Emile Hirsch: "Speeding" Up!

Like Johnny Depp, Emile Hirsch is a heartthrob building his career on his acting chops rather than a certain "cuteness" factor or Hollywood party boy vibe. Like Depp, he digs wearing hats and anti-trendy clothes. For our chat at the Long Beach Grand Prix for Emile's new adrenalin-rush film Speed Racer, the actor popped into our interview suite wearing a brown, Indie-Jones-style fedora, shorts and a dark blue hoodie with the word "Milk" on it (Emile is playing a gay rights activist in the movie about a real-life San Francisco city supervisor named Harvey Milk). Biggest shocker was the star's long more light brown hair after seeing him in Speed Racer's short, black, Elvis-ish hair helmet.

We'd spoken to this talented young actor before about his work as a skateboarder in Lords of Dogtown and a doomed adventurer in Into the Wild but "Speed" is quite a departure for Emile. Hey, he was a huge fan of the TV cartoon series as a kid and didn't want to pass up the chance to take that to a personal level especially since he's also a "Matrix" fan and wanted to work with the "out there" Wachowski Brothers. Start your engines and get ready to hit the track with Speed Racer...

TeenHollywood: Did you watch the animated TV series in preparation?

Emile: I watched it as a kid. I was a really big fan of the TV show. I watched it on Cartoon Network. I also watched all 52 episodes in preparation for the part. The tone of it is so fun and crazy and it's the perfect Saturday morning cartoon show when you're a kid. The movie takes it to a level where it's a lot more accessible for adults than the show was. For me, I was a lot more engaged by the movie than the TV show.

TeenHollywood: Is the amazing look of the final film a big shocker to you? You did so much of your work against a blank green screen.

Emile: Yeah. I love the movie. I think it's great. I mean, what the brothers did with it is so wild and imaginative. You read the script and it's so descriptive of the whole world. But you have no idea what it's going to be until you see it. And the way they made the colors pop and all the things they did with the focus, and integrating the photographs, it was really quite beautiful I thought.

TeenHollywood: Were you loving the green screen experience? John Goodman [who plays Speed Racer's dad in the movie] said it was like working in low-budget theater.

Emile: That's pretty funny. He's right. There are no sets or props. It's like you're doing "Waiting for Godot" or something.

TeenHollywood: Was it disorienting?

Emile: Kind of, yeah. You're like, wow!

TeenHollywood: What was especially weird for you?

Emile: Just kind of this green wall, talking to it, thinking about it. What was really weird was doing the car scenes because we did it on a hydraulic pump called a gimbal. All of my anger in the film when I'm driving is so authentic because they were just slamming me around in the simulator for hours. It was green and hot and there's lights on you and you can't move because you're strapped in.

TeenHollywood: Sounds a little bit like a torture device.

Emile: Well, you get literally frustrated to the point where you want to rip the thing apart with a bat, and arggghh! I think I have a drawing of me breaking it. I'm serious. All the scenes where I'm like 'arrrggh', it's just me. Imagine if it was comfortable and I was happy, I'd be like [smiling and cheery], 'Hey, guys, get out of my way'.

TeenHollywood: What do the two directors say to you while you are on the gimbal?

Emile: They'd be like 'you're coming up on the turn, now slide!' And I'd be like, 'errrrrr'. Then I'd be getting mad because I'd be getting whiplash, and they'd say, 'Now, backslide'.

TeenHollywood: So you did get knocked around pretty badly?

Emile: Oh yeah. Matthew Fox [who plays Racer X] got it worse though. I don't know why. I don't think he paid off the gimbal guy like I did.

TeenHollywood: Okay, you were on the torture gimbal but did you get to go to a real racetrack and drive, you know, as research?

Emile: I didn't actually drive racecars but me and my buddy Frankie [Muniz] went to a NASCAR simulator at Universal CityWalk, which was fun and we beat a bunch of tourists. Whew! 'Hollywood-2; Idaho-O' [we laugh]. Then we went to Texas, me and my buddy. We got in contact with the pro, Jimmie Johnson, and went to the Texas Motor Speedway, and he gave us a whole tour behind the scenes and the races and the pit. We saw everything and met all these drivers. We were driving around Texas. And we went to this huge arena and we got to be right in the pit for this big race and it was awesome. We were RIGHT in there!

