Before F1: The Movie raced into theaters last week, Brad Pitt was originally set to star in another racing film alongside none other than Tom Cruise.
In a Wednesday interview with The National, the actor revealed that he’d love to reunite with his Interview with the Vampire co-star again in the future. Pitt noted that he was supposed to appear alongside Cruise in Ford v Ferrari, however, they ended up departing from the film because the Mission: Impossible star realized his character wouldn’t be doing a lot of driving.
“Tom and I, for a while there, were on Ford v Ferrari with Joe [to direct],” he said. “This was about 10 years before the guys who actually made it — and made it a great movie.”
“What it came down to is that we both wanted to drive, and he wanted to play Shelby, and I wanted to play Ken Miles. And when Tom realized that Carroll Shelby would not be driving much in the movie, it didn’t come through,” he added.
The roles of Ken Miles and Carroll Shelby eventually went to Christian Bale and Matt Damon, respectively, while James Mangold directed.
Pitt also addressed rumors of a potential F1 sequel, admitting that he “would want to drive again, selfishly speaking,” however, his character, Sonny Hayes, notably leaves Formula One racing by the end of the story. He did note that he’d love to potentially work on a follow-up to Cruise’s 1990 racing film, Days of Thunder. The Hollywood Reporter exclusively revealed last year that Cruise was looking into making a sequel to the NASCAR racing movie.
“F1 is still the focus. It needs to be on Joshua Pierce — Damson Idris’ character — and the rest of the team fighting for a championship. Where does Sonny fit in? I’m not sure,” Pitt said. “Sonny’s probably out on the Bonneville Salt Flats, setting speed records or something like that. So I’m not sure beyond that, just yet.”
