Brad Pitt reveals moment he felt 'like a horse's a**' during filming of 'F1 The Movie'

Brad Pitt has admitted that he felt “like a horse’s a**” when filming first took place during a race weekend for F1 The Movie, with the actor lining up alongside the real drivers during the national anthem at the 2023 British Grand Prix.

Released internationally on June 25 – with its release in North America following on June 27 – much of the motion picture was captured during actual Grand Prix weekends, with Pitt and co-star Damson Idris both getting behind the wheel of modified F2 cars that feature as the APXGP machines.

This saw Pitt and Idris – who star as returning driver Sonny Hayes and rookie Joshua Pearce respectively – first appear on the grid at Silverstone in 2023, both standing next to the real-life drivers when the national anthem played before the race start.

Reflecting back on this during an appearance on Beyond The Grid, Pitt explained: “Our first weekend was shooting at Silverstone.

“I felt a bit like a horse’s a** – being on [the grid], hearing the national anthem, standing on the line next to the real guys, and you just had to swallow it and go, ‘This is my job, this is what I’ve got to do’.

“Certainly by the end of it, we felt like we were in our own backyard.”

The challenge of ensuring that all of the footage had been captured during those moments – without causing any disruption to the race weekend – was a factor that Pitt felt added something positive to the film.

“It’s nutty. But it brings like an energy to the film itself, that it’s like a race to make sure we get these scenes,” the Hollywood star said.

“We’re going to shoot it on the grid, we’ve embedded ourselves in the race weekend – we have to prove ourselves that we will not cock up the programme, to slow down the race in any way, and we won’t be in anyone’s way.

“Damson and I do the national anthem, we turn around, we find ourselves walking with Carlos [Sainz] – these little accidents that happen – and then we get to the back of the grid, and we get two takes for this scene with Tobias [Menzies] and Javier [Bardem].

“The day before, the very first thing we put on film was [us] going out, taking the cars out on our own, in front of the 100,000 fans on Quali day, and that got my attention!”