He knows his way around a cockpit but Lewis Hamilton was gutted to have to put the brakes on becoming a fighter pilot alongside Tom Cruise in box office hit Top Gun: Maverick.
F1 champ Lewis contacted the Hollywood star, begging for a part in the sequel to the 80s classic, after they met while Tom was filming in the UK previously. He tells Vanity Fair: “I said, ‘I don’t care what role it is. I’ll even sweep something, be a cleaner in the back.’ ”
Tom, “one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet,” according to Lewis, offered for him to be one of his co-fighters.
But the racing driver couldn’t manage to make the filming schedule work during the Formula One season, and had to let down his pal Tom in “the most upsetting call that I think I’ve ever had”, he laments.
He said he is too much of a “perfectionist” to have taken on the role without being able to fully commit. Still, he could probably do his latest Hollywood project in his sleep: producing and overseeing the script on Brad Pitt’s upcoming F1 blockbuster.
As well as arranging for Brad to tour the Mercedes factory, Lewis says his main role is to whittle out “the B.S. that’s in the script because the Americans that are writing it are just getting newly accustomed to F1”. He must have been in pole position for that job.
Inside Beyonce's album party
Beyonce has a lot to celebrate with new album Renaissance topping the charts all over the world, including the UK.
So the singer threw a party in New York where she played the album three times in a row to pals including former Destiny’s Child bandmate Michelle Williams and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.
But if Bey put on the explicit version of her album – of which there is a much more sanitised version – guests including her dear mum Tina Knowles would have got a right earful. One track, Pure/Honey, uses a four-letter expletive beginning with C more than 60 times.
Blasting that out 180 times is quite the album party stunt.
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