PHOTOGRAPHY Hollie Fernando
PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT Millie Noble
STYLIST Baillie Jones
STYLING ASSISTANT Odera Phil-Ebosie
GROOMER Tarik Bennafla
PRODUCTION Chiara Maculan
SPECIAL THANKS Pinnacle PR
HEADER IMAGE Will Merrick wears Jacket DENZIL PATRICK
“I’ve never done a job before where it required so little imagination,” Will Merrick says with a grin. “Because there was no need to imagine.” I meet the British actor a few weeks before the launch of F1: The Movie, this summer’s juggernaut blockbuster. The film stars executive producer Brad Pitt and British rising star Damson Idris as drivers for new Formula 1 team APXGP, alongside team principal Javier Bardem. Merrick plays Hugh Nickelby, race engineer to Pitt’s Sonny Hayes, and has spent the better part of the past two years filming at some of the world’s best racing tracks.
Co-created by the director, writer and producer trio behind Top Gun: Maverick, F1: The Movie prides itself as the most immersive racing film ever made, integrating its fictional drivers with the real-life F1 teams while shooting at nine internationally-renowned circuits during live Grand Prix weekends. Pitt and Idris trained with British racing legend Lewis Hamilton and drove in modified F2 racecars, reaching speeds up to 180 mph and capturing genuine G-force reactions.
For Merrick, the experience felt most similar to working on an immersive theatre production. “We got all the atmosphere for free, so it was very easy to get lost in it,” he explains. As a race engineer, Merrick spent most of his time during races positioned at the APXGP team pit wall. “There’s Ferrari on one side of us, and there’s McLaren on the other, and they are working the real race the whole time we’re shooting,” he says. “Normally, you’re told to look at a yellow dot and pretend it’s a real car, but these were real F1 cars travelling at 200mph. Talk about a situation where you don’t have to suspend your disbelief – I don’t know that my job will ever be as easy as it was in those moments.”
This isn’t the first time Merrick has brought brainy to the big screen – just the first time it came with pit stops and podiums. “I think this is my third role of recent where the character seems to be glued to a laptop. I guess there’s a little geek in me that I just can’t suppress,” he teases. In Silo, the dystopian Apple TV+ hit that helped cement his post-Skins dramatic chops, Merrick plays a systems engineer navigating secrets buried deep underground. That role demands a different kind of immersion – dark, controlled, and confined to a warehouse-sized bunker. But in both projects, the physical spaces played the supporting role. “I remember my first day on set,” he recalls. “I was whisked through costume and directed to walk through the set. Looking at it, it felt like I was in Star Wars – the set was so immaculately dressed and every corner of it was so detailed. The director had to stop me and say: ‘Will, don’t look so surprised – you live here.’” He laughs. “I told him, ‘Dude, give me a minute to take this all in.’”
That same detail-driven approach has carried into his work on F1: The Movie. Merrick met with real engineers Tom Stallard and Will Joseph, learned how to think like a race strategist, and was attending the Barcelona Grand Prix within weeks of being cast. “F1 really opened its arms to us,” he beams. “It’s not like they were speaking to us during a holiday – they were working, and they let us make this movie while the season was running. They were incredibly generous with their time, and the access and information they gave us.”
As Hugh Nickelby, Merrick plays an engineer trying to keep up with a free-spirited racer who rarely lets on what he’s thinking. “Sonny really keeps his cards to his chest. He’s always got a plan that we’re never really privy to, so a lot of the fun is playing an engineer who is trying to wrangle and work with this maverick driver,” he says. “The journey for Nickelby is learning to trust that this guy has a plan, and then trusting yourself.”
F1 really opened its arms to us. It’s not like they were speaking to us during a holiday – they were working, and they let us make this movie while the season was running. They were incredibly generous with their time, and the access and information they gave us.
Shirt & Trousers GEORDIE CAMPBELL, Shoes PUMA
“That’s what Sonny teaches the team – that if everyone works to an optimal level and focuses, anything’s possible. It’s about the team, because that’s the beautiful thing about F1 – there are so many components, and winning requires everyone to be on top of their game. If everyone is full of passion and drive and focus, anything’s possible.”
