“No Way!” – Bubba Wallace Left Shocked at the Shawshank Redemption’s Proximity to NASCAR

Heading into the 2024 season, it’s no secret that Bubba Wallace seems to be on top of the world. While his back-to-pack top fives at Atlanta and Daytona made him one of the immediate favorites this year, his ‘performance’ on Netflix’s NASCAR: Full Speed series was also nothing short of insightful. It was during the series that Wallace first revealed his preference for movies over TV shows. Recently, he sat down to talk about the same thing with veteran industry insider Mike Bagley. However, what caught the 23XI racer’s attention is when he got to know about an interesting link between The Shawshank Redemption and NASCAR’s Truck Series.

Bubba Wallace waited over two decades to watch the Shawshank Redemption!

The Shawshank Redemption is perhaps one of the most iconic stories written by Stephen King that made its way to the box office. Filled with a star-studded cast including the likes of Morgan Freeman and William Sadler, the film directed by Frank Darabont quickly became a cult classic in the 90s. However, Bubba Wallace didn’t get around to catching up with the film until last year, nearly two decades later.

With that said, Wallace reflected on how he had finally gotten around to watching the film and thoroughly enjoyed it. He shared with Mike Bagley on the NASCAR Live podcast, “You know what, I did make it a deal to like, oh this is a really good movie. People rave about this, The Shawshank Redemption. Just seen it for the first time last year, never (seen it) and I was like yeah I’ll check it out. Incredible movie.”

Whilst Bagley found it hard to comprehend what took Wallace so long to catch up, he also highlighted an interesting connection between the NASCAR’s third division and the set to shoot the prison scenes in the movie. Bagley shared, “You know where the jail scenes were filmed, right? The jail was around the corner from Mansfield where we raced in the trucks, it’s in Mansfield, Ohio. That’s the prison that they shot at.”

Referring to the Mansfield Motor Speedway, which hosted several large events such as the ‘Dirt Million’ only a few years ago, Bagley shared how Wallace had been extremely close to where the movie had been shot, prompting Wallace to exclaim, “No way! Great movie, incredible movie!”

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While it’s safe to say Bubba Wallace may have neglected the masterpiece that is The Shawshank Redemption, the 23XI Racer has an eye for quality acting, diving deeper with Mike Bagley over his likes and dislikes when it comes to Hollywood.

Wallace highlights the downfall of Horror whilst revealing his favorite Denzel Washington flicks

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Going through all the recent movies that Bubba Wallace had caught up to, Bagley was also curious to know what kind of movies he’d be interested in these days. Whilst Wallace revealed his soft spot for horror movies and psychological thrillers, the 23XI racer couldn’t help but scoff at the current state of the genres. He stated, “I’m a big horror movie guy, I’m a slasher guy. Those are just terrible nowadays, terrible acting.”

Feeling that modern movies just didn’t have the same passion and craft behind the actors as back in the glory days of Hollywood, Wallace even pointed out how one of his favourite actors, Denzel Washington, had also faced a similar fate with the Equaliser series. He shared, “They’ve gotten repetitive though. One was solid! One was good. Two was, getting to the, eh.” 

However, Wallace couldn’t help but point out the extensive catalogue of classics that Denzel Washington has lead credits for. “I love Denzel.” Wallace revealed some of his favourite movies from the legend and said, “Training Day is so good. A couple of years ago, I went through all his movies, like Man on Fire, a great movie. What was the other one? They were having an affair, he was a cop in Miami… Flight was good!” 

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After taking a look at Bubba Wallace’s likes and dislikes when it comes to the world of motion pictures, do you think Wallace should perhaps give the Equaliser 3 a fair shot?