Summary
- Gran Turismo is a movie adaptation of the true story of a gamer, Jann Mardenborough, who turned his ion for racing into a professional career.
- Madekwe faced physical struggles on set, including discomfort from sitting in a race car without a seat and experiencing the intense physical effects of racing.
- The movie accurately portrays Mardenborough's harrowing crash at Nürburgring Nordschleife, but some critics have criticized its placement in the story timeline. Audiences, however, have found the heartwarming story to be more important than this aspect.
With the movie putting its characters through the physical wringer, Jann Mardenborough reveals Archie Madekwe's real-world struggles on the Gran Turismo is based on the true story of one gamer who took his ion for racing and turned it into the professional field.
In anticipation of the movie's release, and prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike, Screen Rant spoke exclusively with Jann Mardenborough to discuss Gran Turismo. The real-world inspiration behind the video game adaptation detailed star Archie Madekwe's struggles on set, namely the physical toll production took on him as he endured the actual racing Mardenborough would go on to become a professional in. See what Mardenborough explained below:
Archie's a tall guy, so he had the discomfort of [sitting] in a race car without a seat. A race car's made out of carbon, and then we have a seat over the carbon. Otherwise, your spine would just compress until you won't be able to get out and walk. But he's quite tall, so he had to take the seat out. Bearing in mind, he's doing 150 miles an hour, acting as well, and he's feeling everything. He's feeling the g-force and the heat – it's real sweat. And he said, "It's an attack on the senses." For me personally, I play it down because that's my job. But for somebody who's not experienced that before, they always say it's like you're in a fight with someone. With Mike Tyson. Everything hurts, everything's sore, and you’re mentally exhausted. Personally, for me, it's just part of the game so I get better. I train every day, I take care of my nutrition, and I watch my weight because it's part of what you have to do to be the best driver you can be. It's part of my life. It's not just sitting down and pressing a few buttons and turning the wheel and just driving on a Sunday. It's war.
Editor's Note: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, and the movie covered here would not exist without the labor of the writers and actors in both unions.
What We Know About The True Story Behind Gran Turismo
Madekwe stars in Gran Turismo as Mardenborough himself, with the movie chronicling his unique rise to stardom in professional racing. Mardenborough was an avid gamer who got the chance to make his dreams come true with the now-defunct GT Academy, sponsored by Nissan, in which 90,000 players from around the world entered a competition for a prize to participate in real-world races for the automobile company. He made his debut at the Dubai 24 Hour, in which he scored third in his class, and went on to compete in a variety of other major races.
One of the more notorious elements of Mardenborough's story to find its way into the Gran Turismo movie is his harrowing crash at Nürburgring Nordschleife in 2015, which killed one spectator and left others injured. The second trailer for the adaptation revealed how it would tackle this subject, accurately depicting his car flipping over the guard fence and the mental toll it took on him.
Despite this accuracy, though, Gran Turismo's adaptation of the crash has drawn a wide range of criticism, with many taking issue for it being used as a step in Mardenborough's underdog story in his early career, when it actually happened years after his rise to stardom in 24 Hours of Le Mans. Upon its special previews, though, audiences have celebrated the heartwarming nature of the movie's story, taking lesser issue with this aspect than critics are.
