A look at some epic challenges actor Chris Hemsworth undertakes on the new season of NatGeo’s Limitless

What was the toughest challenge he undertook this season? “This is a tricky one to answer because probably the most challenging physically was the climbing of the dam wall, which is nearly 600 feet. But drumming in front of 70,000 people with Ed Sheeran, not being a musician myself, was terrifying. The number of hours that were required to put in (for practice) was one thing but in my mind I kept grappling with the endless, vivid ways that this could fail. I thought, what if I’m out of time, the guitar, the keyboard, the bass, Ed Sheeran singing, all of it falls out of sync. The drums are the key that keeps everyone else in balance and check.” Hemsworth had joined Sheeran in Bucharest, Romania, last year — the clip is shown in this season of Limitless.

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Though Hemsworth had “fearful conversations around it”, once the show “kicked and the song launched”, he was in the space. The actor, known globally for playing Thor, says, “It was almost a spiritual out-of-body experience. It was like your instincts began to take over and you were just in this perfect state of flow with everybody. There was a real unity with 70,000 people (in the audience) singing along. It was like universal prayer. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

The 42-year-old Australian actor, known for films such as Ghostbusters (2016), The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016) and Extraction (2020), reflects on pushing himself, physically and emotionally, for the show. “I really enjoy the lesson that comes from it. It’s the difficult things we face that tend to be most provocative or profound. This forces us to ask bigger questions and seek larger answers. I had hesitations at first because all of us are wooed by comfort, sitting on the couch and staying at home. However, I knew there was something else to dig into this space of health, wellness and longevity.”

After all the hardship, when Hemsworth stood on the top of that alpine dam, what he experienced was “pure exhaustion” as well as “a sort of elation and a wonderful sense of achievement”. “There were moments of absolute quiet, there was nothing left. Then, out of nowhere, something sort of propelled me forward and I kept climbing and tried to sort of reconcile all of those different inner voices of motivation. I had to pull from a whole lot of different things. We have a toolbox, we’re sort of gathering necessary tools to navigate our way through any sort of challenges,” says Hemsworth.