A year ago, the first teaser trailer for F1: The Movie dropped at the British Grand Prix in a full-throttle spectacle in front of 150,000 roaring fans at Silverstone. It was a rare convergence of real-world sport and cinematic fiction: Brad Pitt walking the grid in race overalls, the APXGP car pulling out of the garage alongside Mercedes and Ferrari, and the film itself unveiled on the jumbotrons as engines revved on track.
The film’s realistic portrayal arrives as F1 enjoys an unprecedented surge in global popularity. Since the success of Netflix’s sports documentary-turned-soap opera, Drive to Survive, the paddock has transformed into a catwalk, the drivers into household names, and the fan base into a younger, louder, and more diverse force. And it’s not just the men’s grid getting attention – the rise of F1 Academy is bringing a much-needed spotlight to the women pushing for a seat on the grid, with new investment, visibility, and a whole new community of fans watching closely.
That’s what Sonny teaches the team – that if everyone works to an optimal level and focuses, anything’s possible. It’s about the team, because that’s the beautiful thing about F1 – there are so many components, and winning requires everyone to be on top of their game. If everyone is full of passion and drive and focus, anything’s possible.
Shirt OWEN EDWARD SNAITH
Perhaps the drivers’ daring style is rubbing off on Merrick? “Lewis is the best dressed by a mile,” he asserts. “But I’ve also got massive love for Lando and his Union Jack bucket hat – it makes me feel patriotic in a ‘Brits abroad’ kind of way.” Across a series of international premieres, Merrick’s own red carpet wardrobe has been turning heads, from a vintage pinstripe suit and sheer tank with leather ballet flats in New York, to a distressed white Maison Margiela ensemble in London.
F1: The Movie raced to the top of the global box office on opening weekend, earning over $140 million. Its scale extends beyond the screen, with a star-studded soundtrack featuring 17 original songs by artists like Ed Sheeran, Burna Boy, Doja Cat, Raye, Tate McRae and Rosé, plus a sweeping score by legendary composer Hans Zimmer. But amid all the A-list attention, Merrick says it was his castmates who have helped keep things grounded. Their off-camera chemistry carried through to the smallest things, including each other’s questionable music choices. When asked what he listened to to get into character, Merrick smirks. “I made quite a bro-y playlist,” he says. “Actually, my castmate Callie Cook saw on my Spotify that I had a playlist called ‘Hugh Nickelby,’ and when I told her I’d made a playlist for the character, she told me it was an ick.”
Merrick knows better than most the impact a close cast can have. Long before F1 pit lanes, there was Skins – the show that gave him both a breakout role and lifelong friendships. “I still see Alex Arnold, and we played best mates in the show, along with Freya Maver, Sam Jackson and Laya Lewis,” he shares. “We all met up recently, and I felt slightly apprehensive, but it was the easiest, most instant connection; everyone sort of fit back into the role they played within the group.”
Looking back on the early days of the provocative teen drama, Merrick admits he took the work with an intense seriousness. “I was so focused and boring on that show,” he confesses. While some of the cast relaxed into the perks of teenage fame, Merrick treated the scripts with the rigour of a Shakespearean actor. “I analysed that dialogue like I was playing fucking Hamlet. I was going through the dialogue thinking, what does that say about the character? And I’d be saying something ridiculous like, ‘Let’s go find a massive bag of weed.’”
Perhaps what continues to surprise Merrick most is how Skins remains culturally relevant years on. “I’m so fascinated by [Skins’ appeal]. It’s so interesting that a whole new generation, who have a very different culture from the one we’re portraying in Skins, can access it. I guess there is just a universal experience of being 17. And, I guess it was the same for us living it too; we were just kids.” The show’s honest portrayal of adolescence won it a cult status and continues drawing in new fans today. That same mix of care, curiosity and dry humour has carried Merrick from his teen drama days to the centre of a global blockbuster set to take over this summer.
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