in that sort
46:19
of industry where a lot of people do know who
46:21
you are Attia
46:21
lot of the time you're sort of supporting what you're
46:23
doing and everything's kinda tried
46:25
to be made or be accommodating as
46:28
possible. That was like, now
46:29
you're one of us now. It was
46:31
fantastic to
46:31
have brought me straight back
46:34
to If I drifted frequently.
46:36
Having known you for many years,
46:37
you're pretty down to earth, but
46:39
I still think that that must
46:41
have been even another level because you're
46:43
so
46:43
far out of your comfort zone. Mhmm.
46:45
This wasn't
46:46
there's no superhero component to
46:48
this. No. I was
46:49
a lot more nervous about an episode than anything else
46:51
because it wasn't something I could
46:54
fight or muscle through or just put my head
46:56
down, grit my teeth and go for it. to
46:58
be completely open and
47:00
vulnerable and accessible
47:03
and confront things that I
47:05
had never really thought about that
47:07
much. And interacts with people
47:09
who were at the end
47:11
of their
47:11
days or who had dealt with
47:13
death in very extreme
47:16
ways or come close to
47:18
death. And so to
47:20
go from sort of one
47:22
environment of physical sort of
47:24
challenge and defeats and then go into this
47:26
emotional state. With a real
47:28
shock and an adjustment.
47:29
I'm so proud of what the episode
47:32
is and became because it it's unlike
47:34
anything I've certainly never done, but unlike anything
47:36
I think, I've seen before in the Talkspace. There were
47:38
several moments that really
47:38
stood out to me. I'm guessing you
47:41
didn't know BJ Miller's story before
47:43
that episode. No, I
47:46
didn't. Because it came across as really genuine when
47:48
you're hearing it for the first time on camera. It looked
47:50
to me as though that was the first time you were hearing.
47:53
So it was Do you recall that felt like? Because it seemed like
47:55
you got quite emotional. I'm curious as to
47:57
what was more emotional. Was it
47:59
the tragedy
48:00
of his story or
48:02
was it more how moved you were by his resilience and
48:05
how he overcame it to
48:07
do what he's doing?
48:08
do what he's doing
48:10
Combination
48:10
of things. He's one of the most unique individuals
48:12
I've ever met. This is something saintly
48:15
and other worldly about him
48:17
is such a beautiful individual. Certainly
48:20
his story shook me and also the
48:24
strength now that which he reflects upon
48:26
it and his attitude toward what
48:28
happened to him. Was
48:30
so inspiring.
48:31
It made me you know,
48:33
I was in a I was
48:35
really exhausted coming into that episode. I was
48:37
at the end of felt
48:39
like a five year run of different films and work, and we were
48:41
shooting this series throughout.
48:44
And
48:44
I think I was more vulnerable than
48:46
I'd been in a long time out of
48:48
exhaustion, but also out of the questions that were starting to circulate
48:50
through my head. And a lot
48:52
of them were to do with you
48:55
know, this point in
48:57
my life and am I
48:59
proud of what I've done?
49:01
Am I what's next? And
49:04
all I kept thinking was I have
49:06
been sprinting through life in
49:08
the moments and opportunities,
49:10
and
49:10
I'm grateful for them, but
49:12
I've
49:12
been very quickly going to the next one to the next one, the next one.
49:14
And I was in a bit of a
49:17
state of what's next, and
49:19
what's the point and who am I and all of these kind
49:22
of questions that I hadn't sort
49:24
of been able to analyze,
49:26
but were there in the back of
49:28
my head. And
49:29
my mom had said something to me a
49:31
few days before that she'd have
49:33
this
49:33
experience where she came pretty close to what she thought
49:36
was gonna be her death. In a very instance
49:38
at a moment, and she's fine now.
