“Fast-paced and noisy”: F1 star Simone Ashley breaks silence on challenges of shooting the film at real Grand Prix races

Simone Ashley, who recently got a happy ending in Picture This, is now off to a Formula 1 race track in F1, the upcoming sports action drama film Joseph Kosinski is directing. Brad Pitt is leading the movie as Sonny Hayes, and tagging along with him is Javier Bardem, who plays Sonny's former teammate Ruben Cervantes.

Recently, the Picture This actress was interviewed by Who What Wear's Liv Little, where she told her about how they shot these one-take scenes. It was an adrenaline-fueled journey for her. Currently, the film is set for a global release on June 25, 2025, and a couple of days later in the US.

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One-take shots were a challenge in F1

One-take shots are certainly challenging, given actors need to pull them off in a go. Now, Ashley didn't tell Who What Wear exactly which F1 scenes were these; she did tell them that.

"You had to work as a team. Sometimes, we literally had one take for certain shots. Like, you'd see on the call sheet eight minutes to get this one thing because we were shooting alongside the races."

She also added that,

"Everything's just so fast-paced and noisy, and we're all together as a little unit. It was just one of the craziest things I think I've ever been part of."

Warner Bros. dropped the film's trailer on March 14, 2025, which, at the time of writing, had garnered over 15 million views on YouTube on their official channel. Collectively from other platforms, that number goes far beyond that.

The film will see Brad Pitt as a retired F1 driver who is contacted by his friend Ruben to mentor a newbie in the game, namely Joshua "Noah" Pearce, whom Damson Idris portrays. Though he is an amateur, we see his attitude is no short of a celebrated racer.

While we have some talented actors in line for the upcoming film, Formula One veteran Lewis Hamilton is a part of the film. While co-producing the film, he helped Brad Pitt and Damson Idris with Formula One stuff while they tested Formula Two and Formula Three cars.

The film might be a proper F1 flick, but it doesn't actually use Formula One cars. They were reportedly modified by Mercedes’ technology division and Carlin. All in all, it is said to have a budget of around $300 million. That's something around what the Russo Brothers' The Electric State had.

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Also Read: F1 cast and character guide: Who plays whom in WB's upcoming sports action drama?