Apple Brings F1 to the Academy Museum

Apple hosted an exclusive screening of F1—an Apple TV+ original film—at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. The film follows Sonny Hayes, a retired Formula 1 driver who returns to racing 30 years later to help a friend’s struggling team. Fans lined up to watch the film and join the live Q&A, which featured interviews with Brad Pitt (who stars as Sonny Hayes), seven-time Formula One World Champion and producer Lewis Hamilton, director Joseph Kosinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and actors Damson Idris and Sarah Niles.

Hosted by Rochelle Rose, SAG-AFTRA National Director of Performers Programs, the Q&A touched on character development, the film’s innovative technology, and Hamilton’s key role in shaping the work. The event underscored the film’s accomplishments in craft and technicality, showcasing its strides in categories like visual effects, sound, editing, and acting. Throughout the discussion, the cast and crew credited one another for the film’s success, offering a glimpse of the team chemistry that translated onscreen.

“This whole thing really started with me reaching out to the guy next to me, Lewis Hamilton,” Kosinski recalled as he reflected on the film’s inception, citing that Hamilton was truly the “secret ingredient” of the film. From checking the script for accuracy to influencing parts of the storyline with his own personal experience as a driver, it was clear that Hamilton’s involvement in F1 was vital to the film’s success.

“I’ve always dreamed of one day having some part in a movie,” Hamilton shared. “So it’s been such a privilege to see everyone’s reactions to the film [over the last couple months].” He also added that the footage from the cars are “better than what we have in Formula 1,” hinting that the league may be looking at ways to incorporate the cameras used in the film to improve broadcasting the sport.

Kosinski revealed: “The cameras to shoot this film did not exist when we started.” Sony built on the technology used in Top Gun: Maverick to develop custom low-profile prototypes that would be able to attach to the car’s exterior, and Apple’s engineering team developed bespoke cameras based on the iPhone that were placed on two or three real Formula 1 cars during real races, capturing the exhilaration of racing onscreen in crisp 4K video. The plethora of cameras and audio recordings—the team captured audio of all the different Formula 1 tracks around the world, to capture the unique sound each track makes—resulted in over 5,000 hours of film to edit, a testament to the crew’s dedication to creating an accurate and compelling visual story.

Filming live during real-life Formula 1 races also required extremely limited takes, meaning each actor had to bring their ‘A’ game every day: “We even rehearsed with a stopwatch to show the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the governing body of the league) that we could make it happen,” Kosinski explained. Pitt and Idris actually even drove the formation lap alongside the actual F1 drivers at the back of the grid at the British Grand Prix, and routinely shot their own driving scenes—flying down the track at 180mph—in front of crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. 

“When you watch this movie and you see Brad and Damson in the cars, they’re actually driving these cars,” Bruckheimer echoed.

To prepare for such a demanding role, both leads underwent extensive training. Idris spoke to real drivers before a big crash scene in the film—“I was in the fire for real, by the way,” he emphasized—to know how best to portray the aftermath physically. Idris credited Pitt with how smoothly filming went, sharing that working with the veteran actor imbued him with the confidence necessary for the role of Joshua Pearse, the protagonist’s rival and teammate throughout the story.

For actor Sarah Niles, who plays the pivotal role of Pearce’s mom, Bernadette, Kosinski’s collaborative nature was crucial in transforming short scenes into profound exchanges. She shared: “The openness that Joe had in giving me the space to create Bernadette was extremely important in her character creation.”

Ultimately, the story itself felt so easy to connect to that it felt extremely natural for Pitt to bring Sonny as a character to life: “It’s a redemption story. We’ve all had times when we’ve had to pick ourselves back up. I think that’s something that appeals to everybody,” he said.