EXTRA! Ford v Ferrari

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Life is for living. Let's partner for all of it. Learn more at edwardjones.com. Hi, I'm Jane Pauley and this is our Sunday Morning Extra, our podcast featuring a memorable story from our most recent show.

It's a conversation that offers insights beyond the broadcast. On this episode, two Hollywood heavyweights at top speed. Christian Bale and Matt Damon have teamed up for the much talked about new film Ford versus Ferrari.

It's based on the real life drama that played out back in the 1960s when the Ford Motor Company set out to beat the fastest and you could say sexiest car company in the world, Ferrari, at the storied 24 hours of Le Mans road race. Tracy Smith sat down with the accomplished pair to talk about racing, movies, and what it was like to work together for the first time. So this is the first time you guys have worked together. What did you, I know your paths crossed over the years, but what did you think about each other before this?

Oh man, that's a dangerous question. No, I'll tell you what I think about Matt and I have actually been very sort of, you know, crossing paths very closely. He had the same agent for decades and I was, I know you think I'm making this up. I am very grateful to Matt because I wouldn't have a career if it wasn't for roles he passed on. There were many roles where I was told, oh well Matt doesn't want to do it, so they went, all right, what about Bale? And then I got the role, so thank you for that. Why don't you pass on some of those David O. Russell ones and send them my way? I mean, I would appreciate that.

You're hogging him. Was this something where you thought, oh I'd like to work with that guy someday if things work out? Yeah, yes. Do you stay in character on set? You know, that's a sort of a weird thing to say, like there are certain things that you want to maintain throughout just because, you know, we're playing dress up, right? But at the same time, you want to make something that's really worth watching and I just find that the more into it you get, the more worth watching it seems to be. I also get the giggles a lot.

If I know somebody too well, then I know how much they know I'm acting and I know how much they're acting as well and it starts making me laugh and I've wasted many roles of film through that, being like the most amateur guy. Once those start, it's just you can't. You can't stop it and so, you know, you've got to get into it and there's a satisfaction in getting to be really loopy in this business. We get to go to these extremes where most people would say they should be committed to an asylum, but rather we get paid for it instead. But in doing so, don't step on anyone else's toes, you know? Allow room for everyone else to work. It's got to be, you know, a mutual feeling of cooperation. That leads to a better product, I think, than competition with each other. I can't stand that when you get people starting to one-up each other. It's got to be in the best interest in the film.

Yeah, it's about all boats rise with the tide and you want to support other people's work and create space for everybody to do their best work. Having said that, you know, we would have conversations because, you know, we, you know, I know his wife for over 20 years. It's like we could talk on set about real life and he wouldn't say like, I'm not Christian Bale. He's not crazy. You have to understand what cut means, you know? You have to understand what action means.

You have to understand that you're getting picked up from your home or whatever and taken to work. So you know what I mean? You're not fully immersed. There is no way that you can actually be that because otherwise you wouldn't do a scene twice.

You'd go first and you wouldn't speak with a director because why would there be a director? You know what I mean? It's impossible to do. So it's a nice kind of a thing that people imagine, but my God, would I love it if I could just do an accent, if I could just speak like myself and then bang, turn on the accent when I hear action or do that and then become a character. I see some people who are able to do it and I'm my then. You know who was like that from a young age?

I remember Gwyneth Paltrow working with her on The Town of Mr. Ripley and going like, I hate you so much. Because she could turn it on and off like that? Like it was incredible and I was, and I just, I couldn't do it.

I couldn't do it, but I was incredibly jealous of it. So it sounds like you both have a similar thing where you kind of ease yourself into it and then stay in it if you can? Like a frog in water that you gradually boil alive but it doesn't know it's dying. That's my method. That's it, that's the method.

The almost dying frog. What did you, did you learn from each other in this process? I had a great time watching him. He's got an incredible monk-like discipline. Like when he had to lose, he went from Dick Cheney to this guy, so he had to lose 70 pounds. 70 pounds. I had to get in the car.

Yeah, it's tight in there. Imagine if I hadn't lost the weight. Oh my God. We'll need a bigger engine. Give me everything you've got, we've got to get this guy around the track.

Does it get harder to do that physical transformation? Yes. Yeah? I keep saying I'm done with it. Are you done with it? I really think I'm done with it, yeah. Yeah, now. You know when you're on set and he's like, oh hold on, it's my cardiologist. I have to take this. Seriously? You better take that call.

But no, at our age you can't, I mean that's a lot of weight. And I went up to him on the first day, I said man, how did you do it? Because I was interested. Not to that extent, but I've gone up and down and I said, what was it? And I'm expecting him to say, well it's a mixture of intermittent fasting and the keto diet and the thing.

And he just went, didn't eat. On a lighter note, I want to talk about the fight scene. It's a little different kind of fight scene from what you two were used to, yes?

Get him off me. Yeah, it's pretty goofy. It's pretty goofy, yeah. It was a lot more fun to shoot than most of those fight scenes, which we have to take really seriously and you've got to learn choreography for weeks and you're supposed to look really tough and lethal and this was really the opposite of that. We had some really great stuntmen and stunt coordinators on this and we got into that rehearsal room, which both of us have spent weeks in, with these mats and you're like, oh god, I'm going to have to be slamming on that mat. Everyone's stretching when you get there.

And you're going like, oh no, man, I'm doing this again. And then we were out there in about 20 minutes flat. We went in there, we thought this, that and the other. We went, love it. They said, you guys want to run it? We went, I've got it.

No, it's all right. They were like, I've worked with a bunch of the stunt guys. They were like, yeah, they've got it.

Turn up on the day, do it. But it was also the kind of fight where we could improvise stuff and you just push this bit a little further, adapt on the day to it, try not to laugh as we're doing it. Was it hard not to laugh?

Could look completely incapable. Be two friends who are really just hating each other in that second, but never want to really hurt each other either. So it was great from that point of view. It was hard not to laugh. Yes, we did. We ruined a couple of takes because we were laughing and then we were laughing in between takes and we were looking at the playback.

A lot of times with fight scenes, you want to go over and look at the monitor and see, oh, OK, well, I missed this punch high. I missed that. I see where I got to put that one.

But at this one, we'd go over and we were just and and and and geno topping one of our producers, who I've known for 30 years, is my friend. And I heard her kind of mumble like like during what we're watching. Christian, I'm looking at the monitor and I hear behind me. Can't believe that's Batman and Jason Bourne.

I get sad. This is where we are. This is The Takeout with Major Garrett. This week, Stephen Law, ally of Mitch McConnell and one of Washington's biggest midterm money men list for me, the two Senate races where you think Republicans have the best chance of taking a Democratic seat away. Nevada, New Hampshire, not Georgia. Well, New York is right up there, but New Hampshire is a surprise in New Hampshire. People really just kind of don't like Maggie has for more from this week's conversation. Follow The Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.