Matthew Fox (Lost) is all but hidden in a tight leather outfit and sunglasses in the action-heavy family film Speed Racer from Warner Bros Pictures. The concealing outfit is necessary as Fox tackles the role of the mysterious Racer X in the Wachowski Brothers’ take on the classic anime series. Fans of the 1960s series know the history of the leather-clad Racer X, and Fox had only to turn to two of the biggest Speed Racer fans around in order to get into character.
“There's an original source-material cartoon that he's based on,” explained Fox at the Speed Racer press junket in Los Angeles. “I mean, all of those elements are taken from the original cartoon. The idea that he works for some very top-secret organization and that he's battling corporate corruption within the race world, which is really the only world, that's all part of the original source material. Larry and Andy [Wachowski] were huge, huge fans of that, and were really paying homage in every way that they could to bring that into the film that we made.”
That said, Fox revealed the Wachowskis did alter Racer X’s appearance and demeanor some for the feature film. “They did take, I think, a lot of design liberties with the character [in] that he looks, out of any character, he looks more different than what the original material looked like. He's much darker and sort of edgier and darker. He carries a gun. His car has like big Gatling guns that come out of it. I mean, he's an ass-kicker.”
Kicking some bad guy butt in his Racer X outfit was a challenge, however Fox was fully aware of what he was getting himself into when he signed on to play the part. “That first meeting with Larry and Andy was basically, if I think about it, they were basically warning me,” said Fox. “The whole time they were warning me, 'This is the reason why this movie's going to be really difficult for you to make. And the suit's going to be really intense, and it's going to be leather, and it's going to be hot, and you're going to do action sequences in it, and you're not going to have any use of your eyes as an actor. Are you worried about that?' And I was like, 'I'm not worried about it. I can't wait. I'm so fired up for the challenge.'”
“And I can't even… The experience of doing it was absolutely fantastic. I had a great time. It was tough. Doing the fight sequence in the suit was about a 10-day period there where every single day I was dehydrated. I mean, I had to pound electrolyte replacements. I was really, really dehydrated. Dealing with the mask and the suit was amazing. Wardrobe is always a really important part - at least for me - about character and figuring things out and finding your way into something. And this suit got to the point for me that when I would put it on and drop that helmet on, man it just was like I was so in it. It was so much fun. And there is a certain thing that when you can see other people, you can intimidate and see other people's eyes, but they can't see yours. And I would immediately notice like when I would drop into that thing that people were different around me. It was amazing.”
Fox is proud of the fact he did a lot of his own fight scenes. “I worked my ass off. Larry and Andy are incredibly good at doing that kind of thing, and we had some conversations early on about how much better they would be able to shoot it if I did it all. That kind of put the pressure on, because I wanted to do it all. I enjoy that type of thing very much,” said Fox. “But I did, I worked really hard. I mean, we did about six weeks of training with the stunt guys who are just the frickin’ best and got all the stuff down. They would prepare me for the fact that once we got into those fight sequences, Larry and Andy might just decide to change things and I had to be prepared to move in a lot of different directions and bring a lot of different forms into it, and then we got into the shooting of it.”
“The stuff that I did in the suit was incredibly difficult because I was sweating so hard underneath that. And just from an exhaustion level and a heat level and a dehydration level, that was tough. But also, the lenses would fog really quickly, which led to me hitting a couple of stunt guys accidentally. I always feel like sh*t when that happens, but we had to make it look good. And because I was doing the stunts, you have to bring those moves in really, really tight or it looks like a miss. And then the sequence without the suit was much easier, but it was still challenging just because the fight's pretty intense. I loved it. I loved it. I'm really proud of the fact that I did it all. The thing I kept saying to them was, 'I want to do everything up to the point that it doesn't look good.' And they were like, 'Well, trust us. We'll tell you if it doesn't look good.'”
And speaking of looking good, Fox recalled his reaction the first time he saw the concept art for Speed Racer back before production began. “It was when we got to Berlin. Larry and Andy did sort of a presentation,” revealed Fox. “We walked into a room. It was just four walls covered with artist renderings and actually digital stuff taken out of the beginnings of their digitally building the world, the world that Speed Racer takes place in, and the places that the story takes place in. And then Larry, he walked us through - sort of talked us through - all of the stuff and it was absolutely amazing. I'll never forget that because it was just really exciting to me. To see the artwork and the beginnings of the digital stuff was just amazing.”
“You know, they were really, really great about that, I think. It's such a smart thing on their part. They knew how important it was that we had an idea what this world was. The tone of the performances within this world was something that we were constantly - I was at least on my part - really, really searching for. They did an amazing job of giving you everything you possibly could have while you were sitting in a green screen to know what that world was. That was incredibly helpful.”
Page 2: On the Original Series and Lost
