Brad Pitt has put in a lot of work to get ready for his role as a Formula 1 driver. 

Jerry Bruckheimer, who serves as a producer on the highly anticipated racing film, recently opened up about Pitt’s skills behind the wheel and how the actor prepared for the still-untitled movie.  

“He trained for four or five months. He’s an amazing driver,” Bruckheimer told People magazine while attending the Los Angeles premiere of Young Woman and the Sea. “In fact, some of the F1 drivers said he’s a natural athlete. He really is. He’s amazing in that car.” 

Pitt is set to star in the forthcoming Joseph Kosinski-directed project as veteran F1 driver Sonny Hayes. It was previously reported that seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton would act as a consultant for the film and help the 60-year-old actor train for the high-speed sport. Speaking of which, if you’re curious about how fast Pitt has been whipping around the course, well, Bruckheimer couldn’t exactly say. “I can’t tell you. The insurance company will kill me,” he told People. 

The movie itself was acquired by Apple Studios and began filming in July at last year’s British Grand Prix. Kosinski and Bruckheimer, who worked together on Top Gun: Maverick, assembled an 11th team to compete at the event. During the competition, Pitt took a spin around the Silverstone racetrack while spectators looked on. “I’m a little giddy right now, I’ve got to say,” Pitt said, speaking to Sky Sports. “I don’t know if you could call mine a hot lap, I’d call it kind of a warm lap. I’ve taken a few tours, unintentionally, through the grass.” 

While the project has mostly been kept under wraps, we do know that Pitt is slated to appear alongside Damon Idris and Javier Bardem. A few key details have also emerged about the plot. “I would be a guy who raced in the 90s,” Pitt explained to Sky Sports. “He has a horrible crash and kind of craps out and disappears and then is racing in other disciplines.”

“Then his friend, played by Javier Bardem, is the team owner. They’re the last place team, they’re 21, 22 on the grid, they’ve never scored a point and they have a young phenom played by Damson Idris and he brings me in as kind of a Hail Mary and hijinks ensue,” Pitt continued.

According to Collider, the long-awaited sports drama has allegedly set a premiere date. The website reported on Thursday that the movie will hit IMAX screens on June 27, 2025, which, if it happens, would be on par with the film’s original release timeframe.  

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has undergone another operation two days after being shot multiple times and remains in serious condition, officials said Friday.

Fico, 59, was attacked as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the former coal mining town of Handlova. A suspected assailant has been arrested.

SLOVAKIA PRIME MINISTER ROBERT FICO SHOT MULTIPLE TIMES, IN ‘LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION’

Miriam Lapuníková, director of the University F. D. Roosevelt hospital in Banska Bystrica, where Fico was taken by helicopter after he was shot, said Fico underwent a CT scan and was awake and stable in an intensive care unit. She described his condition as “very serious.”

She said the surgery removed dead tissues that had remained inside Fico’s body.

“I think it will take several more days until we will definitely know the direction of the further development,” Robert Kaliniak, the defense minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters at the hospital.

Still, Kaliniak stressed that the government continues to work.

“The ministries are working on all their duties, nothing is frozen or halted, the country goes on,” he told reporters. “The state is stable and today the patient is stable as well.”

Fico has long been a divisive figure in Slovakia and beyond. His return to power last year on a pro-Russia, anti-American platform led to worries among fellow European Union and NATO members that he would abandon his country’s pro-Western course, particularly on Ukraine.

World leaders have condemned the attack and offered support for Fico and Slovakia. On Friday, the Slovak press agency reported that Pope Francis has sent a letter to President Zuzana Čaputová,

“I condemn this cowardly act of violence and assure you of my prayers to the Lord for the speedy recovery and recovery of the Prime Minister,” Francis said in the letter published by the agency.

Earlier Friday, the man charged with attempting to assassinate Fico was escorted by police to his home. Local media reported that it was part of a search for evidence.

Markiza, a Slovak television station, showed footage of the suspect being taken to his home in the town of Levice on Friday morning, and reported that police had seized a computer and some documents. Police didn’t comment.

Prosecutors have told police not to publicly identify the suspect or release other details about the case. The suspect’s detention will be reviewed at a hearing Saturday at Slovakia’s Specialized Criminal Court in Pezinok, outside the capital, Bratislava.

Unconfirmed media reports suggested that he was a 71-year-old retiree who was known as an amateur poet, and may have previously worked as a security guard at a mall in the country’s southwest.

Government authorities on Thursday gave details that matched that description. They said the suspect didn’t belong to any political groups, though the attack itself was politically motivated.

Slovakia’s presidential office said Friday that it was working to organize a meeting of leaders of all parliamentary parties for Tuesday. Čaputová, the outgoing president, announced the plan together with President-elect Peter Pellegrini, who succeeds her in mid-June, in an attempt to reduce social tensions in the country.