49:40
But said, oh, you know, I wasn't at all
49:42
afraid to go because I realized
49:44
I'm so thankful for my
49:46
life and I'm so happy that everything I've
49:48
had and all the experiences I
49:50
have. And
49:50
I thought, well, what a beautiful feeling
49:52
And
49:52
then in that moment, I think I was talking to BJ and I
49:54
got really emotional because I
49:58
realized that Attia just
49:59
want I'm
49:59
not ready yet. You know, I have all these
50:02
beautiful things around me and family and friends, but
50:04
I can't go yet. This is not this
50:06
is not my time and it was strange because
50:08
we're manipulating
50:10
everything in that space to make me feel like
50:12
I'm gonna die. I'm a master.
50:15
Think about my death, how I would want it to
50:17
be and so on. But I had this this
50:19
sort of sense of urgency of just
50:21
I'm not ready and and maybe think
50:23
about my kids for now. They're growing up and
50:26
things are changing so dramatically. And
50:28
like, I wanna shit. I wanna I wanna
50:30
soak it in. I don't wanna be in a
50:32
sprint anymore. I wanna be more present. I wanna be right here and appreciate everything
50:34
that's in front of me. And again, I it
50:36
I've tried to articulate that a few times
50:38
Attia and I feel I
50:41
don't know if I hit the nail on the
50:43
head is exactly why it's something
50:44
in me sort of
50:48
fragile at that point. That whole
50:50
experience shook me to my
50:52
core and
50:54
made made me me
50:56
wanna slow down and just race home to my family and
50:58
my kids and not jump on another plane
51:00
and travel and work and do anything else,
51:02
you know, in the best way.
51:04
I think the
51:06
time when you
51:07
were sitting on the bench next
51:09
to Natalie was sort of equally profound.
51:11
At least it appeared that way
51:13
as an observer. I assume it's the same. You weren't aware of Natalie's
51:15
story, and you're probably sitting there thinking, why are they
51:18
having me sit and talk to a twenty seven year
51:20
old, very normal, healthy appearing
51:22
woman. Yeah. Definitely,
51:24
again, what she said in particular
51:26
was there's an urgency from her to
51:28
shake people and say wake up, it
51:31
doesn't last forever. The end could come
51:33
at any moment so I like the most of
51:35
it and love and laugh and live
51:37
with a sense of
51:39
gratitude and joy incredibly
51:41
inspiring and heartbreaking
51:44
hearing what she's been facing at
51:46
such a young age too.
51:48
And
51:48
i'm really thankful I'm really thankful that
51:50
I had those conversations and I was forced to think this way
51:52
and had this realization now
51:54
not when I'm eighty. You know,
51:57
I'm glad I'm not sitting
51:58
on my death bed going, ah, damn, I should
51:59
have done this. I could have done this.
52:02
I finally have done that. So I
52:04
feel like this is
52:06
sort of and awakening or sort of shakeup or whatever you wanna call
52:08
it came at the perfect time for
52:10
me. You and I talked about this last
52:11
month, I
52:14
think, but you haven't had more than two months off in about ten
52:16
years. Right? Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah.
52:18
Did you know during COVID, but even then I was
52:20
still working on
52:22
prepping things how do you
52:24
reconcile the fact that you
52:25
work so hard and you've been so
52:28
successful? And
52:28
with that success has so many
52:30
wonderful things. You've got wealth, you've got fame, you've got
52:33
a platform. Right? We're sitting here talking about
52:35
more people
52:35
are gonna know what the APO E4 gene
52:37
is and why they need to be tested and what they
52:39
can do about it. Because of this episode,
52:41
because of this series than anything else that would have ever come out
52:43
of the scientific literature ever. And all of
52:45
that is attributed to the fact that you have
52:47
a platform to do this. So
52:50
there's all of these amazing things, both to you personally and
52:52
to society at large that come from Attia.
52:54
But at the same time,
52:56
that's not sustained. Mhmm.
52:58
You once
52:59
told me a story about something your daughter said
53:01
when you kind of half
53:03
jokingly suggested to her you might retire. Mhmm.
