Archie Madekwe on The Novelty of Playing the Video Game

Gran Turismo tells the story of Jann Mardenborough, a teenage gamer living in Cardiff, Wales, who was given the opportunity of a lifetime to take part in the GT Academy, a program run in collaboration with Nissan designed to take a video game player and put them behind the wheel of a real racing car, and become a professional driver.

The story sounds too nonsensical to be true, and yet it is. Archie Madekwe plays Mardenborough, who raced his way into professional driving status, and even went on to be his own stunt double during the making of the film. Naturally for Madekwe, he wanted to live the life of Mardenborough as closely as possible—and that included getting behind the wheel, not just in a car, but on a PlayStation as well, to the envy of his friends and family, as he explained to Collider’s Steve Weintraub, in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“Everyone was, number one, very jealous, and number two, everyone wanted to join in and come and help me prepare for work,” said Madekwe with a laugh. “But I was just saying, you know, I wasn’t a gamer growing up because I’ve got quite an obsessive personality, so I just knew I had that thing where you play for hours and hours and hours, and then you think, “What have I done with my entire day?”

Look Past the Shame of Wasting the Day

The actor went on to add that, unlike his character in the film, whose father accuses him of wasting his days in front of a computer screen, this relaxing pastime was actually an invaluable resource into the character’s head and mindset.

“And it was this unbelievable opportunity to look past the shame of wasting the day, and being like, “I’m at work, I’m doing something productive. This is so great!” I could tap into what Jann was feeling, of being like, “This is actually leading to something, this is great. It’s not just me playing The Sims for six hours, like, I’m doing something. I’m doing something constructive!” [Laughs] So, I mean, it was a dream come true. I love it.”

Gran Turismo stars David Harbour (Stranger Things) as retired racecar driver, Jack Salter, Orlando Bloom as Nissan marketing executive Danny Moore, Takehiro Hira as Gran Turismo game designer Kazunori Yamauchi, Djimon Hounsou as Jann’s father and former professional soccer player, Steve Mardenborough, and the Spice Girls’ Geri Horner as Lesley Mardenborough.

The movie is now in theaters. For more on the movie watch our interview with Jann Mardenborough and Archie Madekwe below.