'Ford v Ferrari' Stars Christian Bale & Matt Damon on Shooting Intense Racing Scenes

I'd love to say Oh Matt and me did all our own Drive in Osaka when it but I had to keep reminding myself I'm acting as though I know what I'm doing I'm not really doing it and we had some of the best races and drivers in a world if we had been doing the driving those racing sequences would not have been nearly as exciting or exciting at all [Music] look out there out there is the perfect line you see it I think so it's about friendship it's about people that work together and the kind of bonds you make making things together the way I connected with it was not really through racing but was that I felt something similar to what we feel making movies every movie is live or die every movie feels like you'll be destroyed if it doesn't work every movie is a fight for the money we're always fighting and selling for the space to create and they're very contradictory and I found that so fascinating in this world of sport that there's something so pure like racing and engineering and then something so compromised as marketing's the director identified with Shelby it's like he has to play both sides he has to be able to perform for the suits and he has to be able to perform and lead his men on the field it's about individual versus corporation it's about these big concepts of integrity of your word of fighting against the system I mean there's so many different things going on it's about love it's about Brotherhood it's a very big story that also deals with this extraordinary thing of the American corporate economy and building and you know all those different things all happening at the same time do you think you can beat Ferrari I had never heard of the story before and I hadn't even heard of the race LeMond and when I got the script the first thing that I was like wait there's a race that lasts 24 hours like that in itself is crazy and you just think I go to a go-cart track and I race for five minutes right my hands are like sore and I'm out of breath a new Shelby was is from my dad pointing out every time he saw an AC Cobra wore his Nike Kobe Christian look at that and the LeMond cars just how incredible they look that was it and we don't heard a Ferrari yeah or didn't win the 24 Hours of LeMans what's it take take something money came by he can buy speed is a real joy for me to play somebody whose strength came from his integrity and his sense of loyalty and his inventiveness and his ethics I got to meet with Peter which was really amazing and he was so great and so generous with his time and you know he talked to me about his mom and his dad and sort of their relationship and Molly had written an article for drive magazine talking about the first state that her and miles went on it was incredible he showed up in a vintage car that broke down she was 16 years old like they got lost it was a crazy story but definitely the story that we tell of their family is a dramatization that's probably very different to their real family dynamics but you want him to see the film and to I guess feel something of their essence there and feel proud of it my know Christian met him as well yeah wonderful time with the Peter hearing about the real stories and whatnot with in races circles you know he's a God and so there's actually a lot of information on him lots of books this isn't the first time Ford Motors gone to war we know how people would go go to war the truth of the character was in the script I don't know how closely it used the real guy but I do know that the kernel of the actual story was that he felt Ferrari had made him look foolish and so it speaks to the idea that the guy was prideful and maybe insecure that he felt the need to try to beat Ferrari at his game it was great fun but really challenging from a DAT and me.we it was the nerve-wracking part was the claustrophobia you get in the car you're about 18 inches off the ground you can't extend your legs I'm in a full suit make up you can't open the door because the cameras there the roof of the car is right there you're strapped into the seat and then Matt gets in and shuts the door it's like well you're in here now for a couple of hours and Matt even kind of looked at me and said are you okay and I said yeah I'm okay and then when they put the camera on the other side and I got in and shut the door I saw the look in his eyes like oh man this isn't fun the real GT 40s that have survived from that era are 25 million dollar cars they're all in museums you have to work with replicas those little Cobras those those ones they're so fast they're really fast I was surprised at how hard it was to keep the back wheels on the on the pay do like to slide they like yeah and it but it's predictable they should predictable yeah yeah it's a lot of fun we really focused on trying to put you in the point of view of the drivers mm-hmm and I think that was the critical thing for me was that I didn't want to just do a lot of panning shots of cars going by you know I wanted us to get inside I didn't want it to look like what you'd see in a sports telecast but I also think the reason you get so excited is do more to these guys work then then some of the stunt work we're doing which is just that you believe and know these characters so there's more at stake for you than just the blue car in the red car you cast people with the rapport with each other you don't know that's gonna happen you don't understand it's gonna happen but these are both really nice guys and I had a feeling they get along and it wasn't just the rapport between the two of them but the whole group you know whether it's Ken's family and Katrina and Noah or it's the rest of the pit crew you want everyone to kind of find connections with each other the first day we did this great scene in the garage you were there playing with some electric that was my highlighter Jim had arranged that we did a walkthrough of the house and and you know spent a little bit of time sort of getting a feel for the places that we were going to shoot before we went there it just felt so easy that relationship from day one and it was just fun Ken's a puppy dog that did some serious neck snapping on his own just to make the cell that punch that I thought was if I had done a few more takes he would have started to get pissed I would have started grumbling brother fight scene was trying to keep a straight face because it was the most fun nobody won the fight it's like fighting with your brother like you don't really want to hurt each other you know I go for the can at one point like now that could hurt him we'll take the Wonder Bread and hit him with that I think people love sports movies because they redefine our lives down to a singular goal every character has an investment in a moment it can be in the team winning it could be in the team losing it could be trying to win it could be hoping they make it to the end it could be whatever agenda they have it is really nice to having a defining goal something as artificial and as beautiful as a finish line does that because it's suddenly the clock the timing of the movie and all the characters hopes and dreams all rest on the singular point in space [Music] you you

Channel: Variety

Views: 541,210

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, Ford v Ferrari, Ford, Ferrari, Ford movie, Ferrari movie, Christian Bale, Christian Bale movie, Matt Damon, Matt Damon movie, Noah Jupe, Josh Lucas, James Mangold, James Mangold movie, Christian Bale interview, Matt Damon interview

Id: _uwkU6uNH1c

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 11 2019