Lewis Hamilton left actor Brad Pitt unimpressed by claiming he was too old to star as a driver in the F1 film. The picture won an Oscar for Best Sound at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
Both Hamilton and his former team principal at Mercedes, Toto Wolff, had cameos in the film, which became the highest-grossing project of Pitt’s career and earned nearly £500million worldwide.
However, as filming began, Wolff revealed that Hamilton had concerns about Pitt’s age when posing as veteran Hayes, and the actor wasn’t best pleased when this was raised.
Speaking at the Autosport Business Exchange New York last year, Wolff said: “There was one dinner that we organised with Joe, the director, and [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer, Lewis, Brad Pitt, Susie [Wolff] and I.
“We had dinner at our place in Oxford and suddenly the door opens and there’s Brad Pitt in the driveway and he says, ‘Thank you for having me for dinner.’ So that was a bit of a surreal experience. The initial concept was him being a driver and fighting for a world championship and then Lewis said, ‘That’s not going to go. You’re much too old for a Formula 1 driver.’
“Brad was not impressed by it. He felt that he was in his prime to be a Formula 1 driver. How they adapted the script was fantastic because it was credible. His role was credible.
“We looked at, all of the F1 drivers and the team principals, we looked at it at the premiere in Monaco around the Grand Prix, and we liked it. There was nothing that was not to be liked. It’s good entertainment.”
It lost out on Best Picture to One Battle After Another and was also nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Visual Effects. The sound team of Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta was honoured.