What is your own relationship with Formula 1?
Like many young boys, growing up, I enjoyed watching it. It was a world that seemed so glamorous, so exciting. Those were the Ayrton Senna days, Nigel Mansell, Schumacher… So, when I first got the call, it was like, wow, okay, this is mega exciting, the little boy in me is able to kind of come out again. Of course, the sport is so different compared to what it was like so there was much to learn.
How many races did you film at? Were there some that appealed more to Joseph (Kosinski) and the team than others?
I want to say it was nine races. Let’s see, we started at Silverstone, then went to Hungary, then Monza, Spa in Belgium, a splinter unit to the Dutch Grand Prix and Japan, Mexico City, Abu Dhabi, then Las Vegas, and back to Silverstone. It wasn’t always perfectly linear, but the choices were made by Joe [Kosinski] to have the races that had the most pertinent story points. Of course, there are certain tracks which are especially iconic, yeah? Silverstone, where F1 started; Spa in Belgium, because of the Eau Rouge (one of the most iconic and challenging corners on the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps); Japan because the fans are extraordinary; and Abu Dhabi because it’s the last and the story had to end there.
Abu Dhabi is a very interesting race, because it starts in the daytime, then goes through dusk, and ends at night—all in a two-and-a-half-hour window. Monza is great because the (Ferrari) fans go wild; you’ll notice that in the film. Mexico City has this sort of gladiatorial arena which the cars drive into and out of. No other track has that. And quite frankly, the crowds were the most exciting.
Tell us about the APX GP garage. It looked so legit.
The brief, very clearly, was authenticity, but we wanted to own the design of it. There’s this Spanish architect called Santiago Calatrava that we all like and he does these incredible, kind of sweeping white buildings and Joe, who is himself an architect and has a great eye for design and detail, thought it was a nice starting point. In most F1 garages, form follows function. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still great, but because ours didn’t have to behave like a garage, we had a bit more freedom. The car is a central character in the movie so we were able to design it to showcase the car (as much as the wonderful cast). And because the car is black and gold, and because the racing suits were white, we decided that we wanted to have the garage be one tone, so it looked really slick. Lewis came into our garage on opening day at Silverstone and went, hey guys, this looks super cool. But it also had to behave like a real garage to the point where you could open any drawer in any of the cabinets, and the right tools would need to be in the right place.
