Michael Mann on how he knew Adam Driver was his Ferrari: "I sensed ferocity based on real-life experience"

gamesradar.com:

Michael Mann knew he wanted to cast Adam Driver in the lead of his long-gesticulating drama Ferrari from their first meeting.

In the director’s latest, Star Wars actor Driver plays Enzo Ferrari, the founder of the eponymous car company. Set over one summer in 1957, it follows him as he navigates his deteriorating relationship with his wife Laura (Penélope Cruz) while his company verges on bankruptcy. 

It’s a complicated biopic that navigates a small window of Ferrari’s life, but it was Driver’s real-life "ferocity" in their early meeting that Mann says made him sure he was the right man to cast. 

"The decision I made that Adam should be Enzo came from having drinks at Chateau Marmont in Sunset Boulevard," Mann tells the Inside Total Film podcast. "There was something about how he’s lived life. He has a raw ambition, an artistic ambition, and real ferocity behind that drive to really do this work, do it really well, and really get it. You see it all over, it’s a transformational performance in how he moves, how he walks, the weight, how he breathes."

He adds: "The way he captured all the cultural gestures, it’s all intentional, there is no, 'I’ll just show up and be spontaneous.' This is all preparation, and it's all work. I think I sensed that ferocity is based on real-life, real-world experience, and I thought this guy is Enzo Ferrari on the inside. The outside, you fix with craftwork – it's what's on the inside."

Mann also laughs when he shares how similar his and Driver’s working attitude is, admitting they both have impossibly high standards they hold themselves to. "We discovered that we're very similar, which is part of why we got along so well. If there was a scene that wasn't working, Adam would be angry and I'd