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Adam Driver isn’t your typical Hollywood actor; he’s a former U.S. Marine who gambled everything to become the household name and revered actor you know today. Consequently, his acting chops and performances earned him a spot in Michael Mann’s recent dramatic movie “Ferrari.” However, the celebrity didn’t do any driving as the seasoned Enzo Ferrari you see throughout the film. 

Adam Driver might’ve played the man behind Ferrari, but he made the artistic choice not to drive in the ‘Ferrari’ movie

Auto enthusiasts of advanced age or historical curiosity will recall black-and-white images of Enzo Ferrari gesturing to his staff and pensively surveying his race cars as they speed around corners and straights. However, Adam Driver recently brought the character to life in Michael Mann’s “Ferrari.”

In his appearance on the NBC show “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” the actor told the host that he didn’t do any driving in the scenes of “Ferrari.” Adam Driver told Meyers that Enzo “wasn’t racing” then. 

Right he was, as Enzo was busy managing a racing and car manufacturing marque. What’s more, Driver told the former SNL star that the movie car “we did race, it was a very historic vehicle, so they don’t want you driving that around. And, also, just insurance reasons. They don’t want you driving around these kinds of replica 801s that are very dangerous.”

Adam Driver at the premiere of the 'Ferrari' movie.
Adam Driver at the ‘Ferrari’ movie premiere | JC Olivera/FilmMagic

Of course, the former Gyrene and mountain biker isn’t a stranger to dangerous tasks. Still, he wasn’t shy about the lack of safety features in the classic racing vehicles. “There’s no roll cages, there’s no seat belts. The goal was to be thrown from the car as opposed to stuck in the car and burned to death,” Driver revealed to Meyers.

“My first intro to Ferrari was Miami Vice,” he said referring to his earliest memories of the Prancing Horse. However, in preparation for the role, Driver adopted a historian’s grasp of the timeframe. 

He even went as far as to evoke the iconic “You win on Sunday, you sell cars on Monday” adage. It’s the kind of attention to detail that car fanatics can appreciate. After all, it’s the sort of mindset that brought Ford into battle with Ferrari in the first place. 

Sure, Driver didn’t do any, well, driving. But Mann insisted that he immerse himself in the character. “The guy who cut my hair is the grandson of the guy who actually cut Enzo’s hair,” Driver said of Mann sending him to the same barber shop once patronized by Enzo— quite the cultural upgrade from the butchers who cleaved his scalp in recruit training, no doubt.