Trivia / Ferrari

• Actor-Shared Background: Piero Tarufi is played by Patrick Dempsey, who while best known as an actor, has also developed a burgeoning career in auto racing, participating in pro-am events such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Baja 1000 off-road race. He also owns a motorsport company, Dempsey Racing.
• Approval of God: Piero Ferrari has spoken positively of the film and stated it accurately portrayed his father's personality and ambition. Ferrari released an interview with Piero where he discusses which details in the film are accurate to Real Life and where it took Artistic License.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $95 million. Gross, $42,285,029.
• Cast the Expert: Legendary British driver Stirling Moss is played by Ben Collins, a British racing pilot best known for being one of the drivers who portrayed The Stig in Top Gear.
• Development Hell: Michael Mann had been trying to make this film for 30 years, showing interest in adapting Brock Yates' book into a film as soon as it was published in 1991.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Americans Adam Driver, Shailene Woodley, and Patrick Dempsey, and Spanish Penélope Cruz, all play Italians.
  • Brazilian Gabriel Leone plays the Spanish Alfonso de Portago.
  • Sarah Gadon, an Australian, plays Mexican actress Linda Christian.
• Similarly Named Works: There's an Italian 2003 biopic about Enzo Ferrari also titled Ferrari, starring Sergio Castellitto (best known in the Anglosphere for playing King Miraz in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) in the title role. Incidentally, Castellitto has worked with Penélope Cruz (who plays Enzo's wife Laura in this film) in the Italian films Non ti muovere and Venuto al mundo.
• Underage Casting:
  • The film takes place in 1957, making Enzo Ferrari 59, but he's played by Adam Driver, who was short of turning 39 during filming.
  • Lina Lardi was 46 in 1957, but Shailene Woodley was 32 at time of the movie's release.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christian Bale was originally scheduled to play Enzo Ferrari, but had to exit the film after the timeframe given to him to make one of his trademark weight gains for the role was too short. (Ironically, this was in 2016, while the film ultimately wouldn't be shot until 2022 and released in 2023.) After Bale left, Hugh Jackman entered negotiations to play Ferrari in 2017, and stuck around until 2022, when Adam Driver was announced to portray Ferrari.
  • When Hugh Jackman was considered to play Enzo Ferrari, Noomi Rapace was considered to play his wife Laura.