Toto Wolff admits F1 movie scene ‘makes me cringe’

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff doesn’t believe his cameo in the F1 movie is quite as great as producers claimed.

According to Wolff, “I think I did the scene five times!” because he was trying to secure the best take.

Toto Wolff pinpoints ‘cringe’ scene in the F1 movie

This summer, F1: The Movie starring Brad Pitt hit theaters after several years in the making, and it proved to be the summer blockbuster its producers had hoped it would be.

The film features Pitt as racer-for-hire Sonny Hayes, who is invited to join the APEX GP team as part of its bid to regain competitiveness and avoid takeover by investors.

Hailed as being one of the most accurate F1 movies of all time, it featured the likes of driver Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff as executive producers, allowing them to inform the direction of the film and answer critical questions about how to best bring authenticity to the big screen.

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But that doesn’t mean those star executive producers were necessarily excited to appear on the big screen themselves.

Take Toto Wolff, for example; he was more than happy to inform production, but thinking about his cameo in the film, Wolff admitted to the Wall Street Journal that his appearance “makes me cringe.”

Asked about the overall direction of the film as well as his participation, Wolff admitted, “It was interesting, being part of the conversations with Brad [Pitt] or with Javier Bardem, and [director] Joe Kosinski and [producer] Jerry Bruckheimer.”

But beyond those conversations, things got a little awkward.

“At the end I have this little cameo,” Wolff said.

“They say it’s great, but I think they’re lying to me. It makes me cringe. It was in Abu Dhabi after the race. There was no hair and makeup.

“They were like, ‘Let’s do this now.’

“They were a bit annoyed with me because I think I did the scene five times. I wanted it to be good — not that the outcome actually was good.”

Wolff is referring to a scene in which he pulls aside young star Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris) after the film’s bombastic conclusion in which Pearce crashes from the lead of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. There, he offers the young driver a ride at Mercedes, should he find himself looking for a seat.

It’s a brief cameo — one that Wolff admitted to practicing for in multiple languages — but it presented a new challenge for the team principal.

Was his performance as bad as he feels it was? We’ll leave that to you to decide.

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