53:05
Do you remember what that was? I was they're
53:07
talking to
53:08
her and I've done
53:09
I feel like I've been doing for a long time in my kids. I'm like, you
53:11
know, every time I left to go on another trip, I'm like,
53:13
to work, I'm like, it's not long. You know, I'm just soon,
53:15
I'm gonna take some
53:18
downtime and I think, you know, my daughter's gonna rolls her eyes at times these days and
53:20
says, yeah. Sure. And then this time, I said,
53:22
look, you know, when I've done with this
53:24
tour, I'm having a big chunk of time at
53:26
home and years, hi, great.
53:28
Awesome. It'd be fun. And and I said, yeah. And
53:30
they got us retired. Maybe maybe this is it. Maybe I'll
53:32
tell him with you forever now. And she's
53:34
like, no, dad,
53:36
you can't. And I was like, why? She goes, kids love seeing you play
53:38
for. And it was this
53:40
beautiful kind of moment of
53:42
like, oh, yeah.
53:43
Maybe it does there
53:45
is a purpose to it. You know, I think for me,
53:47
it's I've been chasing my career and been
53:49
doing it for a number
53:51
of reasons, but you know, it's been
53:53
there's sense of sort of guilt that comes with that of
53:56
sort of chasing down my dreams all the
53:58
time. And when you have
54:00
kids, it's not
54:02
about your dreams anymore. It's about theirs. And I have a family to
54:04
take care of. And I was really sort of
54:06
questioning kind of what I've contributed, though,
54:10
done. And hearing her side, that was like
54:12
a, you
54:12
know, beautiful little moment. And
54:16
so I
54:17
I don't wanna retire and, you know,
54:19
for a number of reasons, but I
54:21
certainly wanna replenish and, you
54:24
know, fill up my cup again. I feel
54:26
like it's it's
54:27
just been sort of flat stick for
54:29
so long now. And I loved it
54:31
and I'm very thankful for it, but I need to have
54:33
a chunk of time at home now and sort
54:35
of Yeah. Get reinstall it, I guess. How is
54:37
your sleep
54:38
now compared to three years ago?
54:40
You had a very
54:41
restless mind. You would wake up a lot in the
54:43
middle of the night. And you'd have
54:45
a thought you'd on it. And sometimes it was a
54:47
very
54:47
rational thought, like, I'm worried about
54:49
the success of
54:52
this film. I'm worried about my relationship with my wife. I'm worried about, like, these
54:54
were all very normal things to be concerned
54:56
with, but they would wake you up. And you wouldn't
54:58
be able to go back to sleep.
55:01
And then sometimes, they were things that
55:03
maybe seemed less rational, which by the way,
55:05
I'm not being critical of you because I'm not one
55:07
of us. No. No. Most areas are rational. Thoughts.
55:09
It's mostly irrational.
55:13
Stress.
55:14
It definitely affects more sleep.
55:16
And this is going back a few years, you know. This is not
55:18
such a big issue these days, but
55:20
my chance not true.
55:23
It is. Yeah.
55:24
Like, I'll go to
55:27
sleep fine and then
55:29
a two thirty This
55:32
is a shot of adrenaline, and my brain will just
55:34
start going through a checklist of things. Let's be like, does
55:36
that bother me? Does that bother me? Or that
55:37
one? Yeah. Good. Let's think about
55:39
that. Let's share
55:41
that a part.
55:42
We can get nervous
55:44
a bit now.
55:45
A little wider than
55:48
Notion.
55:53
So
55:58
sometimes I don't even know
56:00
why, and I wish
56:00
I could deal with that stress better.
56:06
Just got
56:08
a whole
56:08
lot real estate. Not just
56:10
because it sucks. Okay.
56:14
But also, it could
56:16
be killing me. How
56:18
has that changed? And
56:19
has this series given you a
56:21
different perspective on anything that has
56:24
given you
56:26
more peace? I think,
56:26
generally, I'm sleeping better than than I was back then.
