7 Questions with Emile Hirsch

Five somewhat relevant facts about Emile Hirsch: 1) A native Californian, Hirsch began acting at age 8. 2) He appeared in episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and later NYPD Blue before making his big screen debut in The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys. Eventually it was his role opposite Elisha Cuthbert that won him his initial notoriety. 3) Sean Penn directed him in Into the Wild for which he had to lose 40 pounds. 4) He’s playing gay rights activist Cleve Jones opposite Penn in the Harvey Milk bio pic, Milk. 5) His latest film, Speed Racer comes out May 9, 2008.


Zimbio: You've made a name for yourself in independent films, so what are your thoughts about doing a big studio summer movie?
Emile Hirsch: You know, I was so excited to sell out to a big corporate conglomerate. I was pretty much [saying], "This is the greatest thing that ever happened." No. In all honesty, I thought about it for a second but at the end of the day, it was all about the Wachowski brothers. Yeah, it's this big summer movie, but now I've realized that when you make a "big movie," if it's actually a green screen movie, it's like doing independent New York theater because you don't have any backgrounds or props. So it's kind of like making the lowest budgeted film you could possibly imagine, plus $100 million.



Zimbio: What did you love about Speed Racer as a kid?
Emile Hirsch: Well, when I was a kid and I watched Speed Racer, I used to always watch it in the morning with my cereal. And when I ate the cereal, I would pour soda into the cereal because we never really had milk for some reason. I don't know. It was just one of those crazy shows that you watch on a sugar rush  and are just like, "Whoa." The colors and the action and just the sense of adventure are immediately what always appeals to the kid. Watching the show now, it's kind of the retro cool and the kind of camp value that you really appreciate.

Zimbio: Did you feel that sugar rush watching the updated version?
Emile Hirsch: I didn't have cereal with soda. You've got some Diet Coke? Crispy Sweets? I couldn't believe the way they have the tracks with all the colors and the segues from Royalton's factory. I thought Spritle and Chim Chim were just so funny. I mean, the monkey is amazing. His acting teacher was on set every single day.

Zimbio: When you're playing a cartoon, do you ask yourself how you're going to make this cool?
Emile Hirsch: You're like, "You didn't look cool, so how do you feel about it?" No, see, I thought it looked really cool and I thought that it looked cool on the show. I think that if I was in that outfit in a scene walking down the streets of Manhattan, it might have looked a little weird, but I think it's a crazy world. Everyone was just able to get into it from that. We had a lot of big debates about the scarf. We were like, "God, should we, shouldn't we, should we?" Then in the end we were like, "Oh, we gotta." And I loved the scarf. I want more of the scarf in the second one if we make one.

Zimbio: Was there any actual driving school at any point in preproduction?
Emile Hirsch: No, no, I actually didn't even get into a car the whole time I was in Europe. I got into a car, I just was never behind the wheel. I didn't want to pretend that I was in one of the real cars because the real cars are just so much better than a normal car.

Zimbio: Are you a gear head?
Emile Hirsch: I am. I love cars but me and my friend, when I got this part, we looked on YouTube and we looked up "car accidents" and stuff. No, no, "NASCAR wrecks." Some of these crazy fans out there, they made this 10 minute heavy metal montage, and you're literally seeing these wrecks. After that, it was kind of like when the dad sees his kid smoking and he makes him smoke a carton. It was like I was so wrecked out that I was like, "Let's go drive 30 miles an hour."

Zimbio: Are there any other famous Emiles besides you?
Emile Hirsch: Um, I think that there probably would have been at some point. I don't know. Emile Zola, wasn't he a poet? You're like, "If they're not actors, they don't matter."

Speed Racer Trailer:

Q&A by Fred Topel