Adam Driver’s “Moving Coffin” Race Car in ‘Ferrari’ Didn’t Have a Seatbelt: “You Could Feel How Dangerous They Are”

Yes, Adam Driver really did drive an old-school race car for his role in Ferrari, and no, he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He didn’t even have a seatbelt.

At a New York Film Festival press conference on Friday morning, following a screening of the new Michael Mann movie, Driver confirmed that as part of his preparation to play Enzo Ferrari—the Italian founder of the car manufacturer that make notoriously fast cars—he and the other actors in the film got to have a chance behind the wheel.

“Everybody had race-car driving one-on-one,” explained Mann, who directed the film off a screenplay by Troy Kennedy Martin. He added that almost all of the cars were built specifically for the production, with the exception of a Maserati, with safety precautions in mind.

Driver, who does appear behind the wheel in a flashback sequence that opens the movie, recalled driving in “an open-wheel single seater,” modified to connect a camera to it.

The driving happened at “an abandoned airstrip, in Modena, [Italy],” Driver said. “And you can really feel how dangerous they are, obviously, versus a contemporary Ferrari. The goal was to get thrown from the car because that was considered more safe than to be locked in this moving coffin.” The audience laughed at his description.

“I’m just making up shit to say,” Driver said with a laugh. But then the actor added, “They didn’t have seatbelts—not out of negligence, it just wasn’t part of the culture. It was really an afterthought.”

Mann agreed, and clarified, “The idea was you’d rather be thrown from the car than dragged from the car, so that’s why they didn’t wear seatbelts.”

It sounds like Driver won’t be supplementing his acting career with a race-car driving hobby any time soon. (Unlike Patrick Dempsey, who races in his spare time and also appears in Ferrari as one of the drivers.) Thankfully, everyone made it out of the Ferrari set unscathed, even without seatbelts. If only the same could be said for the characters in the film.

Ferrari also stars Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, Sarah Gadon, Gabriel Leone, and Jack O’Connell, and is set to race into theaters on December 25, 2023.