00:00 - Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
00:05 - How you doing?
00:05 - Good, I feel like I have to get
00:08 the really important question out of the way.
00:10 When did you realize that the music of Kenny G and Enya
00:14 calmed you down in terms of your pre-race?
00:19 - So Neil, the Neil Blomkamp, the director,
00:23 he asked me last year in June.
00:26 We were texting all the time, he was ringing all the time,
00:28 because of me, and he actually, he just asked me,
00:31 so dude, what music do you listen to before the race?
00:34 And I'm like, okay, most of the time,
00:37 I need to be brought down levels,
00:40 'cause that's how I perform.
00:42 And this particular, I've always loved saxophone music,
00:45 ever since I was a child.
00:46 My dad played it when I was a child,
00:49 and this particular song by Kenny G always brings me down.
00:53 I love it, it's, without fail, it brings me down,
00:57 I need to be calm, and that's the music I listen to.
01:00 It's, people find it weird, but that's for me,
01:03 it's, I put it on, there's all people around me,
01:06 commotion, and I put that on, and I'm like,
01:08 my own world, before getting into the car.
01:10 - And because, I mean, given that this is your story,
01:15 and you serve as your own stunt double,
01:17 which I thought was incredible,
01:19 and how creatively involved are you
01:24 when the film was being made?
01:25 Do you have, you know, like Archie and Jimon,
01:28 Jerry coming up to you, asking about you and your family,
01:30 as the film's going on, or did you kind of step back
01:33 and let them sort of create their own versions
01:35 of people that you know?
01:38 - Well, I've been talking to script writers and producers
01:42 since 20, I think 2018.
01:45 So, for multiple days, heavily,
01:49 they came over from America,
01:50 so heavily in depth of my life before racing,
01:55 and also at Silverstone during the Academy,
01:58 then meeting Archie, we met actually before the set,
02:01 and he asked me so many questions,
02:03 he was very attentive, wanted to know all the details
02:07 about family, and before racing, emotions,
02:11 but it's not like it's an exact,
02:13 it's not like he's replicating how I walk,
02:15 that's not the vibe.
02:17 And I've been heavily involved in the scripts as well,
02:21 so the first one that came through, all of them.
02:25 So it's, for me, they wanna put out something
02:27 which is representative of my life,
02:29 and it's a very mutual kind of,
02:32 we're on the same path, same kind of,
02:34 we're aligned on that, and I'm happy with it,
02:36 because my name is on it, and I feel great.
02:39 - I mean, it's like, as you said,
02:41 like it's great that we're getting, you know,
02:44 a film like this, like seeing it in cinemas
02:46 where it sort of deserves to be seen,
02:48 and I was someone who, I didn't grow up with Gran Turismo,
02:52 but like, I did play it, and like, I,
02:54 it was one of those things that I never knew
02:56 the backstory to all of this, like have you,
02:59 has it been surprising for you, like reaction-wise,
03:02 to have people come up and go, oh, like I wasn't aware
03:05 that there was so much behind, like this story?
03:09 - Yeah, so I was having this conversation
03:11 literally at breakfast this morning,
03:12 and in motorsports, the bubble I've been in for 12 years
03:16 is very small, so everybody that knew of,
03:20 everybody in that bubble knew of GT Academy,
03:22 knew of the process of Game of Theresa,
03:25 and I assumed that other people did outside of that sphere.
03:28 So now I'm getting, you know, so many messages
03:31 from people that have seen pre-screens,
03:33 or they've seen that the movie's coming out,
03:34 and they're excited, and they've never heard of,
03:37 or even if they're involved in motorsport,
03:38 but yet they've never heard of the story.
03:40 And it shocked me, not in a way of like,
03:45 everybody should know me, but it's,
03:47 I'm glad that it's percolating out wider,
03:50 because I just want people to take positivity from it.
03:54 So, yeah, it surprised me in a good way.
03:59 - I think that's the best thing to take away from this,
04:03 as you said, positivity,
04:04 'cause it really is one of those films
04:06 that speaks to someone having a love of something
04:10 and being not afraid to just go,
04:12 "You know what, this is what I wanna do.
04:14 "I'm gonna stick with it.
04:15 "I'm gonna go all the way."
04:16 So I think it's amazing to have a film
04:19 like this sort of speak to a whole new generation of people
04:23 that wanna follow their dreams.
04:25 So I just wanna say congratulations on the film.
04:28 I definitely was taken by surprise by a lot of it.
04:31 Emotionally, some stuff I was not expecting,
04:33 got a little bit teary in some scenes.
04:35 So yeah, you need to be incredibly proud
04:38 of what's happened here, and everybody involved,
04:41 'cause it really is, it's a great story to have told.
04:45 - Thank you, man, appreciate it.
04:47 - No worries, thank you so much.
04:48 Thank you.
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