Ed Sheeran Challenges Chris Hemsworth to Play Drums in Front of 70K People in ‘Limitless’ Trailer

Ed Sheeran might make it look easy, but performing in front of 70,000 people is no easy task. Just ask Chris Hemsworth, who played drums alongside the British pop star despite having no prior experience at a concert in in Bucharest, Romania, last year.

The unexpected cameo from the God of Thunder turned out to be part of Hemsworth’s Limitless series with National Geographic, which finds him pursuing ways to strengthen his mind and body through extreme measures. And in a trailer for the show’s new season — titled Limitless: Live Better Now — that dropped Thursday (July 17), fans get a preview of just how much time and effort it took for Hemsworth to get comfortable behind the drum set.

Walking through a grassy field with the actor, Sheeran tells him in the teaser, “You should learn the drums to play a song with me on my stadium tour.”

The video then cuts to footage of Hemsworth hammering away at his kit, at one point admitting that he’s “struggling.” When Sheeran comes in to observe his progress, the Grammy winner says frankly, “I think this actually might be the most difficult thing you do.”

Indeed, learning to play drums is one of the trickiest tests of rhythm and coordination, but Hemsworth ultimately pulled it off. In more shots from the Limitless trailer, he greets the roaring crowd from the stage at National Arena in Bucharest and successfully keeps time while Sheeran performs his 2014 hit “Thinking Out Loud.”

With episodes premiering Aug. 15 on Disney+ and Hulu, Limitless: Live Better Now is a three-part series that will also find the Extraction star climbing a 600-foot wall in the Swiss Alps and going through Special Forces training in South Korea to uncover new possibilities for mental and physical wellness. As Hemsworth explains in the trailer, “The key to unlocking these benefits for all of us is finding the edge of our comfort zone.”

In addition to being one-time bandmates, Sheeran and Hemsworth are longtime friends. When the former was named one of TIME‘s most influential people of 2025, the latter paid tribute to his pal in a blurb for the magazine.

“Ed Sheeran has an almost supernatural ability to connect,” Hemsworth wrote at the time. “His songs, his voice, his words — they belong to all of us. Whether you’re at home with your headphones on, driving through the countryside or in a stadium packed with 70,000 people singing at the top of their lungs, his music feels personal.”

Watch the Limitless: Live Better Now trailer above.