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“Speed Racer” stars Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci are better known for smaller independent movies than summer blockbusters.
Yet they could not pass up the chance to work with Larry and Andy Wachowski on the brothers’ first writing-directing effort after “The Matrix” trilogy.
After the lesbian thriller “Bound” and their science-fiction franchise, all dark R-rated affairs, the Wachowskis have gone the family route with the PG-rated “Speed Racer,” a live-action and computer-animated update of the TV cartoon series.
Hirsch, who starred last year in Sean Penn’s acclaimed drama “Into the Wild,” plays Speed, the young phenomenon of the Racer family, who gets behind the wheel to take on a corrupt corporate honcho ruining auto racing.
Ricci, most recently seen as a pig-faced girl in the fairy-tale romance “Penelope,” plays Speed’s girlfriend Trixie, who flies the skies in her helicopter to scout out the race course.
With the Wachowskis reteaming with “Matrix” producer Joel Silver, “Speed Racer” also stars John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and a pet chimpanzee that’s constantly getting into trouble.
Hirsch, 23, and Ricci, 28, chatted with The Associated Press at March’s ShoWest theater-owners convention, where distributor Warner Bros. showed off footage of “Speed Racer.” The movie opens Friday.
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AP: Given the more serious films the two of you often do, a big summer action movie doesn’t seem like an obvious choice.
Ricci: But this is the coolest, because it’s the Wachowski brothers, and also, it’s not your average cheesy big blockbuster. It’s really awesome.
Hirsch: There’s something just so wonderfully rebellious about the idea of being like some serious actor and having to just do those kind of movies, where I wanted to spit on the idea and just do something so wrong. But it’s so right.
Ricci: And so much about choices for me is about what’s going to be fun. This sounded like so much fun. You get to go do an action-y film and a really stylized character. To me, that’s fun.
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Christina Ricci, Anjelica Huston, Josh Lucas and Justin Bartha will star in Adam Davidson’s drama “Long Time Gone.”
In the feature, based on April Stevens’ 1994 debut novel “Angel Angel,” Ricci will play a mysterious woman who enters the life of a dysfunctional family and turns it upside down, one member at a time.
GreeneStreet Films International president Amy Beecroft is repping international sales of the feature, and ICM is handling domestic rights
Karen McCullah Lutz adapted the book, and is producing with Seth Jaret’s Jaret Entertainment and Steven G. Kaplan & Gregg L. Daniel’s Rainstorm Entertainment.
Davidson won the Palme d’Or for best short film and an Oscar for his 1989 short “The Lunch Date,” and has directed numerous TV series.
From the Hollywood Reporter. Thanks to Frank for the heads up!
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Christina and Matthew Fox being interviewed for Fox 6 news in San Diego, CA. If the embed doesn’t work, you can view the video right here.
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From writer/directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, the creators of the groundbreaking The Matrix trilogy, and producer Joel Silver, comes the live-action, high-octane family adventure Speed Racer, starring Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci.
Trixie flies a helicopter in the movie. Is that her racecar?
They wrote this character and she made sense to me. This is a car culture, and you’ve got to think that Speed raced a lot of rallies in his young life and she’s part of the team. That’s her contribution.
Did you know before you got the role of Trixie that you’d be doing martial arts in the movie?
A lot of the script was action sequences – just pages and pages describing the races and action sequences. I didn’t read those pages because it was a little dense and I had to audition in twenty-four hours. So, when I got to the set and the stunt coordinator came to see me, he said, ‘So, you’re going to be doing some kung fu.’ I was like, ‘What? Really? I fight in this?’ And he assured me that I fight in this. I had a couple of training sessions. It was really fun and the stunt guys were awesome and really fun to deal with and work with. I had a really good time. I love that kind of thing, so it was great. I tend to be very competitive and athletic, so it was awesome.
With so much of the film being shot in front of a green screen, did the Wachowskis give you detailed information about what each scene would look like?
No. They explained as much as they could and you were certainly able to go and find out as much as you wanted to, or you could know as little as you wanted to. I mean, there’s no way of really knowing exactly what it’s going to be like because it’s very much in their hands. With Larry and Andy, it’s their personality, it’s their ideas and vision that stamped all over the movie. But the thing is, you get such a great feeling out of the fact that they know exactly what they’re going to be doing. They have this world worked out completely.
You can ask any question about minutia in the world and they would know the answer. So, when people are like that, it tends to inspire a lot of confidence and a lot of trust. Also, there’s this idea that if I argue with them, I have no ground to stand on because I have no idea what’s in their head. So, it’s not like you can say, ‘Look, I don’t think this would go with what’s happening in the background,’ because you don’t know what is happening in the background. So, you really are in a place where you just do what they tell you. If you don’t, it probably will not fit with the rest of the film.
Were you nervous meeting the Wachowskis for the first time?
I was very nervous. I didn’t talk much at my audition. Then they said they were worried about hiring me because I didn’t talk much. I was like, ‘I was nervous, people. Come on.’ It was a combination of the fact that I really would have liked to do the job plus being a huge fan of theirs. I loved The Matrix.
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From writer/directors Larry and Andy Wachowski, the creators of the groundbreaking The Matrix trilogy, and producer Joel Silver, comes the live-action, high-octane family adventure Speed Racer. Win posters signed by Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci!
Hurtling down the track, careening around, over and through the competition, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a natural behind the wheel. Born to race cars, Speed is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless. His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized - the legendary Rex Racer - whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill.
Two lucky winners can each bag a signed Speed Racer poster! (One is signed by Emile Hirsch and the other is signed by Christina Ricci.) All you have to do to enter is simply join up to recieve our weekly newsletter here!