56:28
I think just running in
56:29
a a state of fight or
56:31
flight constantly. But
56:33
that was required for me to leave Australia
56:36
with, you know, not a whole lot of money in the
56:38
bank and live on people's couches and
56:40
audition and audition and go
56:42
through that grind and
56:44
be told now a million times and still, you know, obsessively be pushing forward
56:48
requires
56:48
a huge amount of
56:51
composive, obsessive sort of self
56:54
motivated drive. And then
56:56
the problem is you then start to achieve
56:58
those things and I'm no
57:00
longer in the same sort of
57:02
fight that I was, but I'm
57:04
still
57:04
acting like my internal sort of
57:06
environment. Is still thinking it's,
57:08
you know, running away from the donuts or whatever. You
57:10
know, it got us back to sort of to sort
57:13
of ancestral, you know, make
57:15
up. And so the more comfortable I get,
57:17
the more I sort of rationally talk
57:19
myself through, hey, it's all okay now, you know, like, you
57:21
can afford to do this and this and this and you don't
57:24
have to you worry so
57:26
much about it, not working
57:28
out. Some
57:28
of that dissipates, but it's
57:30
there all the time. I'd be lying
57:32
if I said that I had a complete handle
57:34
on it. But again,
57:35
I don't wanna kinda dismiss it
57:36
too much because it's what got me
57:38
here. And it's a tool that I
57:40
will still need to use at certain times.
57:44
It's just monitoring that. And I hear a lot of people talk about that,
57:46
people in the sort of friends of
57:48
mine, sports players and so on with
57:52
that what's required to get them to that place. It's a blessing and
57:54
a curse. And it's a hard
57:56
thing to switch on a switch off, sorry, once
57:58
you once you open
57:59
the gates. Yeah,
58:01
I think that's a very common thread
58:03
for people who have achieved
58:05
great success. And when you think about
58:07
your motivation, right, when you think about
58:09
the love you have for your craft, is
58:12
there a way to
58:14
use excitement more
58:15
than fear? Like, I
58:17
think back to, you know, your beginning as you
58:19
talked about. You've spoken a lot about, and I think you
58:21
even did in some of the episodes, you spoke about
58:23
how one day you found out your father
58:25
wasn't gonna be paying off mortgage anytime soon. Like, you sort of had this
58:28
realization of the fact that your
58:30
parents have done so much for you and your
58:32
brothers with the means that
58:34
they had. But you wanted more
58:36
for them. So part of your fuel for
58:38
success was like, I wanna take care of my family as
58:40
well. Not just the kids that I'm going to have -- Mhmm. --
58:42
which you didn't yet have, but these people who you
58:44
love so much. And there's a bit of
58:46
fear in that. There's a bit of -- Sure. -- like do or
58:48
die. But at the same time,
58:50
there's also a real
58:51
passion you have for what you do.
58:53
In other words,
58:53
you're an artist. And so artists enjoy making
58:56
art. Is it
58:56
about shifting the balance of what's the
58:59
fire? Like, where's the fire coming Is the fire
59:01
coming from a place of fear? Is the fire coming from a place of love? I mean, do those go
59:03
back and forth for you from time to time
59:05
in a different season? No. I used
59:07
to get very intense performance
59:10
anxiety when I was first acting.
59:12
And it was debilitating. I would
59:14
go to auditions and I'd wanna throw up,
59:16
but it'd be shaking. And then even when I
59:18
got jobs, and I don't know how I was
59:20
getting jobs based on how nervous I wasn't
59:22
as auditioned, but I was then being upset
59:24
and it was like, I
59:26
couldn't think or see, and I thought I was gonna pass
59:28
out, like and I had was
59:29
fighting that for years.
59:32
And and you
59:32
talk about fear of excitement. And
59:34
I remember reading something that took
59:37
a series of tests with
59:39
athletes, performers, musicians,
59:42
actors, whatever, anyone in a sort
59:44
of
59:44
adrenaline fueled sort of
59:46
space. And they said, okay. Before the event, are you nervous or
59:48
excited? And some of them said they were scared
59:50
out of their minds. Some of them said they
59:54
were pumped. The interesting thing was they all had the same physical response --
59:56
Yeah. -- elevated heart, pulse,
59:58
etcetera. Climbing hands, short
1:00:00
of
1:00:00
breath, the
1:00:02
only difference was how they labeled that feeling. And so
1:00:04
for me, that was a real light
1:00:05
bulb moment. And I thought,
1:00:07
oh, okay.
