“A
hero is only as great as his villain,” says Scott Waugh, director of DreamWorks
Pictures' gear-grinding thriller “Need for Speed.” “We searched really hard for
our bad guy and found Dominic Cooper. He’s an incredible actor and ideal in
this role.”
Previously
seen in “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” and “Captain America: The First
Avenger,” Dominic Cooper stars in “Need for Speed” as Dino, character who is
extremely competitive and does something extraordinarily detestable to the
film's hero, Tobey (Aaron Paul) in order to benefit himself. He comes from a
very privileged background and was a Formula One driver. He's obsessed with
money and success.
Acknowledging
that he’s been infatuated with cars since he was a young boy, Cooper says that
while other kids his age were outside riding their bikes, he was in his room
polishing models of Ferraris. “It was very bleak,” the actor laughs. “It may
have had something to do with Magnum’s (television’s “Magnum, P.I.”) 308 GTS
’80s Ferrari. That was a beautiful car. With this role as Dino, I’ve traveled a
long way from models of super cars to actually driving super cars.”
Based
on the eponymous video game series, “Need for Speed” is a visceral and
evocative return to the great car-culture movies of the 1960s and ‘70s. The
film captures the excitement of the game in a real-world setting while bringing
a level of intensity and authenticity to the action on-screen.
Dominic
Cooper talks about “Need for Speed” in the following interview.
Q:
Talk about the cars you've been driving in this movie.
Dominic
Cooper: Well, my
character Dino gets to drive a few nice ones. I've had a couple of
Lamborghinis, the Maserati, and a Koenigsegg Agera R that goes to 270 miles per
hour. She's a Swedish car. It's beautiful.
Q:
What kind of training that you went through to prep for this role.
Cooper: We went to Willow Springs, which is
this incredible racetrack just outside Los Angeles. We arrived on this
incredible circuit and then we got in one of the cars with a race driver and a
stunt driver, and I learned a lot of techniques so that I would have the
ability to control the car safely and stop in front of the camera at an exact
moment.
Q:
Is there a correlation between what you have to go through driving and acting?
Cooper: For both, you have to be very
focused. Although it's a very different part of your brain that's being
accessed. It’s like when I do go-karting. You can’t think of anything else,
which is why I think people love sports and because we love getting lost in
that space where actually we cannot think about other things that fill our
heads. And it's exhilarating to be that focused for that long.
Q:
Talk about your character Dino, who he is and how does he fit into this story?
Cooper:
Dino is a character who I'm having
quite a little bit of trouble finding any redeeming qualities about. Really,
because every step of the way he does something extraordinarily selfish to
benefit himself and you find out as the film goes on, sort of more of the
complexities behind what he does and why he does it. As an actor, even if you
are playing the villain, you still have to sort of try your hardest to create
some sort of backstory that allows you to understand or sympathize with him in
some way. So Dino is a troubled soul who is extraordinarily competitive.
He's
been in Formula One racing, but didn't succeed. He has been given every
opportunity in life. He comes from a very privileged background as opposed to
Tobey, Aaron Paul's character, who is just very specialized and professional in
what he does and is just instinctively a good driver, which is something that
Dino probably has always been envious of. And then things slowly sort of
unravel and go wrong for Dino. He becomes very desperate because, like so many
people he's obsessed with money and success, and the idea of losing that and
not being able to prove himself to his peers and to his parents slowly sends
him into this kind of madness that is quite detestable, really. I hope there's
room for maybe a tiny bit of feeling toward him. There's a sadness about him,
but ultimately, he's really horrible.
Q:
Did director Scott Waugh talk about who the character is and what direction he
wanted you to go in?
A:
A wonderful thing about Scott is he knows exactly who these guys are and who
this person is. And he's known these guys in that world of racing and drivers.
So I trust in him. I trust in him that it doesn't become a caricature and that
these guys with wealth and power and this desperation and need really do exist
in real life.
Q:
The filmmakers are not using a green screen to add special effects in
postproduction. As an actor, how does that change your psyche and how you prep
for the role?
Cooper: Yeah, if we were doing these shots
in front of a green screen and talking about a certain car that isn’t there or
looking at a huge crash that didn't take place, and if we weren't in the
situation of driving a car at a hundred-and-something miles per hour within a
race, we're still fully focused on what we have to do. But it would be pretend
and you'll never get that true sensation. I mean, I'm terrified a lot of the
time so I'm experiencing all those emotions, which is wonderful. And any actor
will say how much they prefer being on a real set than they do in front of a
big green canvas.
Q:
When you were a kid, did you know the “Need for Speed”videogames?
Cooper: I was blown away by the games. I
grew up, as a kid, not only polishing toy metal Ferraris, but I remember being
obsessed when they came up with a game where you could really race cars
virtually. I was mesmerized by it. I was never allowed to own one of the
consoles 'cause I think otherwise I would have just locked myself in a room for
the rest of my life and sat in front of a car game. But when I got to go to
friends' houses I was astonished by how quickly they're advancing and what
they're like now is just astounding. They're really good fun.
Opening
across the Philippines on March 12, “Need for Speed” is distributed in
the Philippines by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.
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