Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt on the same racetrack would’ve been Hollywood gold. But Cruise walked away from a racing movie with Pitt when he realised he wouldn’t get much time behind the wheel.
Now, as Pitt’s F1 roars into cinemas and is now a Box Office smash, the Top Gun star is said to be “crawling back”, hoping for another shot at the starting line.
In a new interview, Pitt revealed that he and Cruise were set to star together in Ford v Ferrari under director Joseph Kosinski, long before the film eventually starred Matt Damon and Christian Bale in 2019.
Pitt would have played driver Ken Miles, while Cruise was eyeing the role of Carroll Shelby – the man running the team from the pit lane. But there was one problem: Cruise didn’t want to watch, he wanted to drive.
“Tom and I, for a while there, were on Ford v Ferrari with Joe [Kosinski],” Pitt told The National. “This was about 10 years before the guys who actually made it – and made it a great movie.
“What it came down to is that we both wanted to drive, and [Tom] wanted to play Shelby, and I wanted to play Ken Miles. And when Tom realised that Carroll Shelby would not be driving much in the movie, it didn’t come through.”
Now, an insider tells The Standard: “Tom threw a bit of a tantrum when he realised he wouldn’t be doing as much driving as Brad. He was pretty entitled about it, and it blew up the whole project.
!It’s funny to see him turning up to Brad’s premiere all these years later. He regrets that and this support is him essentially crawling back.”
For Cruise, who famously insists on doing his own stunts, including dangling from planes and racing motorbikes at terrifying speeds for Mission: Impossible, the idea of standing trackside while Pitt took the wheel was a non-starter.
And so the project collapsed, leaving fans to wonder what could have been. Fast forward to 2025, and Cruise has reappeared, supporting Pitt at the London premiere of his new racing film F1, which has raced to a $144 million global opening.
Cruise’s surprise red carpet appearance set social media buzzing, with many asking: why was he there? Is he trying to get back in the driver’s seat?
If so, he may get his chance. Director Joseph Kosinski, who directed F1 and previously worked with Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick, has teased a potential F1 sequel that would bring the two superstars together at last, even suggesting a crossover with Cruise’s cult NASCAR film Days of Thunder.
“Well, right now, it’d be Cole Trickle, who was [Cruise’s] Days of Thunder character,” Kosinski told GQ UK. “We find out that he and [Brad Pitt’s] Sonny Hayes have a past. They were rivals at some point, maybe crossed paths.”
Kosinski has even heard rumours of the legendary on-set go-kart battle between Cruise and Pitt while filming Interview with the Vampire, saying: “Who wouldn’t pay to see those two go head-to-head on the track?”
Pitt, for his part, sounds open to the idea. “I would want to drive again, selfishly speaking,” he said. “F1 is still the focus. It needs to be on Joshua Pierce – Damson Idris’s character – and the rest of the team fighting for a championship.
Where does Sonny fit in? I’m not sure. Sonny’s probably out on the Bonneville Salt Flats, setting speed records or something like that.”
While it’s unclear if Pitt and Cruise will ever finally face off on the big screen in a racing epic, the F1 star is just enjoying the ride for now.
“We were all a bit white-knuckled to see if it was going to come through,” Pitt said of F1’s success. “We are delightfully surprised that everything we had aimed for, and then some, came to fruition.”
F1 is now playing in cinemas nationwide.
