James Hillier swaps his TT race entry for a role in the Brad Pitt Isle of Man movie
James Hillier won’t be on the start line at this year’s TT. He’ll be riding the Mountain Course anyway, just with a camera bolted to the bike and a Hollywood crew watching.
There are riders who’ve done fifteen TT podiums and a Lightweight victory. There are Hollywood productions with Amazon MGM Studios money behind them, Brad Pitt’s Plan B producing, and Channing Tatum attached to star. Somehow, in 2026, those two worlds have collided and James Hillier is the man in the middle.
The 41-year-old Hampshire rider has confirmed he won’t be competing at this year’s Isle of Man TT Races. Instead, he’s swapped his race entry for a rather different brief: riding camera bikes around the Mountain Course at speed, doubling for one of the film’s characters, and helping the production get the details right on one of the most technically demanding circuits in the world.
The film – Isle of Man
The project, simply titled Isle of Man, is a feature film being produced for Amazon MGM Studios by Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin’s Free Association and Brad Pitt’s Plan B, with Entertainment 360 also involved. Tatum stars alongside Eve Hewson, with Carolin, who directed Dog, in the director’s chair. The script comes from Carolin, Jason Keller (Ford v Ferrari) and Bryan Johnson.
Filming begins at this year’s TT fortnight. Alongside the feature, Amazon MGM has also commissioned a four-part docuseries, filmed during the 2024 races, as part of the same wider package. The TT’s political member with responsibility for motorsport, Sarah Maltby MHK, has called filming at the 2026 event a “major moment” for both the race and the island.
For once, that sort of language doesn’t feel like an overstatement. The TT has always had a global following, but a feature film from this production team is a different level of exposure entirely.
Why Hillier
Getting authentic footage of the Mountain Course at race speeds is not a job you can hand to just anyone. The circuit is 37.7 miles of public road, with walls, hedges, kerbs and telegraph poles inches from the racing line. Hillier is honest about why the production came to him.
“They were quite limited, let’s say, on riders who were capable of riding around at a good speed with cameras on,” he said. “And that will slow it down a little bit.” His 15 TT podiums, a fastest lap of 132.703mph, and the accumulated knowledge of having ridden the Mountain Course since 2008 make him about as qualified as anyone alive for the job.
He’ll be working either side of qualifying and race sessions, riding as a body double for one of the characters as well as capturing the footage the production needs. He’s also been involved in the development and planning of the film itself, helping with the accuracy of course locations and technical details. That conversation apparently started around a year ago.
“It’s going on for about a year when I started talking to them,” Hillier said, “but it’s certainly an eye-opener, the whole scale of the thing is pretty monstrous, so it’s interesting, exciting and it’s never failed to surprise me.”
Missing the racing
Hillier is clear that this isn’t retirement. He intends to be back racing at the TT. But he’s equally honest that watching the races start without a number on his bike won’t be easy. Fifteen podiums and a winner’s trophy tend to leave a mark on a person.
It’s worth sitting with that for a moment. Here is a rider who has spent eighteen years developing the specific, hard-won knowledge needed to go quickly around a circuit that has claimed more than 150 lives since 1903. That same knowledge is now what a Hollywood production can’t get anywhere else. You don’t fake the Mountain Course. You don’t CGI it convincingly. You need someone who actually knows where the braking points are.
Hillier is that person, and for this TT at least, he’s on the other side of the lens.
The film has no confirmed release date yet. The TT runs through late May and into June.
