LOS ANGELES — In 1939, Enzo Ferrari, with the help of his wife, Laura, founded their eponymous Italian sports car company in Maranello, Italy. By the summer of 1957, Ferrari — the man and the company — is in crisis as bankruptcy looms.
Michael Mann’s new film, “Ferrari,” stars Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari and Penélope Cruz as his wife, Laura.
The film shows the volatile marriage between Enzo and Laura, which has been battered by the loss of their son Dino, as well as Enzo’s struggle to acknowledge his son, Piero, born to mistress Lina Lardi, played by Shailene Woodley.
Despite his personal turmoil, Enzo’s drivers are pushed to the edge in order to win the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy known as the Mille Miglia.
Driver, who in the past has played other grand figures like fashion icon Maurizio Gucci and tragic Star Wars figure Kylo Ren, tells Spectrum News, sarcastically, that he will next play Michelangelo and do the story of Campari.
“No other historical figure. I have no ambition of anybody else,” he deadpanned.
Driver says there is one thing he has learned from playing characters based on real people: he takes the parts of their lives that open his imagination and discards the things that don’t help him in portraying them.
“With Ferrari, because we shot it in Modena, the place where it happened, with a strong attention to detail … the places in the movie are the places where they actually happened. The barber shop is the barber shop he would go to. His barber is the grandson of the guy who actually cut his hair. The opera house is the actual opera house. You do feel a responsibility to get it right, but I always feel that responsibility to try to get it right,” he said.
Driver says that working with his fellow costars was easy because they are all incredible actors.
“We all bring something different. Patrick raced cars and you can feel it in his performance. Penélope is very instinctual and Shailene embodies strength in how open and vulnerable she is. Jack O’Connell is in it and I think he is an incredible actor,” said Driver.
“Ferrari” opens in theaters on Christmas Day.
Click the arrow above to watch the full interview with Adam Driver and to discover what is on his holiday wish list this year.
-
