Steve Pratt talks to Emile Hirsch about switching from the wilderness to the CGI Grand Prix world of Speed Racer

RISING Hollywood actor Emile Hirsch hesitates when asked to pick which film was harder to do C Into The Wild or Speed Racer. He couldnt have asked for two more different leading roles, causing him to admit that the past two years have been such an exciting time for me.

As he explains: I really feel Ive been given the opportunities of a lifetime. I feel Im making the films I set out to make as an actor, from when I was six years old dreaming of getting to make films. These two films are polar opposites but examples of what I love about movies.

He was widely praised C and collected a couple of rising star awards C for his portrayal of idealistic college graduate Christopher McCandless who abandoned civilisation for the Alaskan wilderness in the true story recounted in the Sean Penn directed drama, Into The Wild.

Now comes Speed Racer, from the creators of The Matrix trilogy, the Wachowksi brothers.

This family adventure finds Hirsch as the aptly named Speed Racer, whos behind the wheel of the Mach 5, a car designed by his father and which hes driving in the top event of the world racing league, the Grand Prix.

Much of the action was filmed against green screens with backgrounds and props added in by the computer. For Hirsch this involved no less than 20 days on his own in a chamber filming the racing scenes against a blank screen.

For Into The Wild, he spent months on location recreating the solitary life of McCandless as he battles the elements and his demons. The actor had to lose weight to look half-starved. All very different to Speed Racer.

Im very hesitant to pick one that was harder because, on a practical level, Into The Wild was vastly harder with the whole weight loss and physical danger involved climbing mountains and kayaking. Speed Racer was 60 days of green screen, Into The Wild was 105 days of shooting spread all over the place.

Speed Racer was challenging in a mental way, of psychologically putting your mind into a green prison almost. Its really up to the actors to breath life into this kind of green palate and keep yourself inspired.

On Into The Wild, Id climb to the top of a mountain, look out and see a beautiful view and Id start smiling C and it was real. This was like theres no mountain and no view, and you still need that same smile. You have to overcome that challenge by using your imagination and letting yourself make that world real for you.

Into The Wild used a lot of improvisation, and he had a lot of freedom to do whatever he wanted, which was important because the film was all about freedom and spontaneousness.

When youre working on green screen on something thats stylish like a live action anime, improvisation doesnt really work with the way the lines were structured and the way the Wachowskis like to work. So it was finding my way into the lines and making them live for me within the style. It took a bit of readjustment and then I got into it. The Wachowskis want to understand every little nuance of whats going on with you and the character at all times.

The two films satisfied different sides of the same coin of adventure. And there was the fact that Speed Racers Mach 5 was going to be a toy.

One time, I couldnt have been more than eight years old, I went to McDonalds and got a Happy Meal with a Batmobile, he recalls. Id play with this Batmobile all the time, it was my main toy. I was really excited when they worked out a promotional deal and told me theyd got a McDonalds Happy Meal with a Mach 5.

He can also claim to be a Speed Racer fan growing up as he watched reruns of the series on Cartoon Network in the early 1990s. I loved the show, he says.

The part almost escaped him as he was still in Into The Wild mode when he auditioned. To my mind, I bombed the first audition, I didnt quite hit the style, he says. I might still have been trapped in Into The Wild to a certain extent. I probably came in with a beard, frizzled hair and an army jacket C a nature boy. On the next audition, I went in clean shaven, tucked my hair back and look a bit more Sixties Elvis. Thats really the look of Speed.

I was so excited when I got the part. They dont make too many of these massive technical movies and the chance to play a lead role in one of them at my age is daunting but a real privilege.

It was refreshing just to play a good guy.

There are a lot of superheroes these days who are total a-holes and the whole moral part of the story is overcoming their selfishness to do the right thing.

Speed Racer isnt like that, hes a pretty straight arrow and the people who are trying to take him down have to be reckoned with. You have to hand it to the Wachowskis C theyre like the Coen brothers but from another planet.

But there was all that green screen work, which he sees as a huge sacrifice for an actor because youre sacrificing a certain level of joy in the day-to-day mechanics of the world because the world youre acting in isnt there.

But that sacrifice pays off because on screen you have beautiful images that have never been seen before. Its the only way you can do this stuff. Theres no way I can actually race in the grand prix and have it as real as when Im climbing a hill in Into The Wild.

Its no new knowledge that green screen is difficult for actors. I dont want to come across as whining about being on green screen. I lost 40lbs for Into The Wild and was ready to buck up and do whatever it took on this film.

ö Speed Racer (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow and is reviewed on Page 11

11:13am Thursday 8th May 2008

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