1:00:09
So when
1:00:11
this feeling comes out, that's walk under set. I programmed myself
1:00:13
to say, oh, oh, this is that fear.
1:00:15
This is fear. This is
1:00:18
a negative. I then
1:00:20
went, nope, this is a positive. My body
1:00:22
senses are up now. I'm gonna be able to think fast and react
1:00:24
quick. I'm gonna see clear up. I'm gonna my
1:00:26
vision will be sharp. And it was.
1:00:27
And that was all it was. There's a decision then to
1:00:29
see it differently. Then
1:00:31
sort of as time
1:00:33
goes on,
1:00:33
I think the fear does have its place then. I think you sort
1:00:36
of talking to each other, the fear
1:00:38
pushes you, your purpose pulls you,
1:00:40
and both of them need to have equal
1:00:42
sort of relevance
1:00:44
in the conversation. And
1:00:46
it's a bloody good
1:00:47
motivator to, you know, the half of
1:00:49
these challenges. My fear
1:00:51
of looking ridiculous if I didn't complete
1:00:53
this
1:00:53
task or the fact that the episode wouldn't have
1:00:56
worked, you know, that kept me going,
1:00:58
but also the sort of purpose of why I was
1:01:00
doing it kept me going. So I think
1:01:02
that both deserve conversation. Just
1:01:04
it's about balance. And if either of them
1:01:06
get too much attention, then, you know,
1:01:08
you have too much of all my
1:01:10
purpose and my thing. There can be a lack of
1:01:12
humility there. You know? The fear I
1:01:14
feel has allowed me to have more of a
1:01:16
self deprecating sort of sense of humor
1:01:18
about myself. And the world and the
1:01:20
work and hopefully kept me
1:01:22
humbled to. What
1:01:23
was the first role you
1:01:25
had where you allowed yourself to think. I'm gonna make it.
1:01:27
Well, it was interesting. The first
1:01:29
Thor film I thought great. I mean,
1:01:31
the game certainly. Which year was the
1:01:33
first Thor film? Oh
1:01:36
it two thousand and ten? I think --
1:01:38
Yep. -- I thought this is good. I'm kind of in the
1:01:40
mix, but I didn't know if the film was
1:01:42
gonna work. Didn't know if we were gonna do
1:01:44
an Avengers film. When you weren't the first
1:01:46
choice or were you Wasn't there something funny in
1:01:48
addition there? I auditioned initially and
1:01:50
didn't get a callback. I got some pretty bad
1:01:52
feedback. What was the feedback? Just not
1:01:54
good. Just the Really
1:01:56
terrific. Really, like, minimal
1:01:58
feedback, which is, like, not even gonna give you any
1:02:00
sort of, you know, constructive criticism or anything. It
1:02:02
was just kind of minimal nothing. And I
1:02:04
was shooting a film in
1:02:06
Vancouver, and my little brother calls me up and said, oh, they're gonna fly me out Australia
1:02:08
to LA for this film four. And I was
1:02:10
like, what? And he was like, yeah. So when I
1:02:12
sent an audition on a tape and gone over,
1:02:16
I'm like, Oh, that's awesome, man. Congrats. Wow. What do you
1:02:18
know? And then the trades, I
1:02:20
think, variety or deadline come out and had, like,
1:02:22
the six final guys before and Liam
1:02:24
was one of
1:02:26
those people. And I was with y'all Sweden
1:02:28
and drew Godard on the cabin in the
1:02:30
woods. And their both said, what the hell is going on
1:02:32
here? Was this your brother? And I go, yeah. And he goes, why are
1:02:34
you in
1:02:36
the mix? Heave me four, and I was like, no. No. No. No. I didn't get a callback
1:02:38
sound. None of them ended up getting
1:02:40
it. They reopened the casting. And I
1:02:42
got a chance to do an
1:02:44
audition and I sent in
1:02:46
a tape, and I was called
1:02:48
back in to meet with Ken Brenner and with the
1:02:50
audition. And I just had a very different attitude about it. I
1:02:52
didn't put anyone at a pedal store like it did
1:02:54
the first time I had, like,
1:02:56
little children to shut off. Yeah. That my
1:02:58
brother had got there and I hadn't. And I was
1:03:00
good motivation and is about
1:03:02
perspective, you know. And then I was able to walk in that
1:03:04
room and give the
1:03:06
best version of whatever I had to offer as
1:03:08
opposed to people pleasing
1:03:10
and going and going. Is this what you want or is it
1:03:12
this this way? And then there's nothing there's
1:03:14
a lack of strength there, I think. They needed the character
1:03:16
to be assertive, and so I had
1:03:18
a
1:03:18
lot more sort of presence in that
1:03:20
space than I did the first time around.