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From LastBroadcast.co.uk
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This summer, audiences everywhere will get a chance to experience the ultimate high-octane ride with the release of Speed Racer, the revolutionary new live-action adventure from the Wachowski brothers, creators of The Matrix Trilogy.
The film is based on the pioneering Japanese cartoon series by Tatsuo Yoshida, which has garnered a worldwide following that spans generations. Among the young fans of the property were Larry and Andy Wachowski. “They fell in love with Speed Racer when they first saw it,” explains Joel Silver, the veteran producer of The Matrix Trilogy, as well as such blockbuster film franchises as Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. “Speed Racer was a progenitor of today’s Japanese animation, and was discovered by kids all over the world. What captured the Wachowskis’ imaginations about the series was how different it was from the other American cartoons at the time. And, of course, they went on to become big fans of animé, which inspired a lot of their work.”
When the Wachowskis approached Silver about making the first-ever live action adaptation of Speed Racer, the producer understood that this adaptation would be anything but conventional. “They created a visual style on The Matrix that altered your consciousness as you watched the movie. You saw things that you could not imagine happening on film,” Silver says. “And with Speed Racer, they really want to change the way you see movies again. They had a concept of a cinematic style that is incredible to experience. It’s a whole different way of visual storytelling that has never been seen before; they love to break the mold, and they wanted to keep the essence of Speed Racer, but take it into the new millennium.”
While The Matrix Trilogy revolutionized visceral action for adults, Silver points out that Speed Racer is both an action ride featuring racecar driving as it has never been seen before and the Wachowskis’ first film for audiences of all ages. “The boys felt that this was finally a movie that their nieces and nephews could see,” he explains. “When they wrote the script, they wrote it as a pure family movie; it was an opportunity for them to do something they’ve never done before. It’s for everybody; it’s got great characters; it’s funny; it’s got great action beats and, of course, incredible visuals. It’s just a really fun movie.”
The film centers on Speed Racer’s journey to become the best racecar driver on the circuit on his own terms. To find an actor with the right mix of youthful enthusiasm and competitive intensity, the filmmakers cast Emile Hirsch, who recently garnered universal accolades for his performance in Into the Wild. “Speed Racer, for me, is about a guy who loves racing and does everything he can to do it the way he wants to do it,” says the actor. “Speed eats, drinks, thinks and breathes racing. Cars and racing are the essence of the family. I mean, their last name is Racer.”
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Christina is going to be on the NBC talk show, “Last Call with Carson Daly” on Thursday May 15th! The show airs after “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” at about 1:30am. If you can contribute a video from this show, please feel to contact me. 
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Christina Ricci describes her Speed Racer character Trixie, and she says doing something challenging like in the movie is not just for any actor. You can view the video at AskMen.com.
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From the time she was a child, Christina Ricci has proven there is absolutely no role she can�t tackle. From her young roles in The Addams Family movies, and Casper to her more mature ones in The Opposite of Sex, Pumpkin, Monster, Black Snake Moan, Penelope, and scores of others, she has proven time and time again, with merely a fraction of the kind of the fanfare given to young starlets like Lindsay Lohan, that youth and talent are not always a potentially deadly mix.
Now, at the age of 28, Christina has returned to once again exceed expectations with her most unlikely role yet. It�s as girlfriend Trixie in The Wachowski Brothers� long-awaited film adaptation of the classic late 1960�s Japanese TV anime Speed Racer.
Being her most high-profile project in years, Ricci made absolutely no bones about the immense benefits that came with working on a big-budget special effects extravaganza helmed by one of the film world�s most extraordinary filmmakers.
�It was the fact that I really, really would have liked to do the job and also, I�m a huge fan of The Wachowski Brothers,� she replies, �I loved The Matrix.�
However, she claims that despite her immense critical acclaim, Christina�s initially social awkwardness during her tryout almost caused her chances for the role to be passed up.
�I was very nervous,� Ricci recalls, �I didn�t talk much during my audition. They said they were worried about hiring me because I didn�t talk much. I was like, �I was nervous, people. Come on.��
Ricci also notes she made another potentially embarrassing misstep when she was ignorant of the fact that the role required her to learn martial arts.
�I had to do some kung fu,� she says, �I didn�t know I had to. And a lot of the script was action sequences, just pages of describing the races and action sequences and I didn�t read those pages because it was a little dense. And I had to audition in 24 hours.�
�So when I got to set, the stunt coordinator came to see me and I was like, �So you�re going to do some kung fu.�� Christina adds, �And I was like, �What? Really? I fight in this?� And he was like, �Yes, we fight in this.� And I was like, �Oh, right, of course! I totally forgot about that.��
However, once she started, the actress soon enjoyed learning martial arts for the film.
�So when they started, I had a couple of training sessions and it was really fun,� Ricci says, �The stunt guys were awesome and really fun to deal with and work with and I had a really good time. I love that kind of thing, so it was great. I tend to be very competitive and athletic, so it�s awesome.�
A highly unique aspect of Speed Racer, the actress claims, was how much of the scenes involved acting behind green screen. Ricci notes that The Wachowskis� confidence as filmmakers enabled her to eliminate any self-doubt in filming under such a process.
�They explained as much as they could,� Christina says, �You were certainly willing and able to go and find out as much as you wanted to or you could know as little as you wanted to. I think that there�s no real way of knowing exactly what it�s going to be like because it�s very much in their heads. Larry and Andy, it�s their personality, it�s their ideas and vision that�s stamped all over the movie. But the thing is with directors like them, is that you get such a great feeling of the fact that they know exactly what they are going to be doing.�
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Penelope
Speed Racer
Black Snake Moan
