‘You’re going to feel like you’re in the seat’ – Kerry Condon on upcoming 'F1' movie
Star of the upcoming F1 movie discusses the excitement surrounding the movie and what’s in store for audiences
Kerry Condon, one of the stars of the upcoming F1 movie, believes audiences will feel “like you’re in the seat” of an F1 car when they see the film.
Starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as drivers at the fictional APXGP team, the movie promises to capture the highs, lows and pure drama of F1 competition – with Condon portraying the team’s race director.
Excitement is continuing to build ahead of the film’s release in June 2025, with Atlantic Records releasing the full artist line-up for the soundtrack prior to the Miami Grand Prix.
And Condon, who was at the Miami Grand Prix herself to help promote the movie, has explained how incredible the experience of filming during F1 race weekends was.
“Funnily enough it’s the first movie I’ve been in where I’m a little reluctant to give it away because it means it’s over!” she told F1 TV’s Laura Winter. “The whole experience will be over for me. It was just two years of being on the circuit and sort of undercover slightly – I could go around and nobody knew who I was and it was just bliss. It’s sad to say goodbye but I want people to see it.”
With Condon someone who freely admits she wasn’t aware of F1 prior to taking on her role in the movie, she has gained a newfound respect for the sport, as well as the talent of the drivers.
“I guess the noise was the first thing – I’ll never forget the noise!” she said, when asked what her first impressions of the sport were after coming into it. “Even from afar, I remember thinking it was kind of tribal. All these people were walking for miles to come see, and the sound was this pulsating energy.
“Then it was quite similar to filming, the team element of Formula 1. Filming is a team, there’s a crew and we all work together and help each other and the hours are gruelling – there’s a lot of similarities.”
She added: “I think my impressions maybe of the drivers shifted a little bit because initially – I ride horses and I was kind of like, ‘How hard can it be?!’ And then when I started to drive a little bit, it’s so mentally draining and way more mentally draining than I thought.”
‘I really had to remain calm’
KERRY CONDON
F1 – directed by Joseph Kosinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Pitt and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, among others – will tell the story of former F1 driver Sonny Hayes (played by Pitt), who returns to the sport to partner rookie team mate Joshua Pearce (played by Idris), at APXGP.
With Condon portraying the team’s race director – a role where she took advice from former strategists Ruth Buscombe Divey and Bernie Collins – she explained what it was like working with someone like Pitt on the project.
“There was an element of working with Brad that felt like a step up; I really had to remain calm and know that I was an equal to him,” she said. “Which, I think maybe if I was younger in my career it would have been a little bit trickier. But coming off the Oscar nomination I was like, ‘Bring it on, I can handle it!’
“Learning and immersing myself in the world of F1 was something where I learned a lot more as an actor, because I had to learn more about the crew because we all had to work together. It wasn’t just actors and the crew filming, I had to help the camera department and the sound department.
“It was kind of ‘live’, there was a ‘live’ aspect to it so we all worked together. But I hope we didn’t distract the Formula 1 teams because that was my biggest thing. I don’t want to distract a driver and then he crashes into a wall! So, I really wanted to lay low and ‘we’re just going to film this, we’re not going to bother anyone’.
And in terms of what is in store for audiences when the film finally arrives in cinemas across the globe – with Warner Bros. Pictures releasing F1 in theaters and IMAX across North America on June 27, and internationally beginning on June 25 – Condon believes it will be unlike any other racing movie.
“It’s not just going to be watching a racing movie, you’re going to feel like you’re in the seat,” she explained. “It’ll be an experience almost – not just a movie – and there’s cameras that we’re using that have never been used before.
“The sound is so specific, the gear that we’re in going into a turn is the sound of this particular gear. The attention to detail is so perfect.
“There’s also romance – I’m a sucker for romance – and there’s comedy and an underdog. I love an underdog story, people coming from nothing and winning – who doesn’t love that?”
Watch the Main Trailer for the 'F1' Movie below...