1:03:22
And then then got the part. How long does an
1:03:24
audition take?
1:03:25
Usually, you have a few days to learn
1:03:27
it sometimes, they call you at lunch
1:03:29
time and they say, coming
1:03:31
this afternoon and raid. But when you're
1:03:33
actually there in front of them, again, depending
1:03:35
on how well, low, bad it goes, it
1:03:37
could be five minutes. Give me two
1:03:39
minutes. It could be an hour. I've had, like,
1:03:42
people answer the phone midway through my
1:03:44
audition when I first got the town. They'd just be like,
1:03:46
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
1:03:48
I'm like, I'm supposed to be still going and just like, yep, that's great. Thank
1:03:50
you very much. We'll call you. Oh,
1:03:52
yeah. It's good. Brutal. Even enough of them,
1:03:54
and it's either become numb to
1:03:56
it or destroys you.
1:03:58
How'd you hear about Rush? So
1:04:00
Ron Howard was making the film
1:04:02
didn't know anything about Formula One because you didn't know me. didn't know you. And my
1:04:05
agent had called me and said, oh, you
1:04:07
should do an audition. And Ron
1:04:09
said, oh, look, I've seen Ford,
1:04:12
he's great, but he's not right for the character, you
1:04:14
know. He won't fit in the formula one
1:04:16
car. I said, well, I'm not that size, and he
1:04:18
said, yeah, it's okay. And I said, I'm doing an
1:04:20
audition. And I watched an interview at James Hunt,
1:04:22
and my hair was kind of long enough so I could kind
1:04:24
of star exactly how his
1:04:26
was and and I had, you know, I've
1:04:28
been practicing the accent, did an audition, and he saw it, and
1:04:30
went, oh, kinda cool. And he already
1:04:31
picked Daniel for
1:04:34
Nikki. Think
1:04:34
he had. Yeah. I mean, you know my feelings on that film. Yeah. Like,
1:04:36
if you were getting a dollar for every
1:04:39
time that film got watched by
1:04:42
me, I you'd be even more
1:04:44
wealthy. I'm so thankful.
1:04:47
It's such a good movie. You would
1:04:49
know better than I do at this point. I haven't
1:04:51
seen it since the premiere. Are
1:04:53
you kidding me? It's hard to watch yourself, you know? So you
1:04:54
don't take your kids to Thor and Or they
1:04:56
don't watch it around the house. I know you're taking to the premier,
1:04:58
but No. It's taken to
1:05:01
a kilowatt. That was the first premiere I've talking to, but
1:05:03
I'll watch it once or twice. Or if
1:05:05
I'm producing it, then I'm, you know, stick through it
1:05:07
a bit more. But and
1:05:09
it should be uncomfortable, I think. This is something
1:05:11
now specific about enjoying it too much. So
1:05:13
if we're sitting here in
1:05:15
five years and your
1:05:17
life is better than it is today, especially in
1:05:19
accordance with the final episode of limitless.
