Archie Madekwe Reveals He Had to Learn to Drive to Play Racing Driver in Gran Turismo: ‘It Was Intense’ (Exclusive)

Archie Madekwe’s role as a motorsport athlete in this year’s Gran Turismo required more than just refreshment behind the wheel.

PEOPLE caught up with Madekwe, 28, at the premiere of his movie in Los Angeles Saltburnwhere the actor revealed that he learned to drive a car on set Gran Turismoin which he played real-life professional racer Jann Mardenborough.

“I learned to drive and I was filming during the day,” Madekwe tells PEOPLE, noting that he took driving lessons in the United Kingdom. “And then I took driving lessons at night, and then I went to Budapest and played a race car driver. It was intense.”

“There are no accidents. It’s great for me,” he adds. “Absolutely nothing from insurance. I’m doing great.”

Madekwe claims he’s a “great driver,” though he told PEOPLE he hasn’t ventured out to drive in Los Angeles yet. “People from LA are not good drivers,” he says. “I’m too scared. I’m too scared to do it.”

See the stars of ‘Gran Turismo’ compared to the real people who play them

Archie Madekwe November 14, 2023

Leon Bennett/GA/The Hollywood Reporter via Getty

Madekwe is coming to the end of a productive year. In 2023, he appeared in a horror epic Beau is afraid and in the Netflix spy movie Gal Gadot Heart of stone. That was at the top his main role in Gran Turismo and a supporting role in the new film by Oscar-winning author Emerald Fennell Saltburn.

IN Saltburn, Madekwe stars opposite stars such as Jacob Elordi, Barry Keoghan, Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant as a character named Farleigh, a member of the extended and wealthy family inhabiting the Saltburn estate with whom Keoghan’s character Oliver is invited to spend the summer. Farleigh is cast as Oliver’s adversary throughout the film, and the actor tells PEOPLE that he discovered with his character that “everything is a defense mechanism.”

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“He’s on the outside looking in. He’s just afraid of being found out. And that’s what I loved about him,” Madekwe tells PEOPLE. “That’s something that I’ve connected with that idea sometimes, especially as a person of color, you often find yourself appearing in front of people, jumping into different spaces where you don’t feel welcome. And I realized that immediately he found himself in these spaces that he didn’t think he was welcome.”

Jacob Elordi brings Barry Keoghan home for a summer of debauchery in New Saltburn Trailer

Archie Madekwe and David Harbor in the movie ‘Gran Turismo’.

Gordon Timpen /Columbia Pictures / Courtesy Everett Collection

“And that’s how I become a different person in the spaces,” he adds. “I found him endlessly fascinating. I still do.”

Official logline for Saltburn calls the film “a beautifully wicked tale of privilege and desire.” The film follows Keoghan’s character on a summer break from Oxford University, which he spends living with Felix (Elordi), a wealthy classmate he befriends.

Saltburn it’s in theaters on November 24.

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Source: HIS Education