'Speed Racer' stars talk about making of the film

LONG BEACH, Calif.

ZOOOOOOM. They went that way.

VROOOOOOM. Here comes another one.

The loudest engines this side of a Navy jet in Virginia Beach were much in evidence at the Long Beach Grand Prix. They provided a fitting accompaniment for interviewing the stars of "Speed Racer." The main character is the teen who takes to the race track (at 400 mph) to uphold the honor of his family and the memory of his martyred brother, Rex Racer, who was killed in an auto race.

It's all based on a Japanese TV-cartoon series that has been in vogue, via re-runs and home rentals, since its 1967 debut on syndicated TV in America. Now "Speed Racer" has been made into a visually stunning movie by the Wachowski brothers, the twosome who revolutionized the way movies look with their "Matrix" trilogy.

The budget is a whopping $150 million, and it stands ready to become the second "event" movie of the spring/summer season. But can "Speed Racer," complete with added bookings in IMAX theaters, repeat the amazing opening of "Iron Man" last weekend? "Iron Man" took in some $110 million as a starter - a feat that will be difficult to match.

Whatever it is, "Speed Racer" is not of this world. The creators and stars of the film gathered at the real-life Long Beach car races to talk about the pretend racing in their new movie.

The film uses a new way to combine computer-generated images with live action. Emile Hirsch, who plays Speed, is seen racing his famous Mach 5 through the Grand Prix and the death-defying, cross-country Crucible races. He's a live, human, rising star, but in "Speed Racer" pretty much everything around him is computer animated. The colors, leaning toward oranges and reds and yellows, are so bright that you might need sunglasses to watch the movie.

The actors, minus their directors, were eager to talk about the mysterious filming that took place over six months in a secluded studio in Berlin.

"Mostly we played to a tennis ball held up in the air," said John Goodman, who plays Pops Racer.

The entire movie was made in green screen, which means the actors played, in costume, to empty space that was filled in later with location shots from Italy, Greece, China and all over the world - amazing shots that would have been impossible to capture in "real" racing time.

Christina Ricci, immortalized as the child Wednesday Addams in "The Addams Family" (1991), is there. She plays Trixie, Speed's girlfriend. Oscar winner Susan Sarandon is there. She plays Mom Racer, a cookie-baking "nice" mom. Matthew Fox, the hunk from TV's "Lost" series, is there. He plays the mysterious, masked Racer X, who is actually an undercover agent who is out to help Speed thwart the powerful Royalton Industries, a crooked outfit that has vowed that Speed Racer will never cross the finish line again. Joel Silver is there. He's the producer who specializes in making money, rather than winning Oscars ("The Matrix," with the brothers, as well as "Lethal Weapon," "Die Hard" and "Predator").

Noticeably not there are the film's directors and writers - the brothers. They have very rarely done an interview since we talked with the two of them for the first "Matrix." Lately, they haven't been seen in public. They are rumored to live somewhere in New Mexico. They aren't attending the premiere. They are reclusive in a way that would make Greta Garbo seem like an extrovert.

Rumors fly about the reason for all this absence, and wild rumors they are. Andy is 40. Larry is 42, but the rumors are that Larry has become Lana and wears a dress in both private and public. The rumors started shortly after the release of "Matrix Reloaded," supported by a March 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article that claimed Larry Wachowski "has changed his sex and is now living as Lana Wachowski."

Not that it really matters, but, for what it's worth, the cast isn't talking. Producer Silver said, "I wish they were here today to talk with you, because this is their film entirely. It is their vision, and it's a vision that is different from anything you've seen at the movies. It's like 3-D, but it's not 3-D." He had earlier said the rumors are "all untrue. They just don't do interviews, so people make things up."

Only after their revolutionary camera inventions could the movie be made - a technique of keeping everything in focus in the same frame - and all moving at high speed.

Hirsch, 23, has risen via such films as "Alpha Dog," "Lords of Dogtown," "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" and especially "Into the Wild," directed by Sean Penn, whom he proudly acknowledges as "my mentor."

Hirsch is a longtime fan of "Speed Racer," claiming, "I used to watch it while I was eating my cereal at breakfast. It looked like no other cartoon on TV, and it was on at unusual hours, outside prime time."

He is aware that his white jumpsuit is a rip-off from the Elvis Presley look in "Viva Las Vegas" but claims he, personally, "hasn't gone Hollywood. I drive a beat-up black Toyota, and I've never gotten a speeding ticket."

Hirsch was amazed to find himself as an action figure character in the toy department of a Target store in Santa Fe, N.M. "My mom and I went there shopping, and we ran into two rows of stuff from 'Speed Racer,' and this was months before the movie was to be released. It's a wild feeling to see yourself as a little toy, but I don't feel worried at all about not being taken seriously as an actor. Acting in front of a green screen is one of the more difficult assignments any actor could take. It requires a special concentration."

Ricci said she auditioned for the role of Trixie "because I liked her. She flies a helicopter and she races the cars like the guys, yet she has a super cute ensemble for each activity - mostly pink, like the helicopter. She's a girly girl, but she's also a tomboy. She's my kind of girl."

VROOOOOM. A particularly noisy racing car accelerates on the streets outside, drowning out what she's saying. She rolls her eyes up to the ceiling as if to suggest, "This is just something we'll have to put up with." The Long Beach Grand Prix runs through the streets of the city, a la Monaco.

"Working with the Wachowskis is amazing," she said. "I never saw them disagree on anything. They'll whisper in your ear ideas about a scene so that you aren't embarrassed by people on the set. They know what they want, and they won't give up on a scene until they get it. I loved, too, being in Germany and being able to travel on my days off."

The biggest fan hoopla outside the convention center, though, was not for Speed Racer but for the actor who plays the leather-clad Racer X. He's Matthew Fox, the same guy who plays the conflicted, heroic Dr. Jack Shephard on TV's "Lost."

"I grew up on a farm in Wyoming, and we didn't have television," he said. "I never saw the 'Speed Racer' TV show, but I really think Racer X is the best part in the movie, and I have a 6-year-old boy who loves this. He's already seen some scenes from it, and he plays with the auto toys. I'm really cool with him right now."

Sarandon, who plays Mom Racer, admits that "I didn't get it. I looked at all this stuff - the green screen and all the effects and I, more often than not, had no idea what was going on.... This woman that I play is like one of those subservient 1950s TV moms, June Cleaver. She was of her time, but that's not me."

"You'll have to excuse her," co-star Goodman said. "She has to go out and start a riot. Or is it just a protest today?"

"Ignore this man," Sarandon said as she, grandly, left the room.

The real-life cars running in circles on the streets of Long Beach may be loud, but not one of them approaches the 400 mph of Mach 5, Speed's car.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com