For the cast and crew, making Speed Racer was an experience unlike any other. The film, made on location in Berlin, features almost entirely virtual environments, requiring the actors to perform against green-screen elements. Although they had some idea of what their scenes would eventually look like, the final product came as a surprise to many of those who worked on it.

In the role of Speed Racer, the Wachowski brothers cast Emile Hirsch, a young actor whose work in the recent drama Into the Wild turned heads. With his soulful eyes and guileless face, Hirsch not only looked the part but had a natural enthusiasm and steadfastness that served the character well. As his longtime girlfriend and fellow racing team member Trixie, Christina Ricci is a capable helicopter pilot and a race-car driver in her own right, while still looking girly in stylish pink and red outfits. And as the mysterious Racer X, Lost's Matthew Fox proves that he has hidden talents as a martial artist, even in a tight leather suit.

SCI FI Weekly was invited to interview the cast at the Long Beach Grand Prix on April 18. As the cars sped by on the track outside, we spoke to the actors in a room away from the deafening noise. They talked about the process of making the film, their relationship with the Wachowskis and how they compared with their animated counterparts. Speed Racer opens May 9.Emile, what did you think when you first saw the movie?

Hirsch: I mean, I love the movie. I think what the Wachowskis did was just so amazing. You see a movie like The Matrix, you're like, "God, what are they going to do next?" Then they do something like this. It's just so new and different and fun.How did you ride the line between the animation world and the real world?

Hirsch: Well, it was just trying to maintain the integrity of that world, whatever that means. No, Speed is a very, very passionate, serious guy who's completely committed to doing the right thing. He's not willing to sell out to the big corporate conglomerate.You've been in a lot of independent films, but this is your first big Hollywood movie. How was the experience different for you?

Hirsch: Now I've realized that what you think of 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. How much of the sets were green screen?

Hirsch: Yeah, it was about 100 percent green screen.What was that like?

Hirsch: Well, luckily, green's my favorite color. No, I really do like green, but you ground yourself by constantly looking at the images of what the background is going to be. That was really one of the most helpful parts. I'd go up to John Gaeta, the special-effects expert, and he'd open up his laptop and he'd be like, "OK, this is your environment." I'd go, "OK, perfect." So then, when I'm out there looking at the green screen, I'm pretending cars are coming. And there's a couple seconds where you're like, "God, this is a little weird. This is kind of crazy." Then I'm like, "Well, that's what this is."What's it like working with the Wachowskis?

Hirsch: With the Wachowskis, you're like, "Gosh, they're so mysterious," and then you meet them and they're just the most down-to-earth, grounded, awesome guys you'll ever meet. Just such amazing imaginations and just so present with what they do. And they all have it in their heads. What did you love about Speed Racer as a kid?

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 just are like, "Whoa." The colors and the action and just the sense of adventure is immediately what always appeals to kids. Watching it now, the show now, it's kind of the retro cool and the kind of camp value that you really appreciate. As a fan, what did you think of the updates in the film?

Hirsch: Oh, 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. The monkey is amazing. His acting teacher was on set every single day. Was it all you expected?

Hirsch: It was so much more, because when you're on the green screen, you have to substitute. You have to substitute it with your imagination. The Wachowski brothers just have that much crazier of an imagination than I do. Maybe they have that particular visual crazy gift. So the wildest thing I could imagine pales in comparison to what they had already imagined and managed to put on screen, which is kind of part of their genius, that they just are able to do that. So many people have these wild visuals and stuff, but the Wachowskis are able to create them in a real way and put them on screen in a way that engages people. The climax at the Grand Prix, for me, was one of the most intense sequences that I've seen in a long time.Matthew, can you talk about the first time you saw what the film was going to look like?

Fox: Yeah. It was when we got to Berlin. Larry and Andy did sort of a presentation. 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. And to see the artwork and the beginnings of the digital stuff was just amazing. Was it important to them that you knew what it was going to look like?

Fox: 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.As a car enthusiast, how does the stuff in this movie hold up? It's so fantastical.

Fox: Oh, well, it's obviously so far beyond anything that we're dealing with right now. But within the context of its world, I think it's absolutely beautiful and amazing, the things that they can do. And in the hyper-real world of Speed Racer just is so cool. It's so cool. I mean, my little boy is just dying. He's dying. He cannot wait. He's 6 and he's just flipping out.Were you a fan of Speed Racer before the film?

Fox: I wasn't. I didn't grow up in a household where television was allowed. ... My first attraction to the project was the Wachowskis and sort of them as filmmakers and knowing that they were going to be doing something really innovative and different. And after that meeting I started punching up the imagery, and when I saw it, I immediately recognized it. It was in my consciousness, but I don't think I'd ever seen an episode in full. So I went and got a bunch and watched a bunch of the original source material, which was really fun. My kids are now watching it and are really fired up. It's really cool. I mean, there's so many very cool things about it, and I can completely understand why in the 1960s that style of anime was so sort of intriguing and grabbed so many people. Like Larry and Andy, there were huge fans of it.Could you talk about the challenges of this film?

