How did Lewis Hamilton get an offer to star in one of the most profitable films in cinema history? “I am a friend Tom Cruise. He's one of the nicest people I've ever met. Many years ago, he invited me to the set of a movie 'On the edge of tomorrow'. Over time, we built a friendship. When I found out she was going to be making a second part 'Top Gun', I got excited and decided that I had to ask him for a role for me. It doesn't matter which one. I could even be a cleaner,” the athlete admitted in 2022 in an interview published in the issue of “Vanity Fair”.
Cruise agreed to make his dream come true and offered him the role of one of the fighter pilots. Hamilton's joy, however, did not last long – it turned out that the filming was planned at a time when the Formula 1 season was reaching its climax. The driver decided that he would not be able to reconcile these two commitments and had to reject the offer to appear in the film. “An interview with Tom Cruise and the director Joseph Kosinski “was the most depressing phone call I've ever had in my life,” Hamilton said.
In the latest interview with “GQ”, Hamilton recalled this situation. He admitted that he very much regretted not taking advantage of the offer. “I didn't even have any acting lessons. I didn't want to be the one to make the movie fail. And I didn't have time to devote myself fully to it. I remember telling Tom and Joe about it with a broken heart. Then I regretted it. They showed me the finished film and all I could think about was that it could have been me,” he said.
In the end, Hamilton had the opportunity to work with Kosinski. He is the producer of a feature film about Formula 1, which the creator of “Maverick” is making for the Apple TV+ platform. The main star of the project titled “Apex” is Brad Pitt – he plays a successful driver who comes out of retirement to help another, novice competitor.
“I told them that this film must be authentic. There are two groups of F1 fans. The first are old-timers who have been watching the races every week with their families since childhood. The second is the new generation of fans who got to know the sport through the Netflix documentary series. My work is was to catch all the nonsense. I told them what shouldn't have happened. I explained how everything should look like. I simply gave them advice so that they knew what racing was about,” concludes the world champion.