At the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Slovakia was one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, but Fico halted arms deliveries to Ukraine when he returned to power, his fourth time serving as prime minister.

Fico’s government has also made efforts to overhaul public broadcasting — a move critics said would give the government full control of public television and radio. That, coupled with his plans to amend the penal code to eliminate a special anti-graft prosecutor, have led opponents to worry that Fico will lead Slovakia down a more autocratic path.

Thousands of demonstrators have repeatedly rallied in the capital and around the country of 5.4 million to protest his policies.

Fico said last month on Facebook that he believed rising tensions in the country could lead to the killing of politicians, and he blamed the media for fueling tensions.

Before Fico returned to power last year, many of his political and business associates were the focus of police investigations, and dozens have been charged.

His plan to overhaul of the penal system would eliminate the office of the special prosecutor that deals with organized crime, corruption and extremism.

Just a year ago, a summit meeting of the leaders of Turkey and Greece would have created sensational news.

But when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Ankara this week, it was almost a routine talk between neighbours.

The meeting was their fourth in 10 months as the two leaders try to put an end to decades of mutual animosity by focusing on trade, tourism, energy and repairing cultural ties, among other areas.

“In the critical area of migration, the cooperation between our two countries and especially between the police and the coast guard is paying off against illegal flows and against the wretched traffickers, who take advantage of desperate people’s pain,” said Mitsotakis in a common press conference.

“This cooperation must continue and be intensified.”

There are still areas where both sides have agreed to disagree, but it’s good to see one old trouble spot in Europe sort of fading, especially as another trouble spot reignited big time this week.

Thousands of protesters in Georgia rallied near the parliament building in Tbilisi – again – just hours after lawmakers gave the final approval to the controversial foreign influence law, modelled on a Russian version passed more than a decade earlier. 

Lawmakers passed the law despite EU warnings that it would undermine Georgia’s path to EU membership.

Yet, the official reaction in Brussels was muted.

Speaking in Denmark, EU Council President Charles Michel said: “I had a phone call a few days ago with the Prime Minister and I told him that I am disappointed and that I sincerely hope that Georgia will find a way to stick to the democratic principles and also meet the expectations of the population.”

Meanwhile, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development released its latest economic outlook. The numbers for Georgia, which is part of the area where the EBRD operates, were rather sobering.

In general, the forecast also contained some encouraging news.

To learn more, we spoke to Beata Javorcik, chief economist of the EBRD.

Euronews: So, your latest report is appropriately called “Taming Inflation” – and when I look at the numbers, inflation in the EBRD regions came down from a peak in October 2022 of 17.5 percent to an average of 6.3 percent last March. Explain that number for us, what is behind such a huge drop?

Javorcik: What has helped bring the inflation down was to a large extent, the developments in the international markets. We have seen a sharp drop in the prices of natural gas in Europe, declines in prices of agricultural commodities, and oil prices have remained moderate. But, of course, inflation in our regions of operations still remains above the level before the pandemic, as is the case in advanced economies.

Euronews: Can you breathe a sigh of relief now or are there still important inflation risks remaining?

Javorcik: Not all central bankers can consider their job done. If you look at cumulative inflation, that is inflation since February 2022 up until now, it has exceeded 30% in several countries. Notably in Egypt, in Turkey, in Hungary and Kazakhstan, Moldova and Ukraine. So, that means that in the absence of wage increases, people in those countries would have lost a third of their purchasing power.

Euronews: Let’s talk about the growth outlook in the EBRD’s EU regions – do you see positive signs going forward?

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Javorcik: This year is going to be much better than last year for the Eastern European EU member states, in particular Poland and Croatia, stand out with expected growth of 3%. Hungary will do well, too. We see real wages increasing. We see fiscal policy helping out and the EU funding, the New Generation EU, also stimulating economic activity.

Euronews: I can’t release you without a word on Ukraine. How is their economy doing in the third year of the war?

Javorcik: The heavy bombings in the last two months mean that the ability of Ukraine to generate electricity has been severely diminished. Electricity production is at 40% of what it used to be before the bombings. And this capacity cannot be easily repaired.

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Looking for something fun to do over the weekend? 

How about jumping from a helicopter at 3,000 feet high, diving down to 35 metres above the River Thames and then soaring through London’s Tower Bridge only to rise up again to 80 metres, the height required to open the parachute before landing safely?

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This is a complex James-Bond-like manoeuvre known among insiders as a “flare”.

Well, two professional skydivers from Austria did it this week and described the experience as “a dream come true”.

And this coming from veteran skydivers with more than 22,000 jumps under their belt…

From take-off to landing, the London wingsuit flight covered more than a kilometer and reached a top speed of almost 250 kilometers per hour – and it lasted 45 seconds.

That might not be enough fun for an entire weekend, but it’s a start!

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