Fox: That first meeting with Larry and Andy was basically, if I think about it, they were basically warning me. 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." The experience of doing it was absolutely fantastic. I had a great time. Was it hard to move and see in that leather costume?

Fox: It was tough doing the fight sequence. And there 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.How much of the fighting did you do yourself?

Fox: I did all of it. And I'm proud of it. I worked my ass off. Yes. 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. And that kind of put the pressure on, because I wanted to do it all. I enjoy that type of thing very much. 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 s--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." You had to work in a green-screen environment, but did you at least have the cars to work with?

Fox: They built the Mach 5 and the Shooting Star in practical. They had to, because there were a couple of scenes in the movie where Emile and I actually get in and out of the car. So you have to have the actual car for that. All the racing stuff was you'd have your cockpit on a gimbal, like a hydraulically manipulated gimbal, which was super-intense. And they actually had sequences from what was happening in the sequence of the movie. It was programmed into a hydraulically manipulated gimbal so that you would be driving your cockpit and the thing would be just knocking the crap out of you, as it would if you were doing that sequence in the race. And then they'd be filming it with cameras swooping in from all angles and things spinning and going up. I mean, I had days where I got out of that thing and this shoulder, from being bounced up against that door, was really bruised.Did you try to imitate the performance style in the anime?

Fox: That's dangerous, to get into that kind of thing, because the world is so fantastic that the one thing that the audience has to identify is with the human beings and the characters. So you can't go too far with that or you would alienate the audience, I think. I did want to bring a sort of, I think specifically for Racer X, I wanted this sort of anime voice, the idea that he built for himself to protect himself in the world he operates in, and also to protect himself from the memory of who he once was, I think, in some respects.

And so, that for me specifically was all about really building this idea that he's become. It's almost slightly disturbing, I think. And he's sort of like the satellite orbiting the solar system of this family, and he's way out there, and has been for years. And it's really sort of Speed graduating into his world, starting to enter into X's world, that kind of awakens that thing inside of him, that he feels ultra-protective of his brother and starts to awaken this idea of who he once was and what he's left behind. And I think that the movie is really, for my character, for X, it's a setup for sort of exploring what might happen down the road. But obviously, that would only happen if the movie was really well received and people respond to it.Christina, how did you like Trixie's fashion sense?

Ricci: I enjoyed it immensely. A lot of pink. Pink and red, which is kind of awesome. I liked her clips and her makeup. It was really fun. It's fun to play someone who's a little bit cartoonish. They dressed me up like a doll, but then they let me go and fight people and race cars and fly a helicopter, so it was fun. You've played a character that was a comic-strip creation in The Addams Family. Did that have any bearing on this?

Ricci: No, I didn't think twice. That didn't even occur to me. That was so long ago. I was like 10 years old. So, no. I was just really excited. I wanted to work with the Wachowskis, and I've been hearing about Speed Racer for the past 10 years, and people have said for a really long time that I should play Trixie and that I look like Trixie. So I thought, "Awesome. I'll go in and read for this." Did you see the resemblance when you finally saw the source material?

Ricci: Well, people have told me that I looked like anime for a long time, and so after a while you're like, "OK, fine." What was your reaction the first time you saw what the film was going to look like?

Ricci: Well, they tried to prepare us, and they showed us a lot of images, and we could know as much or as little as we wanted to about everything. As much as you know or you think you know, it's all really very specifically in their heads. When the whole cast got there, the first time we all arrived Larry took us through the art department and tried to show us how this thing was done, what this concept was and what that concept was, and showing us the sort of concept of the bubble where they go and shoot everything in 360 degrees, and then they put us in it. Now, how much of that I actually understood I'm not sure, but you get a sense from these directors that the vision they have in their head is so complete and so intricate and complex that it really inspires a great deal of trust and confidence.So it's a matter of trust in your directors?

Ricci: Yes, it [is]. But for people who inspire that trust, it's not very difficult. In a way, once you kind of let that control go, it allows you to just sort of play and have fun, and it couldn't have been a more playful set. It was complete imagine time. It was like an imagination Christmas, and we're all in these funny costumes and laughing at each other, making jokes, and the cast was having a great time, and we all loved each other so much. Our confidence in them really freed us up to commit to this style of acting and the kind of dialogue that we had to deliver in a way that I don't think we would've if we were busy trying to control things. Did you have any affinity for the pop style that they use in this movie?

Ricci: Yeah, I actually do. I find that incredibly gratifying and satisfying, because you get to see all these colors and the flashbulbs breaking into hearts and stuff. It's stuff that people wouldn't normally do in film because they think, "Well, you can't really do that." But they did it. They were like, "We want sparkles. We want hearts and rainbow colors." It's just like, "Yeah, sparkles!" I found the whole thing to be so fun. It's indulgent, but a really fun indulgence. It was like, "We're going to do whatever the hell we want to, and it's going to be awesome."