Stunt driver and actor: Marino Franchitti’s role in Ferrari film

When Marino Franchitti jumped on a call with Michael Mann, the director of Ferrari, the Scot thought any potential role he might have in the making of the movie would be limited to a bit of driving. What he hadn’t expected was for Mann to pitch him into an acting role – as dashing Italian racing hero Eugenio Castellotti.

“My first thought was ‘God no!’” smiles Franchitti. “But Michael is persuasive. Then you think, ‘How much would I regret not saying yes to that? Working with Michael Mann on a Hollywood movie…’ I thought I was just going to drive the Maserati 250F which I race regularly and is owned by my father-in-law Nick Mason, as a double for Jean Behra. I told him I’d never acted, but he said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll direct you.’”

The younger brother of three-time Indy 500 winner Dario is quick to point out an obvious physical difference to Castellotti. “Obviously I don’t have the hair… so I had a wig fitting. Patrick Dempsey plays Piero Taruffi in the movie. We’re old friends and he was getting his hair bleached blond/grey at the same time, so we had some fun with that.”

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Franchitti had met Mann several times in the past at the Long Beach Grand Prix and was aware of the auteur’s deep interest in ‘our’ world. “That’s the thing, Michael has a passion for cars and racing. He raced Ferrari Challenge in the States quite a long time ago and he really gets it from a driver’s point of view. He and his team went to great efforts to make the film as good as they possibly could for people like us.”

As Mann has said, Ferrari is not a racing movie per se. A highly charged relationship triangle is core, rather than the cars, to the story’s appeal to a targeted wider audience. “Of course, there are things that people like us who know the detail can pick out,” says Franchitti. “This is Michael’s vision. But how it strives to be authentic is the effort of someone passionate about our sport. Michael did a fantastic job of bringing the racing to life and using that as part of the whole story. And there is plenty in the movie for us to enjoy.”

On the attention to detail, Franchitti was astonished at the lengths Mann’s production team went to, particularly on the recreated cars. There was always going to be an inevitable limit on the use of rare and unspeakably valuable originals, although Mason’s 250F was employed dynamically in filming and several real cars have been included in ‘safe’ Mille Miglia scenes, including the winning Ferrari 315 S from 1957. But Hollywood uses other ways and means for the throaty action.

Franchitti reveals the recreations are actually Caterhams. “The guys who made them did an incredible job,” says Marino, who – as Motor Sport readers will know – has vast experience of driving and racing many of the real things thanks to his passion for historic motor sport. “They laser-scanned the original bodies and then these were hand-made. For what, remember, is not a racing movie. All hand-beaten and beautiful. Even the cars that were destroyed for accidents all looked correct. They made sure we were running on crossply tyres from the period so the cars move about properly, often all for a split second on screen.”

As Caterhams in disguise, no surprise Marino reports they were “fun” to drive – but aurally they clearly fell a little way short of sonorous Ferrari and Maserati period soundtracks. So recordings of correct engines were made through access to cars belonging to, among others, Nick Mason. “They used a guy called Chris Jojo who does audio for video games,” says Marino. “It’s ferocious and the match-up is so clear, precise and well done.”

“A car was launched into the air with a dummy version of me in it”

Location shooting took place in Italy, on a mix of country roads and at Imola, while the Modena Autodrome – where Castellotti meets his violent end – was recreated at an old airfield. The grisly scene is one of the most dramatic in the movie, but is said to have been recreated from eye-witness accounts. Franchitti wasn’t actually driving for that bit… “It was very interesting to see a car launched into the stratosphere with a dummy version of me in it,” he says of ‘his death’.

Castellotti’s role is a small one in the movie and in truth, it wasn’t a great stretch for Franchitti to play a racing driver. But as a student of racing history he felt an affinity for his character, partly because they share something across the decades. Marino’s headline achievement from his own career was winning the Sebring 12 Hours with Chip Ganassi in 2014. Castellotti too won the Florida classic, partnering Juan Manuel Fangio in 1956. “He was a muscular, handsome Italian, so we didn’t have much in common! But he won Sebring, so that was something I could relate to. He was a privateer like Stirling Moss who used his skill to get himself into a factory programme.”

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Ex-Stig Ben Collins plays Moss, while Derek Hill – son of late Ferrari F1 hero Phil – took the role of Behra. Franchitti also name-checks the actor who plays Alfonso de Portago – Gabriel Leone, who also depicts Ayrton Senna in a new docudrama, Senna, coming soon to Netflix.

“It’s crazy when you look at this three-month period the film covers,” says Franchitti, who relished the chance to watch Mann at work at close quarters. “There was more going on in that span during 1957 than some people have in a lifetime. To immerse yourself so fully in such a short period, you think you know as a student of the sport what was going on but you really don’t. You’re only seeing the surface. What was going on underneath was incredible.

“It’s amazing Ferrari was as successful as it was with everything that was going on. But that racing mentality of doing everything you can to make it happen carried it through”.