Michael Mann and ‘Ferrari’ Cast Talk ‘Mindset of a Racer,’ Finding Enzo and Laura Ferrari’s Love Letters at NYFF Closing Night
The 61st annual New York Film Festival concluded on Friday night with the North American premiere of Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.”
Mann walked the red carpet at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and sat down for a post-screening Q&A alongside “Ferrari” stars Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley and Gabriel Leone, who were able to attend the premiere due to the film’s SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.
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“The mindset of a racer was something we talked about,” Driver said of his preparation with Mann for the Enzo Ferrari biopic. “There’s this prolonged, myopic focus that needs to be sustained until the race is over and you’re constantly dealing with what’s happening in the moment… With a race, there’s always potential danger.”
Cruz, who portrays Laura Ferrari, revealed to the audience that she had the opportunity to speak with several people who knew Enzo’s wife, including the doctor that the couple shared and that became “very close to them.”
“[The doctor] shared with me a lot of love letters [between Enzo and Laura] — letters that were not published anywhere,” Cruz said. “I got to understand so much better who she was and what this relationship was about.”
Cruz said she felt she had a “big responsibility” to honor Laura and “something that was real.”
Woodley, who plays Enzo’s mistress Lina Lardi, agreed with Cruz’s sentiments: “We were all so hyper-aware of that honor that you spoke of, and just wanting to make sure that the family members of these people when they watched this movie felt the essence of them.”
The racing drama follows the life of automotive mogul Enzo Ferrari in 1957 as his company prepares to enter the Mille Miglia, a 1000-mile, open-road motorsport race. Mann, who has known Enzo’s son Piero Ferrari for about 25 years, recalled some of the conversations he had with the Ferrari vice chairman in preparation for the biopic.
“There were all kinds of conversations. What was his mother like? Did his mother cook?” Mann told Variety on the carpet. “That house in the countryside was the only place in which Enzo was in repose, in which he relaxed and became informal. He was never casual or informal anywhere else. His father never made coffee, he never shaved himself his entire life — he always went to the barber shop, and the barber shop we shoot is run by the son of Enzo’s barber. Nothing’s changed.”
Jeremy Strong, Ben Stiller, Nathan Fielder, Benny Safdie, Jim Jarmusch and Paul Schrader were in attendance at the “Ferrari” premiere at New York Film Festival.
“Ferrari” races to theaters Dec. 25.
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