The closest most people ever come to being a champion race car driver like Jeff Gordon or Max Verstappen is through
playing video games. Jann Mardenborough is one of the lucky few to go from making laps on a simulator to
competing on some of the most famous tracks in the
The British 31-year-old’s unlikely path from gamer to real-life racer is the subject of the new movie Gran Turismo,
based on the popular Playstation series of the same name. The movie—which is now streaming on Netflix and stars
Archie Madekwe as Mardenborough, Orlando Bloom, and David Harbour—tells a dramatized version of how a t
eenaged Mardenborough beat more than 90,000 players around the world in the 2011 GT Academy to become a professional driver.
Here’s what you need to know about Mardenborough’s unlikely rise and how
the film takes creative liberty with one of the most horrifying moments of the racer’s career.
