Brad Pitt has revealed why he and Tom Cruise dropped out of starring in Ford v Ferrari.

The two actors were initially attached to appear in the racing drama, but the film later went on to star Matt Damon and Christian Bale.

In an interview with The National, Pitt explained negotiations ground to a halt because he and Cruise both wanted to be involved in shooting daring race scenes.

“Tom and I, for a while there, were on Ford v Ferrari. This was about 10 years before the guys who actually made it – and made it a great movie,” the F1 star recalled.

He added, “What it came down to is that we both wanted to drive. He wanted to play Carroll Shelby and I wanted to play Ken Miles. And when Tom realised that Carroll Shelby would not be driving much in the movie, it didn’t come through.”

Damon later landed the role of car designer Shelby, while Bale played British racing driver Miles, with James Mangold directing the 2019 movie.

Elsewhere in the interview, Pitt insisted he would “love” to collaborate with Cruise in the future and even suggested the pair could team up for a fusion of F1 and Cruise’s 1990 NASCAR hit Days of Thunder.

While Pitt is open to working with Pitt, he did have one request: “I would want to drive again, selfishly speaking.”

Pitt and Cruise previously starred together in the 1994 Gothic horror Interview With a Vampire.

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