Racing with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman? Kenneth Branagh looks back
Kenneth Branagh hints at a roaring day of racing with two Hollywood titans as he promotes his new action comedy Mayday.
Kenneth Branagh says the day started with a white‑knuckle ride: he hopped into Tom Cruise ’s stripped‑down car and shot out to Willow Springs racetrack, where Paul Newman was already waiting. Speaking on the On Film … With Kevin McCarthy podcast, Branagh recalled the speed like it was yesterday.
“I got driven there by Tom Cruise. I believe in a spaceship, he couldn't have gone quicker. It was a car that had no things in it. We went to Willow Springs and Newman was already there.”
According to Branagh, Cruise thanked him for the lift, then immediately handed over the keys. Suddenly the actor‑ director was the one behind the wheel, piloting Cruise at velocities he said he’d never dare put in writing. Any time he lifted, Cruise calmly urged him on.
Branagh admitted his mind flashed to his screenwriting career—one wrong move and that would be that. The whole day felt “out of time,” he said, as Cruise and Newman kept pushing each other on the track even though they were in different‑sized cars. Watching the pair, Branagh said, was like seeing “beautiful children on the greatest Christmas Day,” united by pure love of speed.
The new movie
That taste for high‑risk thrills threads straight into Branagh’s latest project, Mayday, which he directs and stars in opposite Ryan Reynolds. The action thriller centers on Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly (Reynolds), a hotshot U.S. Navy pilot whose top‑secret mission into Russian territory goes sideways at the height of the Cold War, leaving him stranded behind enemy lines.
Branagh said on the podcast that the production leaned hard on practical, in‑cockpit work to sell the intensity of the aerial sequences instead of relying solely on digital effects.