Casting this year’s Southern 500 occurred to me a couple weeks ago, because I’ll be damned if that playoff cutoff race at Darlington Raceway wasn’t one of the most dramatic — and cinematic — races in quite some time.
As such, it got me thinking about who I’d cast in the roles of the main players in the race if a movie got made about it. This is all very free-form and stream-of-consciousness as I thought through actors, and I’m taking some creative liberties, so I can guarantee there’s some candidates I missed. I’ll go in order of the top 10 and tack on any other major players in the race at the end.
Eventual winner Chase Briscoe was probably the toughest to find similarities to. Ryan Guzman? Eh. Joaquin Phoenix? Little older than needed. I settled on Jake Gyllenhaal.
In the past 10 years or so, Gyllenhaal has taken on roles where it’s clear he’s just having a blast. He’s wonderfully psychotic in Nightcrawler (should’ve been nominated for and won an Oscar for that, by the way), and he’s bonkers in Ambulance, so who’s to say he can’t play a lifelong Tony Stewart fan who got to drive for his hero?
Runner-up Kyle Busch? Matt Damon. Gotta be an older actor, even if it’s older than Busch actually is, and Damon brings the pedigree. Plus, he already has a racing role under his belt thanks to Ford v Ferrari.
Rounding out the podium, I’ll cast Mike Faist as Christopher Bell. Faist probably narrowly missed out on an Oscar nomination for Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story back in the 2021-22 awards season and is an excellent (and underrated) actor. He has a sports movie in his repertoire already with Challengers earlier this year.
Kyle Larson led more than 250 laps but ultimately came up short and finished fourth. Throw Steven Yeun out there. He’s had some great turns in stuff like Minari, Nope and Sorry to Bother You.
Cut Charlie Day’s hair a bit shorter, and you could get away with casting him as Ross Chastain to round out the top five. Maybe it’s the temporary Philadelphian in me, but I want to see a goofy Chastain on screen a la Charlie Kelly from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Though I’m not sure he’d be as illiterate as the show’s Charlie.
Let’s cast the modern-day Philip Seymour Hoffman as Chris Buescher: make sure Jesse Plemons has a beard, and he already has the laid-back, deadpan air that Buescher himself carries.
Plemons already has Oscar recognition, but an actual gold statue is bound to come his way soon. He’s been great in everything from comedies to dramas to thrillers, including most recently in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.
I struggled on Denny Hamlin, but I love his commitment to the bit and his general DGAF attitude regarding fans who dislike him … so here’s a recently spotlighted actor I think could pull it off.
Josh Hartnett was great in Oppenheimer last year, and his ultimate ham-it-up performance in M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap this year, where he plays a hybrid serial killer and hammy dad, was so perfect.
For Joey Logano, it’s easy. Jay Baruchel’s been doing comedy for a very long time, and his ventures into serious roles have been solid as well. He can direct, he can act and he kinda sorta looks like Joey, so Jay it is.
Ninth-place Corey LaJoie … give me Wyatt Russell with his hair dyed brown. Close-enough age, long hair, stupendous beard, son of a father who also had success in his respective field. Easy lock.
To finish off the top 10:
“Get ready to learn acting, buddy,” — me, talking to Tyler Childers.
Childers kind of looks exactly like Tyler Reddick, depending on the facial hair. Both are redheads, so that already lines up, and both are named Tyler. I have zero idea if Childers can act, but both Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell certainly have, so who’s to say Childers can’t make that jump as well?
If not, maybe take some artistic liberties and go with Glen Powell to play the 2024 regular-season champion.
For the other major players in the race, I’m leaning on either Michael B. Jordan or John David Washington to bring the same fire to playing Bubba Wallace as Bubba does to the track itself.
As for the team owner? Michael Jordan plays Michael Jordan. You don’t cast someone else as the legend.
I’m going with Matt Dillon or Michael Shannon to play Martin Truex Jr. Grizzled veteran automatically brings Shannon to mind, but Dillon has the darker hair.
Finally, let’s welcome Aaron Taylor-Johnson to the cast as Ryan Blaney. He doesn’t get but so many leading roles in huge movies, but the man has screen presence for days and knows how to chew up scenery. The dude oozes charisma.
To quote Michael Shannon’s Criterion Closet video: This has been such a pleasure.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.