(From left) Gabrielle Leone, Adam Driver, Michael Mann, Penelope Cruz and Shailene Woodley attend the closing night screening of “Ferrari” at the 2023 New York Film Festival.
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Adam Driver, Penelope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Michael Mann and other cast and crew Ferrari walked the red carpet at the closing ceremony of the 61st annual New York Film Festival on Friday.
The film brings to the big screen the difficult few months in the life of Enzo Ferrari (The Driver), as he juggles between two families and his family’s company faces bankruptcy.
Mann was a long-time director of films such as Insider And The Last of the Mohicans felt it would be impossible to make a film because Formula 1 was not always appreciated in the United States. But in 2019, when Netflix released Formula 1: strive to survive, a docuseries about a high-octane sport that has changed. The USA is now one of the largest Formula 1 stadiums in the world.
“This is not a race movie,” Mann said. Hollywood Reporter. “This is really a film about racing, about Ferrari. Three very hot months in the life of Ferrari and his wife Laura (played by Cruise), both grieving the death of their son Dino a year earlier. He also has a second family that she doesn’t know about: Lina Lardi (Woodley) and a 12-year-old boy, Pierrot, who is now Pierrot Ferrari. And all this comes to light at the moment when the company goes bankrupt.”
The Oscar-nominated director also talked about how he knew Driver and Cruise were the perfect stars to play the leads. Ferrari. Once he started talking to actors about their roles, he knew almost immediately that he needed them.
“Adam, because I felt, sitting across from him at the table at Chateau Marmont, the tone, the artistic integrity,” Mann explained. “If you’re a director, you see it in someone’s eyes, that commitment, dedication. Adam is absolutely real.”
He continued: “Penelope has this natural, primitive—in some ways—primitive vitality where she just speaks her mind. I’ve known her for a long time, but when we were discussing Laura on Zoom, after five minutes I realized, “She’s Laura, and there was no one on the planet who could play Laura better than her.”
Mann and Driver’s involvement in the film were two of the main reasons why Cruise wanted to be a part of the film. Ferrari, she shared. Not to mention, it was tempting for the Oscar winner to take on the role of someone like Laura Ferrari.
“The opportunity to work with Michael Mann, one of the greatest characters of all time, on a character like this that is really very complex and interesting, a difficult character, challenging, and those are the ones I will always be looking for.” – she explained TTR. “And also the opportunity to work with Adam, an actor I’ve really admired for a long time, and we developed a great relationship when we worked together.”
Their scenes weren’t always easy. During filming, there were times when it was almost 100 degrees in Italy, and the characters were dressed in winter clothes, wearing wigs, full makeup and prosthetics, reciting lines for eight-page-long scenes. But Cruz didn’t mind. She explained that when roles are more challenging for her, they make her feel even happier at the end of the day because she did it.
Ferrari The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival to a seven-minute standing ovation, and it meant a lot to Gabriel Leone. The up-and-coming actor plays real-life driver Alfonso De Portago, who tragically died after his Ferrari 335 S crashed near a small Italian village, killing himself, his co-driver and nine spectators.
“(The ovation was) amazing, especially in Venice, because you’re talking about an Italian icon,” he said. TTR. “And we filmed in Italy, we filmed in Modena. So, I know that the people who went to that festival in Italy had a great experience. It’s phenomenal.”
The actor also noted that working alongside Driver in each of his scenes meant a lot because he is a “huge” fan of his work and they “had a great time together.”
Ferrari It is one of the films that has a temporary SAG-AFTRA agreement that allows its stars to promote the film amid the ongoing actors’ strike. Negotiations between the performers’ union and the studios were moving forward earlier this week before the studios abruptly halted them, saying “the gap between AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA is too wide.”
Sarah Gadon, who plays Linda Christian in the upcoming biopic, explained TPP that actors need to be respected. “I think our demands are extremely reasonable given the current climate we all live in,” she said. “Our demands must be met.”
Ferrari hits theaters December 25th.