1:05:22
Meaning, you're
1:05:24
running less The balance
1:05:26
between purpose and fear is
1:05:28
more in favor of purpose than
1:05:30
fear. You feel
1:05:30
more connected to your kids,
1:05:34
your family, what
1:05:34
has to be true? What are you doing?
1:05:35
This is another thing that came up in the
1:05:37
episode. I just want to sort of clarify. I
1:05:39
don't feel like I've been
1:05:40
doing anything wrong as much as
1:05:44
I've just been in
1:05:44
the storm of it. You know? I have a beautiful relationship with
1:05:46
my kids and my wife and my family. And
1:05:48
I'll be there with them, but
1:05:52
my brain has pulled in a million other places. And so
1:05:54
for for things to be even better,
1:05:56
would just be about is
1:05:59
it just about a state of mind? Or does it
1:06:01
mean it's both? Because in the episode,
1:06:03
I was talking about this
1:06:05
and I said, I was being asked to imagine
1:06:07
what my death would look like. And if this was
1:06:10
my final moment, who would have around me?
1:06:12
Where would
1:06:14
I be? And I realized it's in a living room with my
1:06:16
family and friends, and that's every other
1:06:18
weekend. You know, I have
1:06:20
it. So it was as
1:06:22
much a moment of it's already
1:06:24
right here in front of you, change your
1:06:26
attitude, and also, in
1:06:28
addition to that, was okay, I wanna do
1:06:30
this even more now and I have an opportunity
1:06:32
to do that because I'm
1:06:34
not in the
1:06:34
fight or the sprint anymore. So
1:06:36
it would be to be more curated with my choices and have
1:06:39
more time pre and post the film
1:06:41
to prepare and decompress.
1:06:45
As opposed to just pulling one off the other.
1:06:47
Does that mean more directing, shifting the
1:06:49
balance a little bit? I think it's
1:06:51
who the directors are. Working with people that are at the top
1:06:53
of their game and I've been so lucky to work with
1:06:55
some wonderful people. Just work with George
1:06:57
Miller and to continue to work with
1:06:59
individuals like that
1:07:02
where I'm learning from them. It's a collaboration, but
1:07:04
they're at the helm. They're still in the ship.
1:07:06
I don't have to feel like I gotta police
1:07:08
anyone else there, you know.
1:07:10
Is the dream. And then you're inspired by those people doing it for the
1:07:12
right reasons. It's from an artistic space and
1:07:15
an expression as
1:07:16
opposed
1:07:18
to a
1:07:18
financial one. That's a good payday. Scripps sucks, but I get paid well,
1:07:21
you know. So I've done a few times,
1:07:23
you know. And so
1:07:26
Yeah. To be more curated in my choices and have more
1:07:28
stillness and more calm in this side. Chris,
1:07:30
you know, I think about the last three years
1:07:32
and I think about when we started this
1:07:35
thing and January. For me, one of the most unexpected
1:07:37
joys of this, I really only did this because
1:07:39
of Darren, you know Darren and I were Warren
1:07:42
remained so good friends and
1:07:44
the chance to do something fun like this with
1:07:46
him was the motivation. But I
1:07:48
think a very pleasant surprise for me has been
1:07:50
meeting you and meeting all the people
1:07:52
around you. And
1:07:52
it gives me great comfort as now someone who's become a close friend
1:07:54
of yours to know that you are
1:07:56
surrounded by these amazing people. Like
1:07:59
Ben and Aaron and Zac and your family and your
1:08:02
parents and your brothers. I mean, you are
1:08:04
rich, Chris. You are rich
1:08:06
in people. And I suspect that's
1:08:08
actually probably your greatest asset. So
1:08:10
it's been a real privilege to be a part of that.
1:08:12
Well, well, it's been wonderful getting to
1:08:14
know you too, mate. It's been the biggest joys. The people
1:08:16
I've met with this
1:08:18
experience and the knowledge one thing with the friendships, the most important. So thank you, buddy. Yeah, man. Thanks for so much. I don't
1:08:23
want it. Yeah. Thank you
1:08:25
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1:10:48
such companies.
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