TeenHollywood: This role as Speed has got to be the total opposite of acting in Into the Wild.

Emile: Well, that movie takes place in real life so it's super naturalistic. That's a whole different style as an acting thing. This is way more comic-booky, stylish. I mean, there's a little bit of naturalism, but it's way stylized. All the lines are really crisp and specific. It's different in those kinds of ways. You don't have any of the background. And the film takes place in a universe, or a time, you don't even know what is. It's Speed Racer world.

TeenHollywood: Doesn't that it make it harder? Do you wonder if you're going too big with your character or lines?

Emile: You just gotta trust the directors. That was the biggest thing. I'd be like, 'are you guys sure'? They [the Wachowski brothers] said, 'just trust us. Just trust us'. They didn't actually say that but that's what they were implying by their silence [he laughs]. It works. What's cool about the characters and the acting style in the movie, there's a lot of different kinds of tones to certain characters. Like Racer X and Speed are pretty serious a lot of the time but then Spritle and Chim Chim [Speed's brother and the family's pet chimp] are like outrageous, and Chim Chim is dangling on the steering wheel and flying around and hitting guys on the head with a monkey wrench.

TeenHollywood: When you say lines like 'Inspector Detector suspected foul play' were you ready for that kind of a tongue-twister? How do you figure out the tone of your part when you have kind of campy lines like that?

Emile: I don't know. He's talking about his brother's death and he's like, [sadly] 'Inspector Detector suspected foul play' [he scrunches up his face]. [The whole line] is like 'Inspector Detector suspected foul play but nothing could be proved' or like, 'I was tooling timing pins with Pops.' 'I was tooling timing pins on a temperature of tips' [he laughs]. I don't know.

TeenHollywood: Why do you like to play outsider types or rebels?

Emile: I don't know. There's something about the good-hearted guy fighting the system. I just love that. That's how Speed is. He's a really focused guy with a heart of gold and the corporations are trying to crush him and use him for his skills to make them more money. And when he doesn't want to play ball, they want to destroy him.

TeenHollywood: When you make a movie like this, are you aware that the Wachowski Brothers [of The Matrix fame] are going to bring a unique spin to a blockbuster?

Emile: Yes. That was the main thing that made me go crazy about this movie. I view these guys are more hard core artists than most people making smaller, hard core art films. These guys are very, very talented and take their work very seriously. The genre of films they make, by their very nature, require insane budgets.

TeenHollywood: Were you a fan of The Matrix films?

Emile: I remember when I saw The Matrix when I was 13, I saw it in the theaters, and I was so blown away by it. It was one of the most memorable experiences I definitely ever had in the theater. That kind of stuff you never forget and it stays with you. Here, you get a chance to work with them and you're like 'ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo!'

TeenHollywood: Some people have described them as experimental filmmakers disguised as blockbuster directors. Is that fair?

Emile: That's totally accurate. A lot of the stuff in Speed Racer has never been done before, from it having a multi-tone, to making a retro-cool family movie, to having the photo-realism with the CG-backgrounds and infinite focus (and) the way they worked with these digital cameras, to even the color experimentation. It's definitely one of the most colorful movies ever made. Hands down.

TeenHollywood: Did you ever geek out with the Wachowskis over The Matrix and have discussions, ask questions like a fan?

Emile: Oh yeah. I'm like a hard core fan. I'd always come with questions like, 'So with Smith...'. I'm a hard core geek. I've seen those movies an unhealthy amount of times.

TeenHollywood: Are you a good driver?

Emile: Yeah. I try to be pretty good.

TeenHollywood: Let's get car-specific. What was your first car? What do you drive now? What do you wish you could drive.

Emile: Okay, my first car was a blue Ford Festiva. The car I drive now is a black Toyota Prius. And the car I wish I could drive, I'd like to drive a tricked out Mach 5 [Speed Racer's car]. Let's get the studio to get me one! Can you imagine driving one of those? Especially if it went 180. It would be so much fun. It'd go Vrooom!

TeenHollywood: What is the must have feature on your tricked out Mach 5?

Emile: Jump jacks. I'd be like, 'Boing! Whoosh! Forget the traffic'.

TeenHollywood: Do you have approval over any toys or action figures of you that they make?

Emile: I thought I did until I saw my action figure [he laughs]. It looks like Dennis Quaid circa